During the month of July, MedCities has been fully engaged in two ENSERES activities; the ENSERES sub grating selection and the mission in Tyre for the pilot area visit and the Toolkit presentation.

Firstly, the ENSERES sub grating selection committee, engaging the project partners responsible for this activity, has met to assess and select the most pertinent applications from those submitted in the sub-grating call closed on 2nd June. MedCities has been fully engaged in this process as it is funding three of the nine possible sub-grants, those addressing the city of Sfax and surrounding territories, including the area of Thyna and the islands of Kerkennah. The city of Sfax, ENSERES partner, will monitor and accompany the implementation of those projects financed by MedCities.

On this line, the selected proposals for Sfax and surrounding areas within the governorate, pending successful contract negotiations are:

• Tackle Marine Pollution “TMP” presented by Observatoire régional écologique de Sfax (ORES) and Association de la Continuité des générations (ACG). This proposal will contribute to clean the Sfax port from plastics, and give value to this kind of waste.
• Save Thaenae presented by SFAX MEZYENA aims to enhance the area of the Thyna wetlands creating a natural and health pathway, a kid’s area, a sport area and promoting some cultural activities on the Roman ruins and the wetlands. All interventions respecting and putting in value this salt marshes ecosystem.
• Plages Propres Kerkenna is a consortium of three associations : KENTARA SAVE EARTH, Association Kraten du Développement Durable de la Culture et de Loisir and Association « Le LOUD Kerkennien ». This proposal promotes the reduction of marine pollution in the Kerkennah Islands by raising awareness and promote more sustainable actions with fishermen, students and tourists.

Additionally to these three selected proposals, SPA/RAC will also give six more grants to the organisations related SPAMI’s areas of Kneiss islands, the Natural reserve coast of Tyre and Tyre City.

This sub-grant scheme seeks to engage local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the management and sustainable development in and around protected areas in the territories of Sfax in Tunisia and Tyre in Lebanon.

Concerning Lebanon’s mission, our officer and the ETC UMA officer went to Tyre on the 20th and the 21st of July to visit the pilot areas and facilitated the ENSERES toolkit presentation for the Lebanese stakeholders. During these two days, they could meet and exchange with M. Hassan Dbouk, the Mayor of Tyre, and contact representatives of the Environment and Tourism ministries, fishers and private touristic business owners. In addition, 20 people attended the toolkit presentation that seeks to match the local needs with the solutions proposed by the tools.

The result was Tyre stakeholders are primarily interested in marine litter, management and sustainable financing. The presentation for the Sfax stakeholders will be later in September. Once MedCities knows the interests of all partners, it will set a joint training programme for partners in Tyre and Sfax.

The ENSERES Project (ENhancing Socio-Ecological RESilience in Mediterranean coastal areas) is an ENI CBC Med capitalisation project aiming to mainstream available ecosystem-based management tools in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) processes for preserving coastal and marine ecosystems as sustainable livelihoods for coastal urban communities through integrated management of human activities.

MedCities leads the “Transferring and upscaling” component of the project, under which this call for sub-grants has been launched.