Information & Meetings
	What's new in the website
	Conferences & Events
	New Coastal Publications

Organisations
	New hyperlinks to websites

Environment
	Study points finger at unsustainable aquaculture practices
	International NGO initiative launched to halt global warming

Development & Trends
	HELCOM confirmed role of Estonia and EUCC in ICM promotion
	Ship certificates vary in quality
	The Energy Globe Award 2001 call for submissions

Policy
	EU Coastal Strategy expected soon
	Agreement on international rules bring seabed mining closer

What's new in the website

Dunes of Texel and Amsterdam Waterworks (NL), and Westhoek (B)

Complete dossiers on the field management of the Dunes of Texel (a Dutch Wadden island), the Amsterdam Waterworks Dunes (Dutch mainland coast) and the Westhoek Dunes (the largest Flemish dune complex) are now available in the Coastal Guide on Dune Management. They provide an overview of the area and their landscape (with maps), natural values, geology and genesis, management, tourism and 
recreation, mobility, education and information. The dossier of the Amsterdam Waterworks Dunes also discusses drinking water supply and forest management. As the Dunes of Texel have recently been designated National Park (in formation) there is much attention to the consequences thereof. The dossiers and maps have been compiled by Ms. Laura van Schagen at the EUCC Inernational Secretariat.
 

Events recently announded

Please note:
The overview of the Coastal Guide conference and event  meeting list can be found at http://www.coastalguide.org/meetings/
 

New Coastal Publications
 

Coastal & Marine Slide Compilation (CD-ROM), Volume 1 Richard C. Daniels, Editor, 2000, Coastal & Marine Specialty Group (COMA), Association of American Geographers (AAG), 1710 Sixteenth Street NW Washington, DC 20009-3198 USA, http://aag_coma_cd.homestead.com. Price (US $ 9.00). This CD-ROM contains a compilation of slides and photographs depicting a wide range of coastal and marine environments. It contains over 200 digital images assembled into nine individual slide sets and associated documentation files.

Tourism and spatial transformations: implications for policy and planning Ed. by: G.J. Ashworth and A.G.J. Dietvorst. (1995, 368 pp.) CABI Publishing, UK Fax +44 1491 829292,  e-mail: publishing@cabi.org, website:     http://www.cabi.org/Bookshop/index.asp#booksanchor. ISBN 0 85198 981 0.   Price: UK£49.95  (US$90.00)  While there is a considerable amount of literature on recreation and tourism as activities, there is little that provides a comprehensive review and analysis of intervention or planning in this sector. Tourism and recreation include a wide variety of activities occurring within a wide range of environments and spatial scales. The purpose of this book is to examine this transformation of space and draw out the implications for tourism policy and planning. The book offers a general model of transformation as a guide to intervention; this is followed by 18 chapters divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the producers and includes case studies from the Spanish coast, French mountains and northern Thailand. The second part considers the management of the tourism product, with examples from the Amsterdam Waterfront Development and holiday villages in northern Europe. The third section is concerned with consumers as managers of the transformation process, drawing on information from nature-based tourism, sports tourism and festival events. The final part provides a more holistic model of the planning of recreation and tourism.

Sustainable tourism? European experiences Ed. by G.K. Priestley, J. Arwel Edwards and H. Coccossis. (1996, 212pp.) CABI Publishing, UK Fax +44 1491 829292,  e-mail: publishing@cabi.org http://www.cabi.org/Bookshop/index.asp#booksanchor ISBN 0 85199 100 9. Although widely advocated, sustainable tourism is subject to wide interpretation – from environmentally friendly forms of tourism to maintaining the economic viability of tourist activity in a specific place. This book explores various views on sustainable tourism and demonstrates its complexity and diversity, in order to clarify the issues in operational terms. It addresses questions such as: can tourist activity be sustainable economically; can tourism lead to sustainability from an environmental perspective; what is the role of tourism as a sustainable development strategy? This book consists of a series of European case studies from the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. These case studies cover three main themes: recreation and tourism in natural and rural areas; coastal tourism; islands. The book represents a valuable text on the field of tourism, as well as related disciplines such as geography, economics, environmental management and planning. It will be useful for practitioners in tourism management and local and regional planning and development.

