12th Community Rendez-Vous dedicated to rivers

On 29 January 2026, the BeMed community gathered for a fruitful exchange on a key issue: plastic pollution in rivers and ways to better measure, understand and take collective action.

At the heart of the discussions was the OSPAR River Protocol, presented by Surfrider Europe. This is a standardised European monitoring framework that enables the production of comparable data between territories, river basins and countries. Gradually being rolled out across Europe (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Albania, etc.), this protocol strengthens the credibility of actions on the ground and opens up new perspectives for environmental advocacy.

The discussions highlighted:

the complexity of river pollution dynamics (transport, accumulation, fragmentation, release during floods),
the importance of robust data for identifying sources (wipes, bottles, agricultural waste, historic landfills, etc.),
the key role of local actors, communities, NGOs, schools and volunteers in monitoring and raising awareness,
and the potential of this data to guide public policy and measure the impact of actions over time.

Inspiring testimonials from community members from France, Albania, Greece, Turkey and Tunisia highlighted an obvious fact: when faced with a cross-border phenomenon, regional and Mediterranean cooperation is essential.

Next steps: continued deployment of the OSPAR protocol, sharing of experiences within the community, and a face-to-face meeting on 6 and 7 May 2026 in Marrakesh to strengthen synergies and build long-term actions.

Thank you to all participants for their continued commitment!