At the invitation of the Permanent Secretariat of the Black Sea Commission (BSC), PAP/RAC participated at the 22nd meeting of the Advisory Group (AG) on the Development of Common Methodologies for ICZM (ICZM AG) that took place in Istanbul, Turkey, on 19-20 April 2018. The invitation was based on the previous collaboration between the BSC and PAP/RAC, in particular on the projects such as the PlanCoast and Pegaso, as well as on the MoU between UNEP/MAP and BSC signed at the 19th COP of the Barcelona Convention.
The cooperation between the two conventions (i.e. the ICZM Advisory Group and PAP/RAC) has a long history. It started in the early 90’s with the focus on activities and technical support to be provided to the riparian countries with regard to coastal zone management.
The major “footprint” in the Black Sea region was made by the Pegaso FP7 EU project. In its follow-up, the project succeeded to prepare and adopt the Guidelines for ICZM for the Black Sea Convention based on the ICZM Protocol for the Mediterranean and, based on the experience with the stock-taking exercise for reporting on the implementation of the ICZM Protocol (today, the official Reporting format in the Mediterranean), the countries of the Black Sea adopted the stocktaking format for the reporting on the implementation of the ICZM Guidelines.
The BSC is currently developing its Black Sea IMAP (BSIMAP 2017-2022), which was the main item of the meeting agenda in Istanbul, in addition to the reporting on the progress with the ICZM-related Guidelines based on the list of ICZM indicators; cooperation with various organisations; and priorities for future work of the AG. The participants expressed their great satisfaction with participation of the PAP/RAC representative at their meeting and raised hopes for more frequent exchanges and more joint activities in the future.
