44
3 Status: Basics of ICZM
within Regional Seas, augmented stakeholder involvement and the desirable improvement
of monitoring by joint methodologies and long-term funding of local ICZM efforts.
According to the assessment of the ICZM efforts in the North Sea Region all bordering
Member States are equipped with a thorough toolkit of spatial planning methods. It was
stated that some principles were already in place and some could be improved such as the
application of adaptive management approaches. The main findings were summarized as
follows (excerpt from Rupprecht Consult, 2006, p. 12–13):
• One of the key obstacles to ICZM is the current strong legislative separation between land
and sea-based activities in many of the North Sea countries [. . . ]
• Regional Sea Partnerships of the key bodies such as National coastal forums could have
a role by facilitating stakeholder participation and dialog in any future system of marine
spatial planning.
• Address the problems of consistency, compatibility and accessibility of data collection and
storage methods, as well as agreements on cross-border sharing of information in Regional
Sea context.
• Develop a set of sustainability indicators that is regularly assessed on the basis of careful monitoring of the coastline and other information could provide the basis for a regular
national reporting system to the EU, based as far as possible on data which are simple to
collect.
• Use synergies between ICZM and the Water Framework Directive principles (e.g. public
participation as key to ICZM and a requirement to WFD and the use of existing coastal
observations).
Most Member States at the Atlantic have not already implemented an ICZM strategy. Also
a cross-border strategy for the entire Atlantic coastline was missing at that time. Rupprecht
Consult (2006) stated that some ICZM principles were recognized in national policies
and some not. The assessment for the Atlantic coastal Region was as follows (Rupprecht
Consult, 2006, p. 14–15):
• No ICZM strategy has been implemented formally in the five countries. Only first steps have
been taken. Spain has targeted the full implementation for 2008.
• Most strategy papers show clearly that the horizontal and vertical flow of information and
participation has been neglected in former policies.
• There is a gap between theory and practice in meeting the principles of good ICZM in the
countries’ strategies. Several countries give the principles as goals of their ICZM, but the
reports show that especially participation and communication have not been applied during
the development.
Spain belongs to a great extent to the Mediterranean Region so that the main findings for
this region will also be briefly touched (Rupprecht Consult, 2006, p. 14–15):
• The most pronounced common problem to the majority of the countries along the Mediterranean is the artificialization of the coast driven by an ever expanding tourism: urban
sprawling, building up of second homes, sealing of soils, etc. [. . . ]
• There is a multitude of laws, however, a consistent set of laws directing coastal governance
and management is usually lacking. The main legislative and policy frameworks governing
3 Status: Basics of ICZM
within Regional Seas, augmented stakeholder involvement and the desirable improvement
of monitoring by joint methodologies and long-term funding of local ICZM efforts.
According to the assessment of the ICZM efforts in the North Sea Region all bordering
Member States are equipped with a thorough toolkit of spatial planning methods. It was
stated that some principles were already in place and some could be improved such as the
application of adaptive management approaches. The main findings were summarized as
follows (excerpt from Rupprecht Consult, 2006, p. 12–13):
• One of the key obstacles to ICZM is the current strong legislative separation between land
and sea-based activities in many of the North Sea countries [. . . ]
• Regional Sea Partnerships of the key bodies such as National coastal forums could have
a role by facilitating stakeholder participation and dialog in any future system of marine
spatial planning.
• Address the problems of consistency, compatibility and accessibility of data collection and
storage methods, as well as agreements on cross-border sharing of information in Regional
Sea context.
• Develop a set of sustainability indicators that is regularly assessed on the basis of careful monitoring of the coastline and other information could provide the basis for a regular
national reporting system to the EU, based as far as possible on data which are simple to
collect.
• Use synergies between ICZM and the Water Framework Directive principles (e.g. public
participation as key to ICZM and a requirement to WFD and the use of existing coastal
observations).
Most Member States at the Atlantic have not already implemented an ICZM strategy. Also
a cross-border strategy for the entire Atlantic coastline was missing at that time. Rupprecht
Consult (2006) stated that some ICZM principles were recognized in national policies
and some not. The assessment for the Atlantic coastal Region was as follows (Rupprecht
Consult, 2006, p. 14–15):
• No ICZM strategy has been implemented formally in the five countries. Only first steps have
been taken. Spain has targeted the full implementation for 2008.
• Most strategy papers show clearly that the horizontal and vertical flow of information and
participation has been neglected in former policies.
• There is a gap between theory and practice in meeting the principles of good ICZM in the
countries’ strategies. Several countries give the principles as goals of their ICZM, but the
reports show that especially participation and communication have not been applied during
the development.
Spain belongs to a great extent to the Mediterranean Region so that the main findings for
this region will also be briefly touched (Rupprecht Consult, 2006, p. 14–15):
• The most pronounced common problem to the majority of the countries along the Mediterranean is the artificialization of the coast driven by an ever expanding tourism: urban
sprawling, building up of second homes, sealing of soils, etc. [. . . ]
• There is a multitude of laws, however, a consistent set of laws directing coastal governance
and management is usually lacking. The main legislative and policy frameworks governing