Five months after its departure from Lorient, the schooner Tara will make a major port-call in Galway, Ireland, from September 9th to September 16th. TREC partners would like to seize this opportunity to address relevant scientific challenges and provide policy makers and regulators with the ability to better predict the possible effects of pollution and climate change on the European land-sea interface. During Tara’s stopover, partners from two Horizon Europe projects – BIOCEAN5D and BLUEREMEDIOMICS – will hold the Tara Europa Lab, a workshop to promote science-to-policy dialogue with local and regional organizations to animate a discuss ion of what local challenges are faced in relation to restoring local marine biodiversity, innovative solutions to mitigate pollution, how a circular local blue bioeconomy could be supported, and how policy can address this.
As part of the Biocean5D and BlueRemediomics projects, the relationship between marine microbiome and ocean health will be further explored, addressing key ecosystem services enabled by marine microbes and promoting healthy microbiome approaches. The scientific findings from the project s will feed into the workshop discussions in Galway. The Tara Europa Lab is an opportunity for citizen organizations and other stakeholders to share their knowledge and expertise of the local marine ecosystem and the challenges it faces, as well as blue bioeconomy opportunities, habitat restoration and blue carbon linked to global changes in our Atlantic coasts and seas. Policy makers will al so be present to represent the diverse interests of their local community and help to co-create impactful actions. This science to policy interface will also be linked with the ten year’s of the Galway Statement, the EU Mission Ocean lighthouses and future actions planned for the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean.
TREC (Traversing European Coastlines ), is a scientific program aiming to study different types of pollution and microorganisms in the European land- sea interface in order to provide a deeper understanding of how these ecosystems respond to natural and anthropogenic challenges. During the 2-year expedition, the schooner Tara will dock in different European cities, where the public will be invited to learn more about the expedition and the science performed on board.