Pôle-relais lagunes méditerranéennes

The ‘Pôle-relais lagunes méditerranéennes’ (Resource Center for Mediterranean Lagoons) is animated by the Tour du Valat, the Conservatoire d’espaces naturels d’Occitanie (CEN Occitanie) and the Office de l’environnement de la Corse (OEC) since 2001.

Its territory of activity: The coastal lagoons and their peripheral marshes that form a long corridor of coastal wetlands that span 130 000 hectares in total throughout Occitanie, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Corsica.

Its main targets: Managers, agents of local and state authorities, elected officials, socio-professionals, scientists, the general public.

Its mission: To promote a better recognition of the lagoon territories and encourage their sustainable management by:

Animating the newtork of actors with training courses, a research-management platform, and running the Forum Interrégional des Lagunes MEDiterranéennes (FIL MED) to support the managers in the definition of management measures.
The sharing of knowledge and good practices. Information on lagoons is relayed by the “Lettre des lagunes” to 2500 actors five times a year, via social networks and the website pole-lagunes.org. Some news is relayed to the National Wetlands Resource Center. Publications are shared in a bibliographic database and relayed to the national portal “Documents on water and biodiversity”.
Raising awareness, particularly among the general public and elected officials, of the sustainable management of lagoons by coordinating World Wetlands Day and the European Heritage Days, by organizing meetings between elected officials, and by awarding a Pôle-relais prize for innovative actions carried out on a lagoon territory.

This center is part of the network of the National Resource Center for Wetlands, certified by the French State for their promotion of sustainable management and their action to spread and exchange knowledge. The National Resource Center for Wetlands is coordinated by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB – wetlands resources center).