The Regional Director for Sea Affairs stated in Lisbon that the Azores "have started the implementation" of monitoring projects under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The Region "will implement this process before other marine regions in the country."

Filipe Porteiro spoke on the sidelines of the meeting held by the Monitoring Commission last Thursday to "assess the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in Portugal," following the completion of the initial assessment report, the definition of goals and the creation of monitoring programmes and measures.

"The Autonomous Region of the Azores expects to invest several million Euros in the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive until 2020 in a perspective of multi-fund financing," said the Regional Director.

For Filipe Porteiro, "this strategy is regarded by the Regional Government as a key tool to ensure the sustainability of maritime activities and environmental excellence of the sea, which is an important asset of the Azores, at a national and European level."

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive is the environmental area of the Integrated Maritime Policy in Europe. It aims to ensure that marine waters in the mainland achieve or remain a Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020, the year that ends the first stage of the directive.

The implementation of this directive requires that Member States and regions make an initial assessment of the conservation status of their waters, define targets to be achieved and implement monitoring programmes and measures to ensure that the GES will be achieved or maintained, according to the risks and impacts of human activities.

These programmes aim to collect scientific information and knowledge as well as to follow up the trends of the environmental status of the 11 pillars of the MSDF; the latter focus on the issues of biodiversity of coastal and oceanic communities, marine bio-invasions or biology and assessment of fishing resources.

Marine food webs, eutrophication, the artificiality of marine environments, pollution and contaminants, underwater noise and marine litter are other themes addressed by this directive.

The Directorate general for Natural Resources, Safety and Maritime Services is responsible for coordinating the implementation of MSFD at a national level and representing Portugal in European institutions. In turn, the Autonomous Regions will be charge of implementing this Framework Directive in their marine territories.

In the Azores, the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive is coordinated by the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs in collaboration with the Regional Directorates for Fisheries and Environment and in partnership with the University of the Azores, regional research centres as well as with regional non-governmental organisations in the area of sea affairs.

The documents on the MSFD concerning the Azores can be found at the following electronic address http://www.azores.gov.pt/Gra/SRMCT-MAR/conteudos/livres/Estrategia_Marinha_para_a_subdivisao_dos_Acores.htm