The Centre for Marine Research participates in a large-scale European project to combat the loss of marine biodiversity

The group of researchers from the CIM’s Future Oceans Lab.  

The University of Vigo’s Centre for Marine Research (CIM), a member of the CIGUS Network, is participating in a European megaproject designed to advance the knowledge and the capacity to predict the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. The Future Oceans Lab group, led by Professor Elena Ojea, is behind this ambitious and innovative project. The aim is to provide the necessary tools to address the loss of marine life, which has been accentuated in recent times.

Thirty-four institutions from 17 countries are participating in the project, entitled “ActNOW, Advancing understanding of Cumulative Impacts on European marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services for human wellbeing”. Funding for the project stands at over 10 million euros, 380,000 of which correspond to the work entrusted to the Centre for Marine Research. May will see a launch meeting in the Netherlands to define the methodology and research strategies for each of the working groups.  

This project will provide an understanding of how various environmental and human stress factors impact biodiversity, which, according to the Future Oceans Lab members, will in turn facilitate the design of feasible and science-based adaptation solutions to offset its loss. “Traditionally, the analysis of cumulative risks of various factors has been relegated in science due to its complexity, but ActNOW aims to make up for this by joining forces in a collective effort,” explained the researchers involved in the project. In this sense, they consider that the key strength of this consortium will lie precisely in the fact that “it will provide decision-makers and authorities with updated knowledge and tools that allow them to predict the impact of multiple factors on coastal and marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, thereby improving management and impact assessment, and making them resilient to rapid climate and environmental changes”.

The University of Vigo’s participation in the project is the result of previous collaborations and participation in other scientific projects and activities such as the FutureMARES project, as well as Elena Ojea’s contribution to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “These actions have enabled us to broaden and improve our knowledge and experience in the field of climate change risk assessment, making our work more visible, as well as giving us the opportunity to work with many of the researchers involved in this new initiative”, the researcher stressed, before going on to add that involvement in a project of this magnitude with renowned international partners is a magnificent opportunity. “We will continue to work with experts from around the world, enhancing the visibility and internationalisation of our group and our work,” she stated.

In the opinion of these researchers, the response options available to managers today for the recovery, or at least the maintenance of biodiversity necessarily require  management actions based on nature. “These kinds of measures try to imitate the way nature works based on human actions: in other words, they are actions that humans can take to return nature to a healthy state in which biodiversity recovers its values prior to the impact of human activity,” explained Juan Bueno. The actions can range from merely delimitating a protected natural area to the restoration or repopulation of species that are important for the system, or the application of extraction regulations based on science, “such as the case of fishing”.

The members of the Future Oceans Lab also stressed that solutions of this type tend to take into account the local and traditional knowledge of the social groups associated with the ecosystems under improvement, which confers them with a highly relevant social component. “Of course, there may be other types of measures based on technology or ex-situ conservation that can be very effective, and in specific situations also accurate, although the costs are normally higher,” added Bueno. 

The CIM’s research activity receives backing from the Galician autonomous government (Xunta de Galicia) and the European Union through co-funding under the Galicia 2014-2020 ERDF Operational Programme.