Maritime Spatial Planning Forum Global Meets Regional took place on 19 – 21 November in Riga. It gathered together 300 participants from 44 countries with different backgrounds and interests related to maritime spatial planning (MSP).

Maritime Spatial Planning Forum, was organised together by VASAB, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Pan Baltic Scope collaboration and University of Latvia. It served as a joint event of the 4th International MSP Forum, 3rd Baltic MSP Forum as well as the closing conference of Pan Baltic Scope collaboration.

The MSPforum opened the floor for discussions that highlighted how regions in Europe and outside Europe are developing MSP initiatives in the transboundary context and what challenges and obstacles they are facing. Plenaries also showed the importance of legal and institutional dimensions for effective design, development and implementation of maritime spatial plans. A specific plenary was dedicated to the young professionals that work or research topics related to MSP, this plenary started the discussion round on how young professionals and their ideas could be better involved in the organisations dealing with MSP. Furthermore, 10 methodological steps proposed by IOC-UNESCO were used to explore the status of MSP in Uruguay, Japan and Russia.

Workshops during the MSPforum presented the results of the Pan Baltic Scope project activities, besides that discussions went on MSP as a contribution to the UN Ocean Science Decade for sustainable development as well as the ocean literacy, maritime cultural heritage and MSP for resilient coastal metropolises. All workshops explained the topics from regional and global perspective.

• Explore what happened during the MSPforum by reviewing the speaker presentations – download them from ‘AGENDA’ HERE.
• Watch videos of workshop and panel sessions as well as the photo gallery HERE.
• Visual summary – explore the drawings made by Folco Soffietti HERE.
• Listen to an Ocean Governance Podcast that discusses the topics from the MSPforum Global Meets Regional – listen HERE.