How Much Nature Will Remain On Our Coasts? Coastal and Marine Tourism, German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Konstantinstrasse 110, D - 53179 Bonn, Germany. Fax +49 228 8491200 (1996, 15 pp.). Coastal areas world-wide are subject to intense development pressure that the growth and location of urban centres have brought in its tow. Tourism aggravates this process. The potential for conflict between international tourism development and the need to protect biological diversity continues to grow, especially in coastal areas. The brochure (also available in German) shows that sustainable use of natural resources, in the tourism industry too, is the only viable perspective for the future.

New hyperlinks to websites

CERU Coastal & Estuarine Research Unit
Research and consultancy expertise (Department of Geography at University College London)

Coastal Engineering Page
Hosted by the Center for Applied Coastal Research of the University of Delaware

Earth Times
Web newspaper on the human environment and related economic, humanitarian and social issues

Eco-Guide International
A non-profit organisation developing and carrying out nature-conservation-projects with eco-partners and the local population. 

Environmental aspects of the offshore oil and gas development
Information on the impact of the offshore oil and gas industry on the ocean 
environment and living resources

EWA European Water Association (former EWPCA European Water Pollution Control Association)
A non-profit making European association promoting the advancement of water technology and dialogue with the European Commission, provides a forum for discussion of key technical and policy issues
 

Check out the other Website Links on the Coastal Guide
 

Study points finger at unsustainable aquaculture practices

The article "Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies" by Rosamond L. Naylor published in the journal “Nature” revealed that if not properly managed, fish farming is more of an environmental troublemaker than a saviour. The paper is the combined effort of ten authors, ecologists, economists, fisheries and aquaculture specialists who were approached to evaluate whether farm-raised fish add to the global food supply, as intended, or contribute to the depletion of fish populations world-wide. The team concluded that in some cases aquaculture did more harm than good. One of the aspects causing great concern is the fact that it takes around three pounds of wild caught fish to grow one pound of shrimp or salmon. Other problems are that fish farming also harms the environment by converting wetlands into artificial farms, and by the escape of farmed species that can interbreed with wild stocks and pass on weak or specially inbred genes. Among the recommendations for making fish farming more sustainable world-wide, are:

• promote the farming of largely vegetarian fish as catfish, tilapia or of filter feeders like scallops, mussels and oysters,
• switch the feed of farmed fish from fishmeal to plant and terrestrial animal proteins,
• promote ecologically sound management of aquaculture by mandating the treatment of waste water, enforcing strict health and other biosafety measures and restricting the placement of farm ponds in mangroves and other coastal wetlands.

International NGO initiative launched to halt global warming

As the days count down to November's crucial climate summit in The Hague, a coalition of 16 major environmental organizations today launched the first international web-based initiative to give citizens around the world a voice in demanding a halt to global warming. The website http://climatevoice.org aims to send 10 million messages from the public to world political leaders demanding that they use the November summit - officially the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - to reduce the pollution that causes global warming. Governments must meet their deadline for finalising rules for operating the Kyoto climate treaty requiring industrialised countries to reduce their emissions of global warming gases 5 per cent below the level of 1990 by around 2010. Failing to agree at the climate summit would set the worst possible example for stopping global warming in the 21st century. In 1990, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its first scientific report on rising levels of global warming gases and their implications for the future. Though impacts characteristic of global warming have since become increasingly evident on every continent and in most nations, governments have failed to act to turn down the heat.
 

HELCOM confirmed role of Estonia and EUCC in ICM promotion

Heads of Delegation of the Baltic Marine Environmental Protection Commission (HELCOM) met in Hamburg on August 22 and confirmed all decisions taken by the newly convened Nature Conservation and Coastal Zone Management Group in May this year (see Coastal Guide News No. 11). The nine Baltic Sea States thereby agreed that Estonia would take the lead and the European Union for Coastal Conservation (EUCC) would assist and co-operate in promoting integrated coastal zone management in the Baltic Sea Area. HELCOM HABITAT is the approved abbreviation of the new working group “Nature Conservation and Coastal Zone Management”. In May, HELCOM HABITAT accepted with appreciation the offer by Estonia to initially take the lead role in the development of ICZM in the region and by EUCC to provide additional expertise. It furthermore invited both partners to produce a "state of the art" report on ICZM in the Baltic region including a list of current projects underway. The Heads of Delegation encouraged Estonia and EUCC to apply for funding at international financing institutions such as the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank. With this official support by HELCOM, the partners hope to succeed.
For further information, please contact Albert Salman, EUCC International Secretariat, tel.: +31-71-5122900, e-mail: salman@eucc.nl. Mr Harry Liiv, Ministry for Environment of Estonia, tel.: +372-6262850, e-mail: harry.liiv@ekm.envir.ee

