MarLitCy: Marine Litter for Synergies, Capacity-building and Peacebuilding

Jan 12, 2021 | Completed, Research | 0 comments

MarLitCy: Marine Litter for Synergies, Capacity-building and Peacebuilding

Aim: To enhance the role of the civil society in active citizenship and decision making while promoting bi-communal collaboration by exploiting the serious environmental issue of marine litter.

Objectives: MarLitCy aims to build capacity in non-conventional target groups (coastal enterprises, university students and civil society organisations) by supporting them to cooperate and build synergies that will address marine litter. This will be achieved through the following activities:

  1. Responsible Coastal Businesses Campaign: directly engage with two of the project’s main target groups: coastal enterprises and local authorities. This campaign will build upon MarlitCy’s Responsible Beach Bars Network and expand it thought the whole of Cyprus.
  2. Fishing for Litter: fishermen will be provided with durable big bags and will be encouraged to use them to deposit any marine litter items caught in their fishing nets. Then the local authority till collect and dispose of the litter accordingly. This activity will bring together local authority, fishermen and harbour authorities.
  3. Participatory Policy Making: the aim of this activity is to develop consultation structures between civil society and the local/central administration in order to revise the legal framework related to the protection of the marine environment, according to EU standards.
  4. Solution oriented educational activities for children and youth. School children, youngsters and university students will participate in hands-on field activities, competitions and lectures.
  5. Island-wide awareness-raising campaigns:civic engagement will be triggered through attractive activities, such as the organisation of open “meet the sea” days, where the general public and especially children and youth will have the chance to meet with diving schools and become familiar with water sports and through these activities to become aware of the issue, but also about the need for the recording and collecting marine litter. Also, beach and seabed clean-ups will be carried out throughout Cyprus and will build on the Cyprus Marine Litter Database. Awareness-raising will be a continuous activity, designed to have a high degree of social and civic engagement;
  6. Three competitions – creative writing, up-cycled art a photography. These will be involving students and youngsters across Cyprus and common exhibition will be held.

Duration: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2021

Funded: EuropeAid

More Information on the project’s Website here.