The MedArtSal Network

The MedArtSal Network for Mediterranean is composed of 29 organizations and institutions from 4 countries (Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Lebanon) who signed a Memorandum of Understanding during the MedArtSal Final Event and 2nd International Salt Fair in Beirut (Lebanon) on June 8th, 2023. The members expressed the full interest to keep cooperating beyond the MedArtSal project, with the common vision to preserve and promote the artisanal salt production heritage, fostering the MedArtSal pillars for environmental and economic sustainability of salinas in the Mediterranean Region. The network membership will enable them to work together to protect the salt artisanal practices, to build a community around the salinas area and to promote it as a sector that can still be an economically viable and environmentally sustainable one for the different Mediterranean regions, contributing to the development of a sustainable Network of Mediterranean Artisanal Salinas and its related value chains.

Objectives

The members of the network will work together to protect the salt production heritage and to promote it as a sector that can still be an economically viable and environmentally sustainable one for the different Mediterranean salt producing regions. This will be achieved through a comprehensive strategy that will focus on four main strategic objectives:

  • Strategic Objective 1: To Protect the Salinas Areas and surrounding ecosystems.
  • Strategic Objective 2: To preserve and promote Salt Production as intangible cultural heritage
  • Strategic Objective 3: To support access to new markets for salt and related products or activities.
  • Strategic Objective 4: To foster the mutual cooperation of the Salinas and organizations from different regions.

Activities

A bottom-up approach will be adopted whilst implementing the network activities, whereby the members will be directly involved and able to invite other members to join the network and engage in its activities.

As such, the members shall:

  • Encourage direct cooperation, exchange experience and good practices (including the bad practices), participation to individual and joint events, taking into consideration the expertise and knowledge of each member.
  • Work on evolving the network’s structure and governance, enabling more efficiency and effectiveness of the network’s management.
  • Agree to be involved, each for the specific competence and availabilities in the initiatives and activities carried on by the group. Concrete proposals, actions and details will be discussed between the members on yearly basis.
  • Develop and further improve the tools realized in the framework of the MedArtSal project, according to the MedArtSal Network purposes.
  • Implement other activities that help to achieve the objectives set.
  • Encouragement of local initiatives towards the territorial and economical heritage promotion.

Signatories – Members of the Network

  1. CUEIM-University Consortium for Industrial and Managerial Economics
  2. Mediterranean Sea and Coast Foundation
  3. Association for the Development of Rural capacities (ADR)
  4. Fair Trade Lebanon (FTL)
  5. IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation
  6. University of Cádiz
  7. SAIDA Society
  8. Tuniso-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
  9. Georges Sleiman Salinas
  10. Le Blanc Sel Salinas
  11. Malek’s Salinas
  12. Maison du Sel
  13. Sleiman Sleiman Salinas
  14. Salacia Beach&Resort
  15. Anfeh and Neighborhood Heritage committee (ANH)
  16. Slow Food Beirut
  17. SODIMER
  18. Association for Conservation of Biodiversity in the gulf of Gabes
  19. Association of Continuity of Generations
  20. Salinas de Chiclana
  21. Salinas La Esperanza-UCA
  22. NGO-Salineras de la Esperanza
  23. Salinas de la Concepción
  24. Salinas de Marchamalo-ANSE
  25. Salinas Del Aleman
  26. Slow Food Cagliari
  27. SEI-Saline Ettore e Infersa
  28. FAI Saline Conti Vecchi
  29. SAFIR

 

Type of participants in the Network

  • Project partners from 1 to 8
  • Salinas or MSMES : 9-10-11-12-13-14-17-20-21-23-24-25-27-29
  • Organisations or other entities: 15-16-18-19-22-26-28

 

SME Cluster

Italy

SME cluster in Italy – Nature, Culture, Sustainability

The Italian SMEs Cluster was born with the aim to define a unified strategy to strengthen local stakeholders, based on the identification and definition of the specific needs of Italian salt pans, by defining effective rules and lines of intervention to achieve common goals, by facing common difficulties. In this sense, the development of the Italian SMEs Cluster was identified in the engagement of a group of Italian organizations that can contribute at promoting the Italian salinas with their businesses.

In order to allow a proper implementation of the related activities, CUEIM selected a SMEs Cluster Facilitator, who would have collaborated in the definition of the Cluster composition and in its implementation, starting by first evaluation and selection of the most relevant topics for the Italian salinas context, among ecotourism, culture, food, wellness and cosmetics.

MedArtSal italian SME Cluster_brochure_FINAL

Spain

SME ecotourism cluster in Spain (LEC)

The Establishment of a Local Ecotourism Cluster (LEC) is one of the key elements of the MEET approach, and a requirement for MEET Network membership. Proper LEC operations are integral to the participatory approach embodied by MEET, including the collaborative development of local ecotourism products, the shared monitoring of their performance, and the effective promotion of those products through the network. LEC helps create opportunities for synergy and mutual reinforcement of the primary objective of a MEET destination: sustainable and competitive ecotourism products in protected areas. This ensures that the protected area and its conservation are at the core of the ecotourism product and are drivers of sustainable development.

A tourism cluster is a group composed of tourism attraction owners/managers within a limited geographic area (i.e., a destination), with services and activities delivered by local providers (e.g., local tour operators, hotel and restaurant owners, tour guides, tourism shops, transportation providers and the like).

The constitution of the local cluster for ecotourism development in the Bahía de Cadiz was presented to the 11 participants  in order to start the online signing process, terminated with the signature on May 2022.

A5,3,2 SME ecoturism cluster in Spain (LEC)