New package of WildX tabletops launched at authority workshop

During the first week of May, authorities and wildlife experts met in Brussels for the EUROWA-2 workshop Integrated professional oiled wildlife preparedness and response. The workshop was also the launch of the brand new WildX Tabletop exercise package, which allowed participants to explore different strategies for oiled wildlife response in an informative and interactive way.

One of the fundamental principles for the workshop was to deliver a fully interactive, unique experience with as few presentations as possible. The WildX package can provide just that. Authorities from across Europe and EUROWA wildlife experts played the tabletops together which covered a range of strategies at local, national and regional levels. The tabletops were played using a set of various maps, posters and card decks which had all been developed for WildX under the EUROWA-2 project, funded through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism.

WildX gave participants the opportunity to have a better understanding of integrated wildlife response design and find a common ground for collaboration between authorities and EUROWA experts.

After the WildX tabletop exercises, the authorities and EUROWA experts discussed the future of oiled wildlife response in Europe, the challenges faced, the importance of getting messages across to the competent authorities, the need for EUROWA funding to maintain the good work and the possibility to support a response, and the potential strategies to achieve this.

The workshop was attended by a total of 30 participants from 17 different countries in Europe. 19 European authorities working in various fields attended, having responsibilities for at sea pollution response, shoreline pollution response or nature and environmental conservation. A total of 11 representatives of different EUROWA Network members also joined the event to facilitate in-depth discussions between wildlife experts and authorities on how they can effectively work together in a wildlife response.

We look forward to continuing the collaboration between authorities and EUROWA experts in the future.

For further information, please contact secretariat@eurowa.eu