At the beginning of November, the project partners held the second project group meeting, which was organized online. All project partners attended the meeting, along with representatives from associated project partners, including the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Nature Protection, the Municipality of Izola, and Strunjan Landscape Park. While representatives from Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia and Debeli Rtič Landscape Park were invited, they unfortunately could not attend.
During the meeting, Urška Marinko from the University of Ljubljana was introduced as the new person responsible for project coordination and communication. Subsequently, all project partners presented their roles and activities within the work packages (WPs), sharing both progress made and activities planned.
The meeting also provided an opportunity to engage all project partners in a stakeholder mapping exercise. The partners completed a brief survey to assess the impact and interest of the identified stakeholders on the marine ecosystem and its management. After the meeting, the WP4 partners analyzed the results to finalize the stakeholder map, which will be used to identify key project stakeholders. These stakeholders will evaluate the cultural ecosystem services of key marine species and marine/coastal ecosystems in the northern Adriatic. Additionally, they will contribute to the development of an ethical matrix to assess and address any ethical concerns or conflicts that may arise during conservation efforts for these key species and habitats.
A new document, the "Communication Plan and Project Cooperation Agreement," was presented to the project partners. It includes three key parts for effective project implementation and team cooperation: (1) Communication Plan that outlines key communication elements and reminds partners to consider target groups and objectives for each WP, (2) Project Communication Instructions to provide guidance on following the Programme’s Visual Identity Guidelines and (3) Common Agreements that aims to document and streamline cooperation among project members.
