CAMP "Levante de Almeria" (Spain)

Background

The Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention, and the Spanish regional and national authorities agreed at their Ordinary Meeting (Catania, November 2003) to initiate the Feasibility Study (FS) for a CAMP project in the South East coast of Spain.The Regional Ministry of Environment (RMoE) of Andalusia, the Spanish Ministry of Environment (MoE) and the MAP-PAP/RAC started the FS of the CAMP Levante de Almeria in March 2005 and presented its results at the 14th Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parts in November 2005.

Project area

The CAMP Levante de Almeria project area covers over 219,000 hectares of the South Eastern area of the Almeria Province, in Southern Spain. Of that total, 71,000 hectares correspond to the marine area, and 148,122 hectares is terrestrial, which includes the following eight municipalities: Pulpí, Cuevas de Almanzora, Vera, Garrucha, Mojácar, Carboneras, Níjar and Almeria. The limits of the CAMP Levante de Almeria action area will be considered as flexible, considering the convenience of including some adjoining non-coastal municipalities in the resolution of certain issues that influence some aspects of the management of the coastal area (i.e. management of the river basins, pollution, fishing or the urban planning and economic dynamics).

Figure 1: CAMP Levante de Almeria Project Area

The FS revealed the weakness of the co-ordination mechanisms between the different policies affecting the coastal resources, the lack of effective social participation in the coastal-related decision-making processes, and the difficulty of implementing a sustainable management of the coastal areas due to the spreading of the administrative responsibilities. Through the participatory workshops carried out during the FS, the CAMP Levante de Almeria has been conceived as a demonstrative experience to create and put in practice an organisational structural and procedures to articulate co-ordination mechanisms between the different administrations as well as to promote the social participation in coastal area related decision making. All this to the end of achieving a true integration of the sustainability principles in the set of sectorial actions.

Objectives

The objectives put forward for the “CAMP Levante de Almeria”, as presented in the Project Feasibility Study and formulated on the basis of the diagnosis and within the framework of objectives and criteria for the CAMP projects, are as follows:

 

• To enhance the co-ordination mechanisms between the different government bodies and the area’s social and economic actors for the compatibility and integrability of the policies implemented and the actions carried out.
• To assure administrative co-ordination as the main instrument to guarantee a real integration of environmental policy and the rest of sectorial activities.
• To increase public awareness and participation in the policies and activities aimed at the conservation and the sustainable use of resources.
• To improve the training and capacity building of the area’s management teams, the different economic sectors and the local populations to achieve the project’s objectives and enable the launch of other initiatives related to conservation and sustainability.
• To enhance the sustainability and compatibility with the conservation of the natural environment of the area’s main economic sectors (agriculture, tourism and urban development).
• To make a contribution to the conservation and management of the natural and cultural resources.

 

Project activities

A) The horizontal activities
1. Institutional co-ordination and social participation framework: its main task is to provide the contents to an inter-administrative co-ordination structure to join together the different sectorial policies, assuring the social participation in the decision making processes. To this end it is envisaged the introduction of an organisational structure, that will be headed by the Levante de Almeria Coastal Commission, able to establish at the highest institutional degree agreements of collaboration to undertake the proposed initiatives in an integrated way. The Coastal Commission will also promote the creation of the Coastal Council (socio-economic agents), and the Coastal Forum (participatory forum open to the society).

2. Environmental information and Education. The promotion of social participation in coastal related decision-making is one of the key objectives of the CAMP Levante de Almeria. This work line is considered of high importance for the promotion of coastal environments and sustainability social awareness, and the dissemination of the project findings.

The activities proposed are related to public communication (brochures, seminars, marketing, etc), creation and update of a project webpage, and creation of an easy-access GIS of the project area that gathers all kinds of data (documentation, charts and maps, statistics, indicators, images, etc) facilitated by the stake holders. Other activities of environmental education focused to rising awareness among the society will be carried out (i.e. sustainable practices, promotion of sustainability and active participation in urban planning, beach and sea users environmental awareness campaigns, dissemination of the cultural and landscape heritage values, etc).

3. Training and capacity building The FS points out the lack of professional skills, especially among the administrations technical staff, focussed to the specific needs integrated coastal area management (i.e. too much specialisation and uniformity in sectorial aspects of the organisations; lack in integrated management social abilities such as negotiation techniques, conflict solving, co-ordination and co-operation mechanisms, social participation and communication techniques, etc; lack of general knowledge of the coastal environments to complement each sectorial activity and favour the comprehension of the other activities).

B) The Singular Projects
These are conceived to facilitate the participatory processes and decision making over the whole structure of co-ordination and participation of the project. The singular projects will have the following characteristics: a clear diagnosis, proposal of alternatives, easy understanding, prospective nature, etc.

The Singular Projects are conceived as flexible tools, to make a diagnosis and propose possible solutions over specific issues affecting the Levante de Almeria area (i.e. water resources, waste, sustainable tourism, fishing, etc). The singular projects can contribute also to the elaboration or evaluation of an initiative (i.e. SPAMI Management Plan, Evaluation of the acquisition of land for the protection of the coastal environment, etc) proposed by any of the administrations, to be discussed inside the organisational structure of the institutional co-ordination and social participation framework.

C) Project co-ordination, integration and dissemination of results
For the harmonious running of the of the CAMP Levante de Almeria the direction of the project will be represented by the Steering Committee, composed of members of the RMoE of Andalusia, the Spanish MoE and MAP-PAP/RAC. This body will nominate a CAMP Levante de Almeria project General Co-ordinator and Technical Co-ordination Office.

The institutions responsible for the promotion of the CAMP Levante de Almeria are the Spanish MoE, the RMoE of the Regional Government of Andalusia, and the MAP-PAP/RAC.

Figure 2: Organisation structure of the project and Institutional Co-ordination for the area

There are a large number of participants to be involved in the project (although most of these participants have already been taking part of the project all throughout the FS phase): at the national level, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, The General Directorate of the Merchant Marine and the public entity responsible for the strategic co-ordination of the Spanish port system; at the regional level, the Regional Ministries of Agriculture and Fishing, of Public Works and Transport, of Tourism and Sports, and of Culture; and at the local level, the project will integrate all the eight municipalities within the project area.

The CAMP Levante de Almeria will also reach a significant part of the general population through the participatory processes, the training and communication activities, and through the project webpage. The results expected from the CAMP Levante de Almeria will be a valuable experience for the creation of similar organisational structures nation-wide, promoting this way a true implementation of the ICAM.

Timetable

 

Currently, the Agreement is being finalised by the Spanish authorities and it is expected that the signing ceremony of this project will take place before the end of 2007.

Publications/Documents