What is Life LEMA?

The Life LEMA project is part of the European LIFE programme for the Environment and Action for the Climate that was approved in 2016 and represents a total investment of 2,1 million euros, of which 1,2 millions are co-financed by the European Union.

Life LEMA will give local authorities a methodologic guide and smart tools for an efficient management of marine litter in the southeast waters of the Bay of Gascogne for a period of 3 years (2016-2019).

Life LEMA will also encourage research of common solutions for the management of marine litter in transboundary waters by creating groups of experts that will lead dynamic sessions of improvement and follow-up on European directives – European Strategy for the Marine Environment – and on European Funds for the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Policies.

The project consists of a international, multidisciplinary and heterogeneous workgroup of 6 partners and its leader is Guipúzcoa’s Territorial Council. The team is completed by research centers AZTI (technical coordination of the project) and Rivages Pro Tech, public organization Syndicat Mixte Kosta Garbia and the Municipality of Biarritz, together with the non-gobernmental organization Surfrider Foundation Europe representing the civil society. The workgroup Life LEMA is made of an organism and professional experts in the maritime and coastal area, in marine litter, in modelling and in management. The added value of Life LEMA is to produce studies and actions that permit a transborder approach of the analysis of the marine litter issue, through the creation of a collaborative and transnational actions in search of common solutions. The partners of the program attest of this transborder approach since they are distributed all over the Spanish and French Pays Basque.