[Published in the Proceedings of the MED and Black Sea ICM 08 – Second International Conference /Workshop on the State-of-the-Art of ICZM in the Mediterranean & the Black Sea: Immediate Needs for Research, Education/Training & Implementation, 14-18, October, 2008, Akyaka, Turkey]

ICZM in Georgia -- from National to Regional Tamar Bakuradze (1) and Mamuka Gvilava (2) (1)

Secretary to Georgia ICZM Working Group Tel: +995-99-503289 E-mail: [email protected] (2) National ICZM Focal Point for Georgia Tel: +995-99-546616 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.ICZM.ge

Abstract More than a decade has passed since the First Med and Black Sea ICZM Conference where the Black Sea countries, including Georgia, presented their initial experiences and plans with ICZM development. This paper intends to report on national initiatives, achievements and constraints in implementing ICZM system in Georgia. In retrospect, the progress is analyzed with regard to the National ICZM Policies and Strategies document developed in 1997 within the framework and the support of the Black Sea Environment Programme. Key outputs and activities performed under the Georgia’s ICZM Program including the World Bank and GEF funded Georgia ICM Project, dealing with the legislative and institutions setup, coastal conservation, monitoring and planning, as well as the progress and experience with the development of the National ICZM Strategy within the EuropeAid supported project are presented. Overall, the national performance is measured on approximately the 5-year timescale using the ICZM Progress Indicator sets developed in the EU context, with the Black Sea ministerial meetings serving as key reporting milestones. Based on the lessons learned and experiences obtained certain recommendations are suggested which could be of interest for both the national and regional utility.

Introduction and Regional Prerequisites Georgia is signatory to the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution (Bucharest Convention, 21 April 1992) as well as the Odessa Declaration, a ministerial declaration on the protection of the Black Sea signed in April 1993, which recognised the need to elaborate and implement national coastal zone management policies, including legislative measures and economic instruments, in order to ensure the sustainable development of coastal areas. The origin of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Georgia can be traced back to 1993, when the first ICZM activities were initiated within the framework of regional Black Sea Environmental Programme (BSEP) - a joint GEF-funded initiative of UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank as requested by riparian countries and widely supported by EU as well. Further assistance to the ICZM process in the Black Sea region was provided by the EU TACIS and PHARE 1996 Black Sea project with series of training in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), environmental audit, public participation and ICZM methodology, again within the framework of BSEP. A practical milestone achieved early in the process by the Black Sea countries was the development and signing of the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan (BS-SAP, Istanbul, 31 October 1996). It is interesting to note, that within one month after BS-SAP signing ICZM experts from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea countries were gathered together by MEDCOAST in Sarigerme, Turkey, at the first joint meeting to share experiences and for the Black Sea countries to present initial intentions and plans for developing integrated management along their coasts. One of the authors of this paper participated in the first Mediterranean and Black Sea ICZM Workshop in Sarigerme, and in 12 years time and efforts of implementing ICZM at national, local and regional levels it seems prudent to critically evaluate the efforts and report back on the progress to the similar audience. The emphasis in the paper published 12 years ago was to channel ICZM implementation from regional to national and local levels (Gvilava and Chomakhidze, 1996). In this paper attempt is made to analyse the outcomes of the national implementation and based on this experiences suggest some recommendations to hopefully feed them back into the regional effort.

National Implementation In 1995 Georgia responded to the recommendations of the BSEP and initiated the National Integrated Coastal Zone Management Program. This was strongly influenced by the World Bank and GEF funded precursor of the Georgia ICM Project – a smaller ICZM component imbedded into the municipal infrastructure rehabilitation project (followed-up by the full-scale project, see second sub-section below). Georgia has further committed to implementing ICZM related BS-SAP actions and this was mandated by the Presidential Decree number 608 in 1998. A year earlier,

in 1997, with the methodological support of the BSEP, important guiding documents were prepared – the National ICZM Report (Dzneladze, 1996) as well as the National ICZM Policies and Strategies (ICZM P&S) for Georgia (Gvilava, 1997). National ICZM Policies and Strategies for Georgia The aim of the ICZM P&S document was to develop priority strategic actions for incorporation into the National BS-SAP (latter was never materialized in Georgia or other Black Sea countries), but more important role the document played was to guide national implementation and also provide benchmark against which progress can be measured in time. Format of this paper does not provide space for detailed elaborations, but it is indeed illustrative to analyse at least the faith of the priority actions provided in the form of the table in the Executive Summary section of the ICZM P&S for Georgia (see actions in Table 1 with indicated degree of implementation). Table 1: Evaluating 1997 National ICZM Policies & Strategies for Georgia (as of 2008.) ICZM action areas

Strategic ICZM and related actions - Include provisions for ICZM into National Black Sea Strategic Action Plan (NBS-SAP) and National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) - Presidential Decree establishing National ICZM Committee (MOE - lead ICZM agency)

Legal / institutional / management

- Setting-up local ICZM Consultative Committees - Establish operational ICZM Unit (under MOE) - Create preconditions for Integrated Management Programme of Rioni River Basin (coordinating unit based in Kutaisi) - Draft National ICZM Law - Approve legal boundaries of the national coastal zone -Training of central and local authorities in ICZM methodology and related subjects - Local ICZM pilot projects

Capacity building

- Establishment of ICZM monitoring and information system - Preparation and dissemination of triennial State of the National Coastal Zone Environment Reports - Conduct comprehensive study of coastal erosion problems and feasibility of cost-effective investments in coastal protection - Prepare priority environmental investment programmes for coastal municipalities

Sector and sitespecific actions

- Establish Kolkheti National Park and its administration, prepare management plan, provide basic infrastructure and initiate the implementation of management programmes - Establish beach and water quality monitoring system - Develop national oil-spill contingency plan

Financial

- Provide national financing for ICZM implementation - Attract donor financing for coastal environmental investments

Legend: implementation successful/full, satisfactory/partial, unsatisfactory/weak.

Georgia Integrated Coastal Management Project Regional BS-SAP provided serious incentive for donor funding and after two years of preparation Georgia Integrated Coastal Management Project (GICMP) was launched in 1999 and completed in 2006, with funding support by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the Government of Netherlands. GICMP provided practical means for the development and implementation of Georgia’s ICZM Program, as well as to aid in the accomplishment of the specific aspects of the regional BS-SAP. Implementation was structured as five project components, outcome of the ICZM component of which is briefly presented below. Considerations for ICZM legislative and institutional development below closely follow the Policy Note on ICZM (Halcrow, 2005). Existing legal and institutional structures for managing coastal development in an environmentally sustainable manner in Georgia were found to be fragmented. There used to be and still prevails the lack of transparency in the decision-making process, and confidence in the system is subdued. ICZM policy framework is essential in order to create the right conditions for sustainable development in the coastal area and to balance competing interests and claims. An effective ICZM framework would also encourage confidence in, and help to attract financial support from, national and international investors to Georgia’s coastal zone. The policy framework is founded on well established international principles for rational development in the coastal zone, incorporating the competing interests of many stakeholders for use of natural resources and attributes of this zone. To achieve ICZM, a policy framework will need to provide for: (i) a cohesive, cross-sectoral National Coastal Strategy; (ii) cross-sectoral Coastal Plans for Guria and Samegrelo Regions, and the Autonomous Republics of Achara and Apkhazeti; (iii) enabling legislation, and (iv) appropriate institutional arrangements to develