Stakeholder Consultations - Perspectives over the past year
- Marine SABRES
- Aug 27
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 28
by Herman Hummel, Rob Segeren, Hanie Matajinimvar, Dominga van der Vliet of HuFoSS.
As part of the MarineSABRES project’s Work Package 2 (WP2) activities, the team at HuFoSS has been traveling to various locations for stakeholder consultations. These workshops are crucial for the co-development of tools aimed at improving marine and coastal management. Throughout 2024 and 2025, the team engaged with a diverse group of stakeholders to gather insights on the project’s evolving models and scenarios. Below are the highlights of these consultations from Madeira, the Canary Islands, São Miguel, Terceira, Pisa, and the overarching workshop in Zandvoort.
The second round of stakeholder consultations have been essential for refining the MarineSABRES project’s outcomes and ensuring they are tailored to the unique needs of each region. The insights gathered from Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Pisa will continue to shape the project’s development and help improve the management of marine and coastal environments across these diverse locations.
Stakeholder Consultations
Madeira (November 2024)
The HuFoSS team returned to the breathtaking Madeira archipelago for the second round of stakeholder consultations. Against the backdrop of dramatic cliffs and lush green mountains, two workshops were held: one on November 19th in Porto Santo and one on November 21th in Funchal on the main island of Madeira.
With the support of local partners at MARE, 17 participants joined the discussion: 7 in Porto Santo and 10 in Madeira. While most stakeholders represented governance and policy authorities, their perspectives were complemented by voices from the tourism sector and museum sector, as well as from academia and research. For most stakeholders the approaches for the simple Social-Ecological System (sSES), the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD), and Decision Support System (DSS) were fully clear, and many of them would use it themselves. They indicated they were for environmental management issues most connected to the Local authorities, and less to the National governance.
Madeira was not only the first stop in this second consultation round, but also the first place where we introduced and explored the idea of a potential “marine corridor”, i.e. a protected area connecting the Macaronesian islands to promote migration of important species at larger scales. The local stakeholders generally agreed on the installation of such a corridor.
Madeira Botanical Garden, Funchal
Canary Islands (January 2025)
In January 2025, HuFoSS continued the stakeholder consultations in the Canary Islands, where two workshops were held: one in the municipality of Puerto del Rosario on the island of Fuerteventura, which took place on January 13th, and one on January 15 at a university campus in the heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Facilitated by our colleagues at ULPGC, Ricardo, Jesús, and Candy, the workshops saw the participation of 27 stakeholders: 9 from Fuerteventura and 18 from Gran Canaria. The stakeholder group reflected a wide range of sectors, with strong representation from academia and NGOs, alongside fisheries, governance and policy, tourism, and private enterprise.
Most stakeholders, as in Madeira, understood the sSES, CLD and DSS approaches all very well, and would use it themselves, indicating the success of these Marine SABRES tools, though they advised to make it less theoretical and technical and thereby to make it more usable in practice.
L) Stakeholders in Fuerteventura getting introduced to the Simple SES Approach
R) Stakeholders having a conversation at the Fuerteventura workshop
São Miguel (January 2025)
On January 17th 2025, the University of the Azores in Ponta Delgada hosted the second Marine SABRES stakeholder workshop for São Miguel. The session convened 16 participants, comprising representatives from academia and research, NGOs/non–profit organizations, fisheries, governance authorities, and the tourism sector.
A major focus was on embedding tools and frameworks. Feedback on the sSES, CLD and DSS models was positive, with many stakeholders expressing strong support for the project’s goals in marine management. The outcomes from São Miguel informed a consolidated foundation for refining the draft tools and aligning subsequent work packages with locally articulated priorities and realities.
Coastline of São Miguel from above
Terceira Island (January 2025)
The second stakeholder workshop in the Azores, now at Terceira Island, was conducted on January 20th 2025. This session engaged 8 local stakeholders, including representatives from academia and research, non-governmental and non-profit organizations, and governance authorities.
Again, this workshop focused on presenting initial findings and gathering feedback on the Simple-SES framework and other tools under development. Notably, the governance representatives contributed valuable perspectives on policy implications and regulatory considerations, while the academic participants offered technical expertise in data interpretation and model validation. The feedback received underscored the importance of integrating scientific research with policy-making to enhance the efficacy of marine management strategies.
Field exploration at the volcanic coast of Terceira Island
Pisa (January 2025)
The MarineSABRES workshop for the Tuscany Archipelago was held on January 29th 2025, in Pisa, Italy. Representatives included academia and research, governance, and policy-makers.
Participants used interactive tools to rank priority components of the coastal and marine environment and assess initial model outputs. Academic representatives scrutinized data interpretation and model robustness, while governance authorities addressed regulatory alignment and policy implementation.
The strong academic and governance presence ensured comprehensive coverage. The session concluded on a positive note: participants praised the sSES and CLD tools and the upcoming Shiny-App for the DSS approach, signalling strong endorsement for Marine SABRES’s objectives
Second Over-Arching Stakeholder Workshop
The Over-Arching Stakeholder Workshop model acts as an umbrella to the regional DA consultations, providing a forum for representative stakeholders to share an overview of results gathered from the regional consultations, while facilitating feedback through round table discussions and paper-surveys.
For it’s second year, researchers from Marine SABRES came together with researchers from the Horizon Europe MARBEFES project in Zandvoort, the Netherlands for a 2-day engagement workshop in April (1st - 2nd).
(L) Participants of the Zandvoort workshop (© photo credit Lars Olav Sparboe, Tromso, Norway)
(R) Presentation of the results from a stakeholder table discussion
Thirteen key stakeholders from a variety of sectors were invited to engage in dialogue on the project’s progress, building upon the extensive interviews with 231 stakeholders and ongoing group consultations.
Notably, representatives from governmental authorities constituted the largest sectoral group in the Zandvoort workshop, underscoring the pivotal role of governance in coastal management and the role the tools composed by Marine SABRES can play. Complementary perspectives were provided by participants from fisheries, tourism, non-governmental organizations, researchers, and private small and medium-sized enterprises.
The workshop’s objectives centred on validating preliminary findings concerning the interplay between ecological, economic, and social dimensions within coastal zones. The focus was also on fostering multi-sectoral dialogue to support the advancement of sustainable coastal governance and resilience across the project’s demonstration areas.
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