partnership
projects
MeerWissen supports partnership projects between African and German marine research institutions.
This collaboration strengthens capacities and generates data for knowledge-based marine conservation.

Assessing the biodiversity of eels (BIOEELS_TZ)
Assess species composition, distribution, abundance of migratory eels and associated fish communities in selected coastal ecosystems and define ecosystem parameters.
Country / Region
Tanzania

Assessing the biodiversity of eels (BIOEELS_TZ)
Assess species composition, distribution, abundance of migratory eels and associated fish communities in selected coastal ecosystems and define ecosystem parameters.
Country / Region
Tanzania

Marine Ecosystem Services for MSP (NAMares)
Supporting planners in making more informed decisions by improving the available knowledge base on marine ecosystem services in Namibia and providing decision-support methods, including a spatial cost-benefit approach, that allows trade-offs to be assessed.
Country / Region
Namibia

Conserving functional diversity and promoting a sustainable Blue Economy (INDUCE)
Producing sound scientific knowledge for the conservation of fish functional diversity from socially inclusive and environmentally-sustainable economic growth perspectives in Senegal.
Country / Region
Senegal
Seaweed for blue economies, biodiversity and ecosystem services (CLIMALG-SN)
Updating the current inventory of seaweeds in Senegal, assessing their influence on coastal marine biodiversity and identifying bottlenecks for their recent exploitation.
Country / Region
Senegal

African Penguins and the Blue Economy (Penguins)
Optimize conservation policies through provision of key data and models to inform strategies and monitoring tools as early-warning systems.
Country / Region
Namibia, South Africa

Taking the pulse of the Ocean (PULSE)
Finding a suitable and sustainable solution of retrieving ocean and coastal data for decision making processes.
Country / Region
Senegal

West Indian Ocean Governance & Exchange Network (WIOGEN)
Project description
Integrated ocean governance approaches for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the West Indian Ocean through establishing a science to policy networking platform, promoting scientific exchange, early career capacity development and integrative social learning approaches.
Country / Region
West Indian Ocean Region

Fishing Data East Africa (FiDEA)
Project description
Strengthening a science-based decision-making process in support of sustainable fisheries management in the East African region by developing a regional framework for the collection, sharing and analysis of fisheries data.
Country / Region
Mozambique, Tanzania, Zanzibar

CoastWise
Project description
Improving the integrated assessment of South Africa’s land-sea interface to enhance the knowledge base for informed decision-making. Generating new data, piloting new technology for coastal and marine ecosystem assessments, filling important knowledge gaps, translating this knowledge into formats that can be used in spatial management, and building capacity in South Africa and the region.
Country / Region
South Africa

Data Linking People (NeDiT)
Project description
Supporting the use of new and innovative digital technologies for policy-making in marine resource management in Eastern Africa. Achieving improved handling of biodiversity data in East Africa, through providing and assessing as well as communicating data.
Country / Region
Tanzania

West African Biodiversity under Pressure (WASP)
Project description
Facilitating the mainstreaming of biodiversity protection, into the management of the fisheries sector, the Oil & Gas industry and Protected Areas policies.
Country / Region
Mauritania
MeerWissen community
The MeerWissen Community invites partners to exchange on their successes and lessons in gathering data on our ocean and providing this information to policy-makers.

The vast majority of the world’s commercially used fish stocks are either overfished (33%) or fished to their very limits (60%) (FAO 2018)
19% of coral reefs worldwide have been destroyed (Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2008)
8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year (Jambeck et al 2015)
35% of the planet’s mangroves have been destroyed (MEA 2005)
about
MeerWissen supports cooperation between African and German marine research institutions. This initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) seeks to give policy-makers the information they need to take knowledge-based decisions for the effective management and conservation of Africa’s ocean and coasts.
news

PhD Thesis published: Ecological Infrastructure in Systematic Conservation Planning
What role does the Ecological Infrastructure (EI) concept play in systematic conservation…

Understanding Marine Ecosystems in Namibia
What goods are Namibian people harvesting from the ocean, and how is this benefitting them…

The MeerWissen Initiative: Best of 2021
Our five MeerWissen highlights from 2021.