BaltCoast

For first time in the Baltic Sea Region, Baltcoast:

• Integrated the needs for development with those for protection
• Included all types of coastal areas, e.g. areas of intensive tourism, urban expansion areas, infrastructure development areas etc.
• Equally included off-shore and land-side coastal areas
• Linked the project oriented approach with the process of statutory spatial planning in widening the participation to all public and private actors that could contribute

The project comprised 17 sub-projects implemented by 22 national, regional and local authorities plus two scientific institutes and one non-governmental organisation from seven BSR countries. Project activities implemented between 2002 and 2005 included:

Identifying and solving use conflicts in offshore areas in the BSR:

• Preparation of inventory of off-shore uses and conflicts in the BSR
• Elaboration of a transnational use strategy for offshore areas in the BSR

Identifying and solving use conflicts in specific coastal in land areas such as:

• Sensitive lagoon and wetland areas (especially solving conflicts between tourism and nature protection through the use of zoning by time and space),
• Urban areas (especially solving conflicts between urban expansion and nature protection by definition of combined strategies)

Implementation of existing regional programmes and concepts for using and protecting coastal zone areas:

• Discussion of different approaches and elucidation of similarities
• Elaboration of common recommendations for ICZM in the BSR leading to institutional and procedural changes in the participating countries.