25 September 2025 - As the Mediterranean is celebrating Coast Day, the future of the region is more challenging than ever: rising sea levels and coastal erosion are already affecting many shores, while communities and authorities must also deal with increasing extreme weather events, pollution and biodiversity loss. Yet one thing is clear: when people understand the risks and feel empowered to act, they become a powerful force for change.
“Only by working together can we protect the Mediterranean for the generations to come. We must keep dialogue open with businesses, universities, civil society, and the coastal communities themselves,” says Tatjana Hema, Coordinator of UNEP/MAP.
Coast Day is organised every year by the Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre (PAP/RAC) under the UNEP/MAP – Barcelona Convention. It is a moment of connection, learning, and action for everyone living and working in coastal areas. The 2025 theme: “Inspiring Impact: Mediterranean Institutions for Coastal Resilience”, highlights the urgent need for institutions and citizens to join forces to protect one of the world’s most vulnerable regions.
This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Barcelona Convention, the legal framework that has safeguarded the sea and coasts of the Mediterranean since 1975.
“The threats are real,” explains Hema. “In many parts of the Mediterranean, the sea level is rising by around 3 cm per decade, with huge consequences for tourism, fisheries, infrastructure, and heritage. Institutions are preparing with risk maps, nature-based solutions, and new planning tools. But without citizen involvement, adaptation will not succeed.”
Community engagement is at the heart of Mediterranean Coast Day. “Coast Day is not just another date on the calendar,” says Daria Povh Škugor, Director of PAP/RAC. “It is a spark that turns awareness into action. The challenges are too big for one actor alone. We need strong institutions working together with informed citizens.”
The main 2025 celebration takes place in Tunisia, one of the Mediterranean’s erosion hotspots, where coastlines are being redrawn and communities are feeling the impacts. Yet Tunisia’s national coastal agency (APAL) has taken bold steps in protection and regeneration, involving citizens not only as beneficiaries but as active partners. Working closely with the country’s 96 coastal municipalities, APAL has achieved progress from Bizerte to Djerba, through Sousse and Kerkennah.
“This exemplary mobilization of the institutions involved and their partners pays tribute to the remarkable work of all, in implementing concrete projects for the protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems and in promoting innovative policy actions for the benefit of coastal communities. We celebrate their achievements and explore practical solutions so that everyone who cares about the coast can support and amplify their efforts,” said Mr. Habib Abid, Minister of the Environment.
PAP/RAC has promoted this same collaborative spirit for nearly 50 years. From launching the first Coastal Area Management Programme (CAMP) in Kaštela Bay in 1989, to supporting coastal strategies in 21 countries, to developing the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), its mission has always been to connect people, policies, and the sea.
To mark this year’s Coast Day, PAP/RAC has also created an interactive storymap, bringing together testimonials from institutions and organisations that are making a difference across the Mediterranean, despite the diverse challenges they face.
“Coast Day raises visibility. It opens conversations. It gives a platform to those working in silence. It builds bridges between levels of governance, between science and storytelling, between policies and the people most affected by them,” adds Povh Škugor.
Every year, through the Coast Day campaign, PAP/RAC helps Mediterranean countries and communities see the bigger picture and their own role within it. Because when knowledge is shared, solutions multiply. And when institutions are trusted, citizens step forward. That is what inspiring impact looks like.
