New project partners

The Portuguese Maritime Police, as a specialized law enforcement agency integrated in the Portuguese National Maritime Authority within the scope of the Maritime Authority System, is a police and criminal law enforcement body that ensures and oversees compliance with laws and regulations defined within the Maritime Public Domain, such as port areas and bathing spaces, as well as in all inland waters under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese National Maritime Authority and other maritime spaces under national sovereignty and jurisdiction, aiming to preserve the execution of maritime activities in a safe and regulated manner. The Portuguese Maritime Police is also responsible, under the terms of the law, to act in collaboration with the other law enforcement agencies and security forces if needed, in order to guarantee the safety and rights of the Portuguese citizens. As regarded earlier, the main competencies of the Portuguese Maritime Police are to execute policing, inspection, surveillance and investigation actions, as well as to apply law enforcement measures.

In light of the specific competencies of the Portuguese Maritime Police mentioned above, and within the scope of its organic nature, the Portuguese Maritime Police contributes to NextOcean by exchanging valuable information and technical experience about fishing inspection areas, legal measures regarding fishing activities, protection of underwater cultural heritage, as well as, in the scope of the various criminal offenses and administrative offenses that occur at sea, namely, crimes against nature in a maritime environment, crimes against the safety of navigation, drug trafficking, border control, among other. The Portuguese Maritime Police will also assist in the dissemination and communication of the NextOcean services through its presentation in international forums and Portuguese maritime citizenship programs, bringing them closer to various international entities with Coast Guard functions, law enforcement agencies, and the Portuguese organizational community with interest in fishing activities, thus expanding the universe of Beta-users and future customers for NextOcean services.

+ATLANTIC CoLAB is a Portuguese not-for-profit R&D+I Collaborative Laboratory with the mission to generate knowledge and value to discover, preserve and sustainably harness the Atlantic Ocean. 

In operation since 2019, +ATLANTIC conceives and provides knowledge-based products and services related to various fields of the blue economy, ocean sustainability, marine science, marine ecosystems’ health, climate change, coastal hazards, blue carbon, ocean literacy, and science communication. Their multidisciplinary team applies numerical modelling, remote sensing, data science, artificial intelligence, ocean observation, and space and ocean technologies to develop such products and services and to partner in national and international projects.

+ATLANTIC contributes to NextOcean by engaging with the end-users and industry specialist from fisheries and aquaculture sectors to gather their requirements and feedback while also mapping out potential Beta-users and future customers for NextOcean services related to the Fisheries Monitoring and Surveillance (FMS) and Fish Provenance and Ecolabeliing (FPE). +ATLANTIC will also contribute to market assessment (private sector) and will assist in upscaling new users for NextOcean services. Moreover, this entity will participate in communicating the NextOcean project output to their respective network and will support the building of capacity activities related to its skills and the project services.

Learn more about +ATLANTIC on their website (https://colabatlantic.com) and follow them on LinkedIn (@colabatlantic).