“BESTmarine” project workshop will take place on 12-13 November 2025 in Riga, Latvia back-to-back with the 5th Baltic MSP Forum. Workshop is organised by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Baltic Environmental Forum – Latvia to bring together marine ecosystem service experts, managers and planners from the Baltic Sea region and beyond to network and to discuss how to enhance uptake of ecosystem services information into marine policy, management, and ecosystem accounting.

The workshop aims to contribute to developing a roadmap for the alignment of ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods, outputs, and data in support of cross-scale and transboundary user-relevant analyses across Baltic Sea countries.

A brief outline of the BESTmarine workshop programme:

• 12 November, 14.00 – 17.00: presentations and discussions on feasible decision-making contexts or use-cases for application of marine ecosystem service assessment outputs, including strategic and spatial planning, marine management and restoration, ecosystem accounting etc.
• 13 November, 9.00 – 13.00: Further development of the BESTmarine roadmap for the enhanced uptake of ecosystem services information in management and policy, feedback from participants and discussion on enabling factors and guidelines for its implementation.

Venue of the workshop:
1st day: the conference centre “Fantadroms”, Gustava Zemgala gatve 74a (3-4 minutes’ walk from VEF Culture Palace – the venue of the MSP Forum),
2nd day: hotel “Neiburgs”, Jauniela 25/27 (in Riga’s Old Town).

Registration for participation in the BESTmarine workshop is open until 31 October, 2025  here.
For further information about the workshop,  please contact anda.ruskule@bef.lv