Ship certificates vary in quality

Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a Norwegian independent foundation providing safety and reliability services, commissioned a survey about the detention rates of substandard ships. The results revealed significant differences between the main societies that grant safety certificates. DNV came out top with a detention rate of near to three per cent. Second was the Japanese NK, third the German Germanischer Lloyd, both at four per cent. Lloyd's Register in the UK was fourth with five per cent, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) follows at six per cent. The French Bureau Veritas was left last from the six big societies which certify 90 per cent of world ships, with a detention rate of eight percent. The survey is based on all detentions published by the Paris MOU on port state control, the Tokyo MOU and the US Coast Guard, the three main international port state control bodies. Leaving suspicion aside about the fact that the contractor of the study scored best, the survey shows the differences between certificates thus indicating an increasing threat to the environment as aging ships continue sailing under questionable certificates.
The results of the survey were published by the Financial Times of August 17. For more information about DNV, visit their homepage at http://www.dnv.com.

The Energy Globe Award 2001 call for submissions

The Upper Austrian focal point for energy issues, “O.Ö.Energiesparverband”, calls for submissions for the Energy Globe Award 2001, an international prize for sustainable energy solutions. Deadline is 20 October 2000. For more information, contact Christiane Egger: Tel: +43-732-6584-4382, Fax: +43-732-6584-4383, or visit the website at http://www.esv.or.at/energyglobe.

EU Coastal Strategy expected soon

The preparations of the EU Coastal Strategy - based upon the results of the EU Demonstration Programme on ICZM (1996-99)- are still progressing and the Commission's decision is now expected by the end of September. An important contribution to the preparations has been the Opinion of the Committee of the Regions (COR) on the Commission's discussion paper "Towards a European Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Strategy". Last April, the COR had expressed support to the development of an EU Strategy and emphasised that local and regional authorities are best equipped to deal with implementation of ICZM policies. Other recommendations of the COR include:

• assessment or audit of all policies to ensure that they will not have negative impact on the coastal zone
• appropriate mainstreaming of ICZM principles and strategies into all EU policies
• establishment of a support programme in order to facilitate the development of co-operating regions and networks.

Agreement on international rules bring seabed mining closer

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) adopted rules on international seabed mining. The mining code governs the prospecting and exploitation of polymetallic nodules lying outside the 200-mile economic zone of any country. The regulations are the first segment of mining code that will eventually govern exploration for and exploitation of all seabed minerals, clearing the way for mining contracts for European and Asian consortia (the US Senate so far has not approved the treaty). Preservation and protection of the marine environment was one of the biggest issues in the negotiations. Under the code, the authority is obliged to establish environmental rules, regulations, and procedures, while each contractor must “prevent, contain and minimise any (…)serious harm to the marine environment." This guarantee is not required until the contractor is about to begin testing equipment and systems, rather than at the time of application for a contract. Environmental issues were those, which nearly torpedoed the negotiations and several compromises were made in order to ensure the acceptance of the new mining code. Before exploration will start on large scale, however, new technology will need to be developed. For more information read the full press release at 
http://www.isa.org.jm/en/documents/press/press_2000/sixth_second/sb_6_29.pdf.
 

Deadline for submitting contributions to Coastal Guide News No 18:
6 September,  2000

COASTAL GUIDE NEWS is a biweekly newsletter published by the European Union for Coastal Conservation (EUCC) with financial support of Stichting DOEN, the foundation of the Dutch lottery "Postcode Loterij" and the Department of International Nature Affairs of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries. For free subscriptions, comments or contributions to this newsletter, please contact news@coastalguide.org. 

Members of the Coastal Guide News editorial team: Erik Devilee, Levente Galambosi, Irene Lucius, Hanneke Mesters, René van Oers, and Albert Salman. 
 

Established in 1989, the European Union for Coastal Conservation (EUCC) is an association involving the largest coastal network in Europe with 750 members and member organisations in 40 countries. Coastal Guide News subscribers are encouraged to join the EUCC as a member. For more information please contact EUCC International Secretariat, POB 11232, NL-2301 EE Leiden, the Netherlands, tel.: +31-71-5122900, Internet: http://www.eucc.nl
 

© European Union for Coastal Conservation