Aegean Islands
CASE description
The Aegean Islands CASE will focus on the Cyclades Islands complex of Greece. The complex belongs to the Kyklades Prefecture and it is composed of 20 Municipalities and 11 Communes. It includes 39 islands from which 24 are not inhabited. The island area is 2572 km². The total population since the last census is 112,615 citizens. The population density is 43.8 inhabitants/km². The case study will focus on Naxos Island.
ICZM phase
Main coastal issues
- Fishery
- Tourism
- Transportation of goods and people
Relation between the coastal issues and the ICZM protocol principles and articles
Article 7: avoid compartmentalization of coastal zone management between agencies and organise an integrated plan. For example, recently a law was passed to define the specific coastal areas for aquaculture development when the national plan for coastal zone management is still under preparation by the Ministry of Environment and Climatic Change.
Article 8: the uncontrolled urbanization triggered by tourist development and the concentration of population in small areas is negative for the coastal environment (§8.1) and some actions to delimit areas should be taken (§8.3).
Article 9: all issues are direct economic activities and therefore their development needs to be balanced for benefits for BOTH the sectors and the environment (§9.1.a,b,f) while promoting best practice approaches (§9.2. all).
Article 10: Urbanisation and un-controlled tourist infrastructure building (temporary and permanent) may cause negative effects on specific ecosystems (for the CASE: §10.2, 10.4). The same applies also for article 11 about landscapes.
Article 12: as a whole since it refers to Islands
Article 14: limited basis since voluntary participation is non-existent.
Relevance of the coastal issues
Social: Most of the islands are fisheries-dependent throughout the year while tourism-dependent during summer (tourist period lasting 2 months on average) and major spring holidays (Easter). Therefore, these 2 issues are the major providers of job and income in these areas.
Political: From the point of view of central (also local) government the main objective for insular development is tourism and for this purpose all public goods are planned and constructed. Of course together with the tourist infrastructure, other sectors benefit too such as fisheries (for example harbours to protect vessels, increased transportation of fishery products to mainland for better prices, supplement income for professional fishermen/part time jobs in tourism).
Environmental: Environmental relevance has many aspects:
- reduction of marine resources
- un-controlled urbanization
- low quality management of sewage and wastes
- un-controlled seasonal increase of population
- un-controlled use of natural resources (mainly freshwater)
- traffic
Economical: All 3 issues have the most impact on job and income security for the local inhabitants. Other sectors of minor importance are agriculture, livestock and mining for building materials.
Objectives
- Planning options and guidelines
- Training on ICZM
- Conflicts mitigation among stakeholder groups
End Products
Contribution to national ICZM strategy and policies for the coastal areas
(with proposal for new institutional arrangements and designing of projects for fund raising)
PEGASO tools developed and used
Indicators - Basic Scenarios
Other tools to be applied
Socio-economic valuation
CASE Responsible
Alexis Conides, Institute of Marine Biological Resources, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Greece - email: akoni@tee.gr
Elaboration: Stefano Soriani, Fabrizia Buono, Monica Camuffo, Marco Tonino, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice.
