Assessing sustainability and strengthening operational policy

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Background: The increasing intensity of human activities along our coastline (viz. the development of ports and harbours, coastal protection, land reclamation, tourism and sand/gravel extraction) has a severe impact on coastal communities and natural habitats. The EC has adopted a renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy. It aims at bringing about a high level of environmental protection, social equity and cohesion, economic prosperity and active promotion of sustainable development worldwide. There are multiple inter-linkages between the key challenges: for example between the use of renewable energy and climate change. Objectives: The key objective of SUSTAIN is to have in place, at the end of three years, a fully implementable policy tool, applicable for all 22 coastal states of the EU, which will ensure that the integrated management of coastal issues will be sustainable. This entails the agreement within the project, of a set of criteria which are readily measurable and which cover both the threats of an unsustainable development and the opportunities provided by a sustainable future which faces all coastal authorities and communities throughout Europe. Partnership: 12 partners including 8 Authorities (4 regional & 4 local). These are Pan European covering the N. Atlantic Seaboard (4), the S Atlantic Seaboard (2), The Mediterranean (5) and the Baltic (1). There are partners from 2 new Member States. Main activities: 6 workshops, 6 interregional-exchange visits & a final international event. There will be 6 management & 6 steering committee meetings (including the kick-off meeting) held back-to-back with workshops or visits to improve value for money. 6 tele-conferences. 12 final national events. Expected outputs: minutes of all the meetings and tele-conferences, 6 progress reports, 6 financial reports, press releases, a series of web-based podcasts, newsletters, a 9 language website, poster, flyer, Final Brochure, a series of website-based pod-casts for a more direct transfer of experience to interested parties.Dissemination pack. 1 guide for sustainability improvement, 1 guide for authorities, 1 report on exchange of experience and one report on sustainability criteria and their assessment (all four in national languages). The expected results are:- 1. A well run project 2. Informed local/regional authorities, relevant stakeholders and general public, 3. A coherent, sustainable policy driven management tool 4. Partners with increased sustainability through exchange of experience 5. A set of criteria agreed and implementable at local and regional partner authority level 7. Contribution to the implementation of the renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy and related policies e.g. ICZM, Water Framework Directive (WFD), Maritime Policy and others at local/regional level.

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