Advancing Maritime Spatial Planning in Outermost Regions

2026-07-22

The European Outermost Regions of Azores (Portugal), Madeira (Portugal), Canaries (Spain), and French Guiana (France) are joining cooperation efforts to support the implementation of the MSP Directive in their marine territories, in order to advance with their regional processes. Despite the different development stages of MSP processes among them, these OR´s share common challenges. In the case of the Macaronesia regions, Azores, Madeira & Canaries, they present several maritime common features and resources. Moreover, MarSP Project provided an opportunity to apply a common approach to develop cooperative work on MSP. MSP-OR will allow the French Guiana region to advance with knowledge, providing grounds to launch and adopt the principles of MSP. This proposal will build the early stages of the process (French Guiana), as well it will prepare the next phases of planning (other regions), while consolidating integrated ocean governance among neighbouring countries in their outermost regions, on the basis of MSP. An innovative approach, through a common “umbrella” based on the principles of Ocean Governance applied to the MSP at OR's, an Ocean Governance Platform will provide a virtual arena to collect, exchange information, participate and build capacities. Important developments will be tailored by the MSP-OR according to the particular needs of each region, namely: filling the gaps, interactive stakeholders involvement, sectorial planning approach, and ecosystem approach applied to regional downscaling. The last work package will cover the monitoring & evaluation impacts of MSP. The project implementation and outputs will be collected in an MSP-OR repository on the Governance Platform.

Portugal

2025-10-01