Training on climate change adaptation in Marine Protected Areas

The MPA4Change Training on climate change adaptation in Marine Protected Areas is a capacity building programme aiming to empower Marine Protected Area managers to face climate change.

Through this training programme, MPA managers and support experts (consultancies, academic & research institutions and other experts in marine conservation supporting MPA management bodies) will get the necessary guidance and tools to implement climate change adaptation plans in MPAs.

The MPA4Change training programme on climate change adaptation in Marine Protected Areas offers resources and practical training to learn how to us different tools and protocols for:

• Assessing climate change effects in the marine environment through direct measuring and through the collection of local knowledge;
• Deploy citizen science initiatives in order to engage divers in the collection of data on climate change impacts;
• Assess the vulnerability of an MPA through different dimensions (ecological, economic, social,…) in order to quantify climate change effects and forecast potential scenarios of change;
• Develop action plans including specific actions to respond to the environmental changes to come;
• Carry out participatory approaches to engage stakeholders in the decision making process and implementation of the action plan
• Learn specific tools to communicate about climate change;
• Get guidance on how restoration can support the consecution of the MPA objectives to tackle the change.

The training offers an online course available on the platforms of Europarc and DAN Europe but also a face to face training involving validation and fieldwork with experts and researchers.

The training will be structured in Modules containing different protocols and methodologies. Each module will be released at different times of the year 2025 both online and in hybrid format – see preliminary schedule below:

Online training: As soon as a module is released, the different materials (composed by guidance documents, webinars, videos and quizes) will be available at dedicated learning platforms for its review (specify later DAN Europe and ENA). This training is:

• open to all participants, without selection process – registration to the training and respective online platforms is needed.
• free of charge.
• open at all times, from the release of each module.

Hybrid training: The hybrid training will comprise both the aforementioned online training and face to face workshops organised on specific dates. In Addition to the acquisition of knowledge through the revision of online resources, this training will allow participants to consolidate the knowledge acquired through practical training. This training is:

• intended for those participants that, after taking the online training, meet the required skills and experience and are able and willing to implement the toolkits for climate change adaptation in an MPA and in the short term;
• the participation to the face to face training will be subject to a selection process;
• both the online training and the face to face training will be available in specific dates;
• the face to face workshops are not free, but the majority of the expenses will be covered by the programme.

After completing each online module, participants will receive a certificate of attendance highlighting the knowledge and the skills gathered during the online training. A proper diploma will be assigned to the participants attending the face to face training. The diplomas will ensure the knowledge and the skills gathered during the field training but also will ensure the participants can train other users (train the trainer).

All the participants interested in the training and topics will be able to register and attend the online training.

Online training: For the online training the only selection criteria will be:

• a good knowledge of English language, since all the materials will be in English.
• basic knowledge on how to operate online platforms.

Face-to-face training: Additional selection criteria will be used to select the participants of the face to face training:

• Relevance of participants job position, having preference those participants that are in a position to apply the training knwoledge
• Experience and skills – in exmaple, for the training on monitoring protocols, previous experience in carrying out fieldwork and/or monitoring programmes and diving experience will be taken into account.
• Geographical representativeness – aiming to prioritise participants to cover a wide geographical area.
• Gender representation – the participants selection will aim to balance gender representation.
• Commitment to implement the toolkits – participants will need to prove that they are willing to implement the tools and skills learned in a reasonable timeframe and, in some ocassions, provide a plan for its assessment.