MAIA held its Consortium meeting in an online environment on 13 October 2020. All project partners along with a number of external participants from the EU Commission and EUROSTAT, gathered to discuss MAIA’s recent achievements, challenges and upcoming updates.

The first half of the meeting was dedicated to a deliberation of the reached accomplishments during the past project year. However, the emergence of the Covid-19 global pandemic showed to be challenging as it posed a great deal of limitations. Consortium members from each MAIA country shared their observations on how the respective areas have been affected. It was concluded that regardless of the current situation, the mainstreaming of natural capital and ecosystem accounting is significantly progressing.

The rest of the meeting was devoted to a discussion about upcoming updates and objectives of MAIA. Gathering between the Consortium members and representatives from all collaborating countries is going to be organised, in order to review alternative ways to build stable local communities. Additionally, the MAIA analytical tool, which will have the appliance in generating and selecting ecosystem account layers within specified regions, was revealed to be finalised and available during the upcoming year.

The meeting ended with an announcement of the first MAIA webinar - “Introduction and Updates on SEEA Ecosystem Accounting”, which will be held on 26 October 2020. The webinar will be part of a series of planned online discussion units, which will tackle upon various intriguing topics related to Ecosystem Accounting and Natural Capital, with the purpose of expanding the mainstreaming efficiency and deliberating coherent updates towards the success of MAIA. Registration is available here.