The foundation for the work on MAES in the EU Overseas has been set in 2017, when the EU MOVE Project “Facilitating MAES to support regional policy in Overseas Europe: mobilizing stakeholders and pooling resources” was initiated. Building upon this work, the MOVE-ON Project, “Setting the ground to advance MAES in Europe´s overseas: From case studies to anchor projects”, kicked off virtually (due to Covid19) on May 12 -14th. Altogether 22 project collaborators from various EU Overseas regions and mainland Europe took part in the meeting. The PhyGeo is part of the project, which is coordinated by the Regional Government of the Azores, trough the Regional Fund for Science and Technology (FRCT) and will have a duration of 3 years The MOVE-ON project intensifies the existing collaboration of MOVE and deepens the work in four so-called anchor regions. These anchor regions are located in French Guiana, the South Atlantic, Macaronesia and La Réunion. These regions cover topics such as the elaboration of sustainable development plans and ecosystem services management plans, marine ecosystem condition assessment and mapping, assessment of ecosystem services and functionality and the implementation of ES mapping and assessment outcomes. In close collaboration with policy and decision makers, stakeholders and the civil society, the MAES process will be encouraged from a bottom-up approach. This way, MOVE-ON aims to accelerate the uptake of MAES and showcase first examples from the science-policy interface in the EU Overseas by 2023.
