Wales Coasts and Seas Partnership (CaSP Cymru) working together to address marine resilience

CaSP Cymru places emphasis on being inclusive, outward facing, making connections and networking to enable co-design and collaborative action across interest groups. 

The Partnership has worked together to develop and agree a Shared Narrative[1] [Wales Coasts and Seas Partnership (CaSP Cymru): shared narrative] which has just been published.  It  sets out what is needed in Wales to support us to achieve our Welsh National Marine Plan vision of Welsh seas that are clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse, through three key ‘enablers’ or themes:

• Developing ocean literacy across all parts of society - raising awareness of the significance of our coasts and seas will encourage further action across policy areas, and other administrative frameworks such as Public Service Boards.
• Sustainable long term investment and developing longer term sources of public and private finance is crucial to support delivery of key objectives.
• Building capacity, particularly at the local level, will enable meaningful community engagement to identify local opportunities and challenges and deliver action.

CaSP Cymru are currently working on the following actions to underpin and facilitate the work already in progress for the marine environment, across Welsh Government and our partners, using our pooled resources effectively:

• Developing an Ocean Literacy strategy for Wales and actions and events to connect people and work to amplify the importance of the marine environment and our impacts on it.
• Shaping content for the Wales Marine and Fisheries Scheme, particularly developing a new capacity building element to establish longer term engagement and build coastal community capacity to identify and deliver local action.
• Exploring a blended finance mechanism for the marine environment in Wales.
• Delivering the 30x30 Biodiversity Deep Dive recommendations for capacity building, skills development, behaviour change and awareness raising in the marine environment.

CaSP Cymru is a prime example of how embodying the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act five ways of working enables us to tackle Climate Change and address actions to improve the resilience of our coasts and seas. 

The Partnership will be led by a new Ministerially appointed Chair in 2023, in recognition of the importance of marine resilience.

To read more about CaSP Cymru please visit Wales Coasts and Seas Partnership (CaSP Cymru) and contact us for further information.

[1] A Shared Narrative is a story that people create together, from the bottom up, through a deliberative process - Why Shared Narratives Matter More Than Ever.