First interviews of key Mediterranean Policy Makers for the SWITCH-Med Programme now available on-line

During the 18th Conference of Parties of the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Region of the Mediterranean that took place in Istanbul on 3-6th of December, the SCP/RAC delegation interviewed key Mediterranean Policy Makers and international institutions, under the framework of the EC funded SWITCH-Med Policy Component. The following question was asked:

“Rio+20 Summit identified the Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) approach as a priority to decouple human development from environmental depletion. How do you think shifting to sustainable consumption and production practices will contribute to the protection of Mediterranean coastal and marine environment?”

Amongst the interviewers, Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw, Deputy Executive Director of UNEP, explained that “the Mediterranean could be a potential pilot region for applying the upcoming sustainable development goals that are currently being developed. Moreover, it is crucial to have a joint action both in the north and in the south, as at the end, there is only one Mediterranean Sea¨.
Mr. Karl Falkenberg, Director General for Environment of European Commission explained that waste is a huge problem for the marine environment. He said “waste is the secondary natural resource for the next production cycle, which the society cannot any longer afford to put away”. ”SCP makes value out of waste”, he also added.
Amongst others interviewers, Mr. Poul Engberg-Pedersen who is the Deputy Director General of IUCN, Mr. Nicos Kouyialis, Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment of Cyprus and Mr. Sadok Amri, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment in Tunisia.

In total, 21 videos which last approximately 2-3 minutes on average show the opinion of leaders and policy makers in the Mediterranean region, while suggesting ways and solutions to improve the protection of the environment and the benefits of switching to sustainable consumption and production practices with clear cases and examples.

They are now available on line at the SCP/RAC Youtube channel by clicking here. They will also be uploaded in the new upcoming SWITCH-Med website www.switchmed.eu.

Magali Outters, team leader SWITCH-Med at SCP/RAC, expressed her gratefulness for having had the opportunity to interview them.¨They had an outstanding good will and they were very receptive to cooperate with us for the first SWITCH-Med Programme´s videos". Also she greatly emphasized the massive progress over the last few years that have been done in terms of awareness rising on the need to shift to SCP patterns in the Region.

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