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Enhancing coastal zone management in Montenegro

UNEP/GEF The MedProgramme

By IW:LEARN

March 9^th, 2023

The Mediterranean Sea needs collective and continuous actions to prevent its degradation resulting from a range of human activities. Despite progress in some coastal regions, some remain densely and increasingly populated, coupled with tourism activities. This creates a huge impact on vulnerable coastal and marine ecosystems and habitats, and threatens the quality and security of supply of critical resources such as coastal freshwater resources, food, and energy. This is compounded by the increasing negative impacts of climate variability and change, mostly felt by the most vulnerable and poor populations.

The GEF MedProgramme enhancing coastal management in Montenegro

The implementation of GEF-funded MedProgramme on Enhancing Environmental Security is a package of eight child projects.

Under child project 2.1 “Mediterranean Coastal Zones: Water Security, Climate Resilience and Habitat Protection”, three workshops were organized by two executing partners of MedProgramme -- PAP/RAC and Plan Blue/RAC. These workshops were conducted December 2021, July 2022, and January 2023 in Montenegro as a preparation for the development of a Coastal Management Plan for Boka Kotorska Bay in Montenegro. The country ratified the ICZM Protocol in 2012 and the development of the coastal management plan is part of implementing the ICZM protocol. The Coastal Management Plan for the Boka Kotorska Bay area mainstreams climate change adaptation identified as one of the priorities in Montenegro’s National ICZM Strategy.

The first workshop conducted in December acted as scoping which focused on establishing the priority sectors to be covered by the Coastal Management Plan while the second workshop in July focused on the diagnostic analysis on priority issues regarding the key priority sectors. Meanwhile the third workshop gathered stakeholders who discussed the initial set of measures provided by expert teams and further refined the sustainability indicators elaborated and proposed. The workshops were attended by representatives from national and local governments, relevant institutions, non-governmental organizations, and private entities.

Enhancing coastal zone management in Montenegro

Boka Kotorska Bay was selected due to its high vulnerability to flooding, droughts, forest fires, storms, heavy rains, and very high population density. The major goal of developing the Coastal Management Plan for Boka Kotorska Bay is two-fold: ensuring sustainable development and building climate resilience in the target area and laying the ground for collaborative and multi-stakeholder planning. As a strategic policy document, it is essentially beneficial as it lays out policies for managing many aspects of the coastal zones as well as land use planning. More so, it provides the basis for protecting, restoring, and preserving the coastal zones' important and diverse resources.

Boka kotorska bay. Photo: Boba Jovanovic on Unsplash

The preparation of the plan involves a five-stage ICZM process led by PAP/RAC and supported by a participatory Climagine methodology co-created by Plan Bleu RAC (PB/RAC) to support the ICZM process and climate action in a bottom-up manner. This provides regional lessons for coastal management and coastal climate change adaptation in the Mediterranean region. The preparation of the coastal management plan used a set of Climagine workshops with a strong focus on inclusive participatory approaches. The plan is expected to enhance the sustainable development and environmental protection of the Bay, in addition to representing an important step in Montenegro’s implementation of the ICZM Protocol.