The Mediterranean partners in the ENSERES project got together on 16 September 2022 in Sfax, Tunisia, hosted by the local partners at the Municipality of Sfax. An activity led by the project partners MedCities and European Topic Centre, University of Malaga (ETC-UMA), co-organized in collaboration with the partners in the region, this interactive workshop provided a good opportunity to explore together the variety of biodiversity protection and management tools developed by a wide array of projects across the Mediterranean.

The workshop, held in French to facilitate local participation, allowed participants to look into the options available and discuss the priority tools that could be adopted in the near future by regional actors. The ENSERES toolkit, a result of the ongoing collaboration between the ENSERES project partners and the Interreg Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community (MBPC), collects and gives access to more that 40 profiles describing geospatial, monitoring, management, financial and capacity building tools available to interested parties. Each tool profile describes in detail the context, objectives and requirements to be able to use and implement each tool, in addition to complementary sources of information. This toolkit, initially devised in English, will be available in French and Arabic to ease the uptake by partners all across the Mediterranean.

Furthermore, the tools selected during the Sfax workshop will be further promoted through the organization of capacity building meetings to finetune its use and identify potential needs among the future users at regional level. "This workshop was a good opportunity to meet the regional partners and hear from first-hand the challenges they face in addressing biodiversity protection effectively", commented Nelly Bourlion, ETC-UMA representative during her presentation in Sfax.