Ms. Eda Bayar Aydin is an environmental engineer by training. She focused on environmental management in her master studies and wrote her thesis about “life cycle assessment of treating and recovering caustic from mercerization wastewater” in 2015 at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. She started working at the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation of Turkish Republic in 2014 with a focus on management of marine environment from the governance point of view. She has represented Türkiye in Barcelona Convention, Black Sea Commission and Antarctic Treaty’s Committee for Environmental Protection.
Her main responsibilities at the Ministry included assessing and developing strategies for the protection of the marine environment against pollution. She was tasked with project management and research aimed at the remediation and safeguarding of marine and coastal waters. Additionally, she determined necessary measures to achieve policy objectives for projects such as updating the National Action Plan for Land-Based Sources, building capacity for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in Türkiye, and establishing Türkiye’s Marine Environment Strategy.
Since 2022, she has been seconded as a national expert at the European Environment Agency, where she leads partnerships and networking with regional sea conventions and supports engagement with relevant EU and global marine processes, including Ocean Governance, Maritime Spatial Planning, and the Blue Economy.