MPA Contracts

There is currently a strong need for a strategic and participatory approach to manage Mediterranean MPAs. Such an approach ensures transparency, the involvement of all relevant stakeholders and can help settle potential conflicts, hence leading to a greater chance in achieving biodiversity protection objectives.

Environmental Contracts have the potential to fulfil this need. In fact, they are a highly feasible and flexible tool to ensure effective coordination among institutions at all levels involved by integrating funding, planning tools and human resources, while at the same time limiting potential conflicts between preservation and economic issues.

Aim of the tool

The overall aim of the environmental (MPA) contract is to contribute to the achievement of the objectives of conservation of biodiversity in MPAs, by effectively addressing the important pressures and threats on coastal and marine ecosystems from human activities, and the rise in competing demands for the resources in these areas.

Main objectives

The objective of Environmental Contracts is to promote a comprehensive and integrated vision that openly considers all the possible objectives and finds solutions to make these objectives coexist, assuming environmental sustainability simultaneously as a priority objective and as an implementation strategy.

Technological infrastructure

No particular technological requirements are required to design and implement the Environmental Contracts in MPAs.

Training

Through the analysis and mapping of stakeholders, it is possible to define the specific training needs and build a capacity-building plan focused on the interests and possible roles and positions that the various subjects can/want to occupy in the management and governance system of the MPA.

Investment

Although European Programmes can act as a starter for such governance processes, an administrative system capable of guaranteeing an ongoing and funded basis to those processes should be built. It is recommended that in the preparation phase of an Environmental Contract, the human and financial resource capabilities of the promoter and the other subjects involved

to both manage the governance process and implement the Action Plan are assessed, as well as the relationships with local and institutional stakeholders.

It is essential that stakeholders are involved in order to obtain a clear and complete picture of the available economic resources, the financing possibilities and the conditions within which these can be activated under the Contract.

Concept

An Environmental Contract should be based on a participative, inclusive governance process engaging all stakeholders with a legitimate interest in the protection and sustainable development of the target area. Moreover, it should be based on a structured and integrated analysis that can be shared and updatable, the state of the target area and the connected risks/opportunities. It should put in place a comprehensive and integrated strategy that deals with the resolution of problems in a balanced, ordered and positive manner, with the aim to achieve sustainable development. For this purpose, a clear set of quantifiable measures and actions should be put in place to measure the progress of the strategy towards the achievement of specific objectives, and to monitor the changing nature and influences of internal and external forces that act upon the target area.

The detailed stages of preparation and implementation of an environmental contract, including a report of the main issues emerged during the pilot implementation, and a summary of lessons learned and recommendations, are included in the document “Environmental Contracts in Marine Protected Areas: Methodology and pilot cases from TUNE UP “.

Pilot areas

10 MPA contracts were implemented in Albania, France, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, corresponding to six ecoregions (Alboran Sea, Levantine Sea, Gulf of Lion, Adriatic Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea and Ionian Sea). Each pilot case was characterised by the exposure of marine biodiversity to a peculiar set of concurrent pressures, as well as by different MPA institutional frameworks, comprising a variety of planning and regulatory tools, which at times interfere or or even conflict with each other.

Implementation Dates

The Environmental Contract is an input-output process articulated along 2 phases:

1. Preparatory stage: Definition of the area, determination of the governance structure, drafting of the context analysis and of the participatory strategy with a Memorandum of Understanding.
2. Development stage: Creation of three scenarios (Trend, Oriented, Preferred), upon which the formal agreement and the final Action Plan will be built.

It is recommended that the timeframe of the process should be planned according to the local context specificities.

It may be difficult to embed the Environmental Contract into national regulations due to the novelty of the tool in almost all pilot countries (France and Italy excluded). However, public bodies responsible for the management of MPAs should be fully involved, so that the governance process is not weakened.

The presence of multiple actors and the overlap of plans and programs in MPAs requires an adaptive governance approach, one that is based on continuous supervision and reorientation carried out by the managing board.

Other challenges include the difficulty in transmitting the potential of the process and the expected results, the risk that local stakeholders are already heavily involved in other recent, or in progress, participatory initiatives and the costs of participation, in particular for private actors. These challenges may be overcome however by ensuring an accurate preliminary analysis of participatory experiences and local initiatives already developed in the target area in order to identify any pre-existing conflicts between stakeholders.

Quantitative results

It is expected that Environmental Contracts will streamline and improve the management efficiency and effectiveness of Mediterranean MPAs, thus contributing to achieving their biodiversity conservation objectives.

Key deliverables

Formal agreement, subscribed by key stakeholders, including an Action and Implementation Plan.

Transfer potential

Pilot sites provided an opportunity to test the applicability of the tool and the process in the European Mediterranean region and make the necessary adjustments to best fit the legal framework and specific contexts for each MPA.

It is important to keep in mind that every pilot is different and the way the process should be managed will differ in each case.

• The MPA Contract stems from previous experiences of river contracts which are voluntary commitments undertaken by various public and private entities in various capacities interested in environmental restoration and the socio-economic regeneration of water systems. It is a flexible, open and continuously updated tool, adaptable to transformations and changes in social and economic conditions and policies.

• The Environmental Contract is a process for creating synergies and integrating actors, it is not a new planning tool. The Contract allows horizontal and vertical subsidiarity, providing it is flexible, adaptable and based on an inclusive participatory and negotiated decision-making process. Although voluntary, it is binding in terms of liability, financing and timing, and takes place among both private and public actors (public-private partnership).