Coastal Zone Policy
Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM)
Many of Europe's coastal zones face problems of deterioration of
their environmental, socio-economic and cultural resources. Since
1996, the European Commission has been working to identify and promote
measures to remedy this deterioration and to improve the
overall situation in our coastal zones.
From 1996 to 1999, the Commission operated
a Demonstration Programme on Integrated Coastal
Zone Management (ICZM) designed around a series of 35 demonstration
projects and 6 thematic studies. This programme was aimed to:
-
Provide technical information about sustainable coastal zone management,
and
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Stimulate a broad debate among the various actors involved in the
planning, management or use of European coastal zones.
The programme was intended to lead to a consensus regarding the measures
necessary in order to stimulate ICZM in Europe
In 2000, based on the experiences and outputs of the Demonstration
Programme (all of which are available online here),
the Commission adopted two documents:
-
A Communication from the
Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on "Integrated Coastal Zone
Management: A Strategy for Europe" (COM/00/547 of 17 Sept. 2000)
-
A proposal for a European
Parliament and Council Recommendation concerning the implementation of Integrated Coastal
Zone Management in Europe (COM/00/545 of 8 Sept. 2000). This
Recommendation was adopted by Council and Parliament on 30 May 2002. The
final text is available here.
The Communication explains how the Commission will be working to
promote ICZM through the use of Community instruments and programmes.
The Recommendation outlines steps which the Member States should
take to develop national strategies for ICZM. The national strategies
are due for Spring 2006 and should involve all the coastal stakeholders.
During 2006 and the beginning of 2007 the Commission reviewed
the experience with the implementation of the EU ICZM Recommendation.
The Commission Communication of 7 June 2007, COM(2007)308 final
presents the conclusions of this evaluation exercise et sets out
the main policy directions for further promotion on ICZM in Europe:
Commission
Communication on the evaluation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management
(ICZM) in Europe, COM(2007)308 final of 7 June 2007
The Member States national reports, the EEA state-of-the coast
assessment and the external evaluation report which were the main
sources for this Commission Communication can be found further down
on this website under the entries State-of-the-coast assessment
and Evaluation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Europe.
Expert group
To support the implementation of the ICZM
Recommendation, the Commission facilitates an expert group,
which held its first meeting on 3 October 2002. The
Terms of Reference of the group and the minutes of its meetings
are available below:
At the 2nd meeting the expert group endorsed
a guidance report for the national stocktakes, which the
Recommendation calls for in its Chapter III as the first step for
its implementation. The meeting also heared a detailed presentation
of the Spanish methodological approach to the stocktaking:
In 2005 DG Environment conducted a survey to
analyse the responses in the coastal Member States to the EU ICZM
Recommendation. The results of the survey are presented in an overall implementation
overview. (pdf ~74K)
The working group on indicators and
data established 2 set of indicators, one aimed to measure
progress in ICZM, the other one mesuring sustainability on the coast.
Progress in this work has been reported to the expert group at each
meeting. The reports of the working group can be seen below, for
discussion and orientations for further work given by the expert
group, please refer to the minutes of expert group meetings.
State-of-the-coast assessment
Presidency support
-
The Spanish Precidency of the EU organised a first High Level Forum
on ICZM from April 19 to 21, 2002, in Villajoyosa, Spain. The Forum
gave a clear message of support to the ICZM Recommendation and implementation
of ICZM in Europe. Forum's
Conclusions (pdf ~140K)
- The Greek Presidency of the EU organised an International High Level
Conference on Coastal areas and cities from May 29 to 30, 2003, in Hersonissos,
Crete.Conclusions (pdf ~15K)
Evaluation of Integrated Coastal
Zone Management (ICZM) in Europe
The EU ICZM Recommendation, Chapter VI.3, requests the European
Commission to present an evaluation report to the Council and
the European Parliament. To prepare for the evaluation the Commission
ordered an external assessment. Following a call for tender, the
contract was awarded to Rupprecht Consult GmbH (Germany) and its
partner the International Ocean Institute (Malta). The final report
from the consultants was received on 1/12/2006. The executive
summary is available in English, French and German (pdf ~160K).
The full report is available in English only (pdf ~2,9Mb).
Disclaimer: the release of the report by the Commission
does not imply recognition either of its regularity or of the
authencity, completeness or correctness of the declarations and
information enclosed.
The EU ICZM Recommendation invited coastal member states to
develop national strategies for ICZM. The reports received by
the Commission were the main source of information used in the
evaluation and are available on-line.
The results of the evaluation and policy directions for the further
promotion of ICZM in Europe were presented by the Commission in
its Communication of 7 June 2007 (COM(2007)308
final).
Other Useful Information about ICZM:
ICZM Bibliography
Useful ICZM Links
Comments and questions regarding these pages are
welcome at ICZM WEB. |
