COmmunity Ocean farms and Local Business cLUstErs in the BALTIC sea (COOL BLUE BALTIC)

Short description of the project: COOL BLUE BALTIC is a two-year project financed by EMFAF, aimed at establishing a network of regenerative ocean farming initiatives.

Expected results: The project will assess the interest and feasibility of setting up new ROF sites via multi-stakeholder co-assessment workshops, co-developing six permanent cooperation frameworks (Key Exploitable Results or KERs) to foster enabling conditions for ROF, including measures to monitor the impact of regenerative ocean farms on Baltic aquatic ecosystems. The project will comprise eight exploitation events in the participating countries around the Baltic, leveraging the six KERs to instigate a grassroots international movement which puts coastal communities front-and-centre of ecological restoration and regenerative ocean farming efforts.

Application/relevance: COOL BLUE BALTIC will provide concrete examples of ecosystem restoration, viable business models and social innovation in order to reorient future fisher/farmers to diversify their income through regenerative aquaculture (i.e. regenerative ocean farming or ROF).