European Fish Week
The Institute of Fish Resources and Aquarium — Varna in cooperation with the Black Sea NGO Network marked the European Fish Week 2011 and World Ocean Day 8 June with open doors and public discussion on important aspects of the environmental health of the Ocean and the Black Sea and their fisheries. With strong media support, the partners addressed the public stressing on the significance of joint efforts and policy measures to halt the degradation of the marine environment and its resources. Several thematic spots during the day addressed issues of sustainable use of seas and oceans, climate change, marine biodiversity conservation and the reform in the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the effort to halt overfishing and end destructive fishing practices thus making a fair and equitable use of healthy fish stocks.
For an overview of the event in Bulgaria 
For an overview of events during the European Fish Week: www.ocean2012.eu/europeanfishweek
Gdansk 2011
In 2011 the annual European Maritime Day Stakeholder Conference will be held in the Polish city of Gdańsk from 19 to 20 May, at the Philharmonic’s Music and Congress Centre on the Ołowianka Isle (www.filharmonia.gda.pl). The conference is co-organised by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland, Office of the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship, and the City of Gdańsk.
The Maritime Day Conference will be an occasion to reflect, at high level, on cross-sectional themes and policies affecting the seas and coasts. The participants will be looking at how Sea Basin strategies have developed so far, focusing in particular on the Baltic. The ecosystem approach and how its practical application will influence human activities is another key theme, alongside a discussion of how maritime regions are drivers of growth and jobs. Additionally, the challenge of reconciling economically sustainable transport and port infrastructure in the context of climate change is also considered.
Good governance in the Black Sea region
The Black Sea NGO Network (BSNN), Bulgaria and partners held an expert meeting in November 2010 within the project ‘Regional Exchange of Best Practices in Influencing the Public Sector’, supported by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation. The project is implemented in Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.
It involves six NGOs from each country acting as facilitators of an exchange of best practices in good governance. The partners have held a regional expert meeting to identify best practices on national level and six in-country meetings with NGOs to collect more information and provide input for a regional website of case studies of influence on public sector policies. The partners will adopt a communication mechanism on how to agree on providing support to campaigns and initiatives on national or cross-border level.
The regional expert meeting was entitled ‘Best Practices for Good Governance: towards Sustainability in the Black Sea Region’. The event was attended by representatives of NGOs and independent activists of the third sector and the media, as well as by experts and associates of the BSNN.
Award for access to information
Black Sea NGO Network received a honorary award for contribution in the field of freedom of information on the Right to Know Day, 28 September 2010. The selection of nominees and the Awards Ceremony was organised by the Access to Information Programme. The award was bestowed for active use of the Law for access to public information and popularisation of the freedom of information in active cooperation with media and journalists in the course of investigations. Additional information about Right to Know Day and the ceremony can be seen at: www.righttoknowday.net.
Upgrade BSS
Upgrade Black Sea SCENE is a project aimed at developing the research infrastructure of marine environmental institutes and organisations from the Black Sea countries. It started in 2009 and is running until 2011 (www.blackseascene.net). The project is funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research. Upgrade Black Sea SCENE builds upon the successful experience of its predecessor Black Sea SCENE, adding 19 new organisations to reach a total of 51 partners. Among the principal objectives of the project are: to implement common communication standards and adapted technologies to ensure the interoperability of data centres around the Black Sea; to network the existing and new Black Sea data centres, active in data collection, and provide integrated databases of standardised quality online; to realize and improve online access to in situ and remote sensing data, metadata and products; to adopt standardised methodologies for data quality checking to ensure the quality, compatibility and coherence of the data generated and issued by many different sources.
A substantial amount of data is already available through the Black Sea Common Data Index version 1 (CDI V1) data access service which contains currently more than 90 000 individual entries. In the coming months additional data centres from the network will further populate the CDI metadatabase and other institutes will be encouraged to participate. The data services are aimed to make Black Sea scientific information and data more easily accessible for scientists and the general public in order to be better informed and prepared to approach issues related to the sea.