8 January 2013: Lebanon’s Ministry of Environment and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with support from the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), have developed a Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) Strategy.

The Strategy aims to set out national priority actions necessary for establishing new marine protected areas and managing existing MPAs in Lebanon. The Strategy results from a project, implemented by the Ministry of Environment of Lebanon and the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, on Supporting Management of Important Marine Habitats and Species in Lebanon (2010-2012). It is meant to help develop of a network of MPAs and an associated monitoring programme to evaluate their management effectiveness.

The project was funded by the Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales (OAPN, Spain), the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the MAVA Foundation. The Strategy was presented to the Minister of Environment, Nazem El Khoury, by IUCN Director General, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, and Antonio Troya, Director of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, at the end of November 2012. [IUCN News]