Malta committed itself this week to no longer allow construction within 100 metres of the coast, by signing a new protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in the Mediterranean.

The protocol, part of the Barcelona Convention, includes a raft of measures and is the first time the issue of ICZM has been addressed in a legally binding international instrument.

Signatories of the protocol have bound themselves to establish a non-construction zone along the coastline of not less than 100 metres in width.

The thinking behind the measure, the protocol points out, is that human activities are the main threat to the Mediterranean’s coasts ? resulting in the degradation of coastal zones and the loss of biodiversity. Climate change, meanwhile, is expected to lead to a rise in sea levels.

The protocol was the cornerstone of this week’s 15th Conference of the Parties to the Barcelona Convention and was signed by Malta and 13 other Barcelona Convention countries.

The protocol stipulates that signatory countries, “Shall establish in coastal zones, as from the highest winter waterline, a zone where construction is not allowed. Taking into account, inter alia, the areas directly and negatively affected by climate change and natural risks, this zone may not be less than 100 metres in width.”

The provisions can be adapted in projects of “public interest” and “in areas with particular geographical or other local constraints ? especially related to population density or social needs, where individual housing, urbanisation or development are provided for by national legal instruments”.

The protocol, which 14 of 21 countries party to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean signed on to in Madrid this week, is the seventh and final of the set of legal instruments in the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean and its Protocols of the Barcelona Convention.

Commenting this week, Paul Mifsud, Coordinator of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Mediterranean Action Plan of UNEP, who also served as the conference’s secretary-general, observed, “This is a pioneering protocol and it constitutes an added value for the Barcelona Convention and the Mediterranean Action Plan. It is the first time that Integrated Coastal Zone Management is fully addressed by a legally-binding international instrument.”

The protocol provides for several other measures, including the establishment of a common framework for the integrated management of the Mediterranean coastal zone.

Contracting States must also “endeavour to ensure the sustainable use and management of coastal zones in order to preserve the coastal natural habitats, landscapes, natural resources and ecosystems, in compliance with international and regional legal instruments”.