Susanne Altvater has been working on marine topics for more than 15 years. She has an interdisciplinary education, trained as a lawyer and planner. Since 2010, she has been involved and led a whole string of key Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) projects within Europe (e.g., BaltSeaPlan, NorthSea) as well as world-wide (e.g., MARISMA – MSP in South Africa, Namibia, Angola) and has contributed to numerous key guiding documents and recommendations such and the MSP Handbook (2008), LME: Learn MSP Toolkit (2013) or the BalticRIM Action Plan (2020). She has been also working for the EU MSP Platform to support the European Commission in their efforts to implement the MSP Directive and is involved in developing the support mechanisms for the Member States for the implementation of their MSPs. During the last years she conducted a number of BPIP trainings in Turkmenistan, Northern African countries and Israel as well as in the South-Eastern region and Central America.

In Europe, she is part of the SUBMARINER Network for Blue Growth which is aiming to implement a sustainable blue economy within the frame of ecological and social boundaries. She was also involved in the development of a sustainable strategy for blue economy in the Caribbean and worked as consultant in other regions as well. Recently she was the co-author of the Blue Solutions Training of “Sustainable Blue Oceans”. Before working for the Federal Ministry of the Environment, she was employed at the consultancy “Sustainable Projects”, worked for universities or the Federal Agency for nature conservation.