Evaluation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in ...

Evaluation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Europe – Final Report
6 Conclusions & Recommendations
The ICZM Evaluation in Europe was carried out by an independent
Evaluation Team between January and August 2006. Following the
analyses of national ICZM reports and strategies, submitted by
coastal Member States in response to the EU ICZM Recommendation,
in addition to a wide range of complementary information and
data and intensive consultations with coastal stakeholders, the
Evaluation exercise resulted in the formulation of four strategic and
cross-cutting recommendations and five operational recommendations
with a total of nineteen recommended actions.
Nine
recommendations
and nineteen
actions
ICZM Evaluation Recommendations and Actions
The EU “ICZM Recommendation 2002/413/EC” has initiated a
rethinking in most coastal Member States on how to face and solve
problems in their coastal zones. The stocktaking processes undertaken
by some of the countries have clearly brought up the main
concerns and many of the neglected tasks cumulated during the last
years. Further it stressed that these issues are not solvable with the
existing instruments in a successful way.
Integrated approaches to manage the interests in the coastal zone
have been scarcely implemented and were not strategically employed,
except on a case study basis. Nevertheless the few examples
of implemented ICZM projects analysed in the report on the Assessment
of Socio-Economic Costs & Benefits of ICZM have shown, that
"more coherent spatial planning", "improved decision making" and
"better partner understanding" are major advantages in areas within
ICZM and thus improve the acceptance and sustainable success of
management measures taken at the coast.
The evaluation of the countries' reports on their progress of ICZM
implementation has shown that due to particular historic contexts of
EU countries in their planning procedures and processes, there exists
a wide range of different measures how to deal with the coastal zone.
This implies that more streamlined strategic progress towards a real
holistic and participatory management approach in the coastal zone
will take time.
A discussion is ongoing among many ICZM stakeholders in Europe,
whether an “ICZM Directive” should be proposed. Even if there is a
strong demand for a regulatory approach in some countries (and
possible this may have to be followed in the long-term), this evaluation
concludes that the potentials of the current EU ICZM Recommendation
are not yet fully exploited, and that an incentive-based
approach will be more effective on the European level.
It is clear however that the EU ICZM Recommendation has initiated a
non-reversible process that can lead to an integrated coastal
management in most of the Member States, provided that EU support
will be continued, strengthened and focussed. Thus, for the success
of a European-wide implementation of ICZM, the EU will play a
central and important role, especially to provide guidance and
standards in following the general goals of a sustainable development
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