{"id":1809,"date":"2026-07-17T11:19:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/just4mpa.unibuc.ro\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2026-07-23T19:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:41:22","slug":"just4mpa-hands-on-conference-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/just4mpa.unibuc.ro\/?p=1809","title":{"rendered":"JUST4MPA Hands-on Conference Conclusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue Justice and Social Equity for Marine Protected Areas<\/strong> – Final Conference of the JUST4MPA project, University of Bucharest<\/em><\/p>\n

Event overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

The JUST4MPA Final Conference took place on 8\u20139 June 2026<\/strong> at the University of Bucharest Rectorate<\/strong> (90 Panduri Road, “Ioan Mih\u0103ilescu” Amphitheatre), and closed the project funded through PNRR-III-C9-2023-I8, focusing on marine protected areas in the Danube Delta and along the Romanian coast.<\/p>\n

It brought together roughly 80 participants<\/strong>: researchers, students, local stakeholders and practitioners from geography, marine science, anthropology, sociology, governance, GIS and spatial analysis, science communication and environmental policy. Contributors came from the University of Bucharest (ICUB, CICADIT, Faculties of Geography, Sociology, and Journalism), Ovidius University of Constan\u021ba, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, the University of Craiova, the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), and the Institute of Marine Sciences (Spain), alongside Danube Delta community members.<\/p>\n

Framing and guests<\/strong><\/p>\n

The project asked whether marine conservation in Romania can support Blue Justice<\/strong> and a Just Transformation<\/strong>, whether conservation can be part of a just change rather than one more arrangement where costs fall on the people least able to refuse them.<\/p>\n

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Carmen Chifiriuc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    \n
  • Opening remarks<\/strong> were given by Carmen Chifiriuc, Vice-Rector for research at the University of Bucharest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    <\/div>\n
    \"\"
    Priscila Lopes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
      \n
    • Opening synthesis<\/strong>: Priscila Lopes (project coordinator, ICUB-UB \/ Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte) presented “Bridging Oceans of Knowledge,” tying together the project’s local, regional and global findings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • Documentary screening<\/strong>: During the opening session, the first film in a documentary trilogy produced by Andreea Elena C\u00e2rstea (ICUB-UB) was screened, offering participants a visual entry point into the landscapes and communities at the heart of the project.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Andreea Elena C\u00e2rstea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
          \n
        • Keynote<\/strong>: Sebastian Villasante (University of Santiago de Compostela, EqualSea Lab) spoke on the transformative potential of ocean initiatives, drawing on the IPBES transformative change assessment. He located conservation failures in three underlying causes: disconnection from and domination over nature and people, concentration of power and wealth, and the prioritisation of short-term individual gains.<\/li>\n
        • Round table “Empowerment and Blue Justice in Coastal Communities”<\/strong>: brought researchers into direct conversation with Danube Delta voices: fisher Daniel Ivanov, fishing-association representative C\u0103t\u0103lin Balaban (SSF Association Jurilovca & Black Sea Advisory Council), and local guide R\u0103zvan Crimschi, with Petru\u021ba Teamp\u0103u and Priscila Lopes, chaired by Nata\u0219a V\u0103idianu.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          \"\"
          Nata\u0219a V\u0103idianu, R\u0103zvan Crimschi, Priscila Lopes, Petru\u021ba Teamp\u0103u, C\u0103t\u0103lin Balaban & Daniel Ivanov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

          Main topics and findings<\/strong><\/p>\n

          The scientific sessions moved from the Danube Delta outward to the Black Sea and the global scale.<\/p>\n

          Historical and cultural dimensions.<\/strong> \u0218tefan Constantinescu reconstructed the long history of Delta fisheries from the Ottoman period through Antipa’s scientific administration and socialist industrial extraction to today’s conservation regime. Many present-day conflicts are the legacy of older institutional ruptures and top-down control, which argues for historically grounded, socially inclusive fisheries management.<\/p>\n

          \"\"
          \u0218tefan Constantinescu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

          Social justice and equity.<\/strong> Petru\u021ba Teamp\u0103u showed that women are the invisible backbone of Delta communities, holding ecological knowledge and sustaining livelihoods through informal labour while being excluded from decision-making. Fernando Varga’s work on tourism in Sulina found that benefits are captured disproportionately by external operators, deepening dependence and eroding traditional livelihoods. Ruxandra P\u0103duraru and Nata\u0219a V\u0103idianu opened “the black box” of distrust in MPA governance, arguing that distrust should be read not as a deficit to be fixed with more consultation, but as accurate, earned knowledge that differs across hydrosocial territories.<\/p>\n

          Governance and policy.<\/strong> Aurelian Giug\u0103l and George Sec\u0103reanu analysed over 3,000 press articles and interviews with journalists, describing a cycle of “churnalism” in which local voices are systematically underrepresented and the everyday realities of the Delta are replaced by sensationalist or purely environmental narratives.<\/p>\n

          Climate change and impact.<\/strong> Elena Lloret mapped cumulative environmental pressures in the Black Sea to locate climate hotspots relevant for conservation. Sorin Constantin showed, over 32 years of data, that MPA connectivity is deteriorating: it is becoming increasingly costly for commercial species to move between protected areas. Brunno Oliveira demonstrated that climate change is shifting not only where fish live but where nutrients are found, with lower-income countries projected to lose the most, and MPAs acting as potential buffers. Alexandru Berbecariu introduced a framework to monetise coastal erosion across more than 2,000 MPAs worldwide.<\/p>\n

          Economic and social aspects.<\/strong> Florin Miron and Florin T\u0103tui analysed socio-economic trends across thousands of MPAs, finding widespread demographic ageing and decelerating growth, and that strict protection without social justice can correlate with worse socio-economic outcomes. Igor S\u00eerodoev and colleagues applied Doughnut Theory to Romania’s Black Sea coast as a framework combining an ecological ceiling with a social foundation. Monalisa Silva presented an Index of Coastal Vulnerability integrating social and ecological dimensions, finding that less-restrictive and larger, newer MPAs tend to be more vulnerable.<\/p>\n

          Hands-on sessions <\/strong><\/p>\n

          The hands-on sessions covered the project’s full methodological range: scientific writing (Priscila Lopes); introduction to science communication (Brunno Oliveira, Elena Lloret, Monalisa Silva); GIS and Python\/Colab analysis of MPAs, fishing effort and socio-economic context (Florin T\u0103tui, Florin Miron); stories from the field and applied social methods, including the Ocean Equity Index (Petru\u021ba Teamp\u0103u, Aurelian Giug\u0103l, Fernando Varga, Ruxandra P\u0103duraru, Nata\u0219a V\u0103idianu); and Species Distribution Modelling and connectivity analysis with real marine datasets (Sorin Constantin, Ioan-Daniel \u0218erban).<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/p>\n

          Poster sessions<\/strong><\/p>\n

          The poster sessions (held on both days) presented 25 contributions, spanning ecological, social and technical angles, from habitat quality and coastal monitoring on the Romanian shelf to blue-tourism entrepreneurship, EU fisheries funding, reflecting the interdisciplinary and community-engaged character of the project.<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/p>\n

          Overall conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

          Across two days, JUST4MPA made one case from many angles: marine conservation cannot be judged by ecological metrics or spatial coverage alone, because its effects run through history, gender, media, livelihoods, governance and global change all at once. The conference moved deliberately from the Danube Delta outward to the Black Sea and the global scale, and the same lesson held at every level, that the social and the ecological are one fabric, and that protection designed without attention to justice tends to reproduce existing inequalities rather than repair them.<\/p>\n

          Participants also received the outreach materials produced during the project: brochures, atlases, calendars and other publications, designed to carry the project’s findings beyond the academic audience.<\/p>\n

          Further directions<\/strong><\/p>\n

          Bringing researchers together in the same room with the people who live, fish and work in the Danube Delta proved to be a sustained, face-to-face exchange where new collaborations begin, opening the way toward future projects grounded in the realities of the communities they concern. It also situates local, place-based knowledge within a wider frame, through ICUB and its international partners, the questions raised in the Delta connect to conservation and equity debates well beyond Romania, giving the project’s findings reach and relevance on a global scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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