The ESPO Award 2023 will go to the port managing body which has developed innovative ways to develop these new roles and combine port development with successfully protecting and restoring nature in and around the port area to the benefit of the citizens and local community. The winning project will be a project which can clearly demonstrate how nature protection and restoration efforts can be successfully combined with port development projects, says an article published on their website.
ESPO Award Ceremony and Dinner
The four projects that are shortlisted for this year’s Award are the projects of Port of Cartagena (Spain), Guadeloupe Port Caraïbes (France), North Sea Port (Belgium- Netherlands) and Port of Vigo (Spain).
ESPO is proud to present the shortlisted projects before the winner is announced during the traditional ESPO Award Ceremony and Dinner taking place on 7 November at the Art and History Museum in the Cinquantenaire in Brussels. The ESPO award ceremony will be celebrated together with the 30th anniversary of ESPO. We start with the project of the Port of Cartagena.
About the project
With the project “Underwater forest of the port of Cartagena”, we aim to restore the true blue lung of the Mediterranean: the Posidonia oceanica meadows. It is a plant of great environmental and social value, and its recovery would bring significant benefits to both the ecosystems and the society that lives in coastal areas.
With the implementation of this project, we have successfully tested and proved a method to ensure that Posidonia grows, recovers, and creates a stable population in the marine port space. It is a pioneering milestone in Spanish ports to have been able to successfully reintroduce new specimens in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula.
The novelty of our project is that it is the first time that such a high success rate (77%) has been achieved in recovering the Posidonia meadows within the port boundaries while maintaining the commercial activity of the port. A hopeful result that has encouraged us to continue with more stages and replanting.
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Source: ESPO
