At the beginning of April, LifeLEMA project took part in the MARLICE forum, the 1st International forum on Marine Litter and Circular Economy. We went to Seville to meet marine litter experts working on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. Our aim was to discover newest projects related to ocean protection and to network with counterparts in this field.

On April 11^th, LifeLEMA project representatives coordinated the Atlantic panel sessions along with CleanAtlantic project spokespersons. These sessions enabled us to learn about a wide range of technologies for the monitoring of marine litter in the sea. We also discussed the effectiveness of various marine waste management plans. Most importantly, one of the key topics was the necessary tracking of litter on rivers before it actually gets to the sea. Finally, we addressed the joint implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) ; and their suitability when it comes to establishing a combined strategy for the management of litter inside rivers and seas.

The last day of the forum was dedicated to ground work. We directly headed to the field to show how Citizen Science works in practice. Thus, we collected aquatic waste in the Odiel Natural Park using three different protocols. We had an amazing time gathering data on marine litter on the beach and showing the results of our work in the afternoon.

In a nutshell, MARLICE has been a fruitful forum where we had the opportunity to get to know many ongoing projects in the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts and to share our ideas with interesting counterparts from all around the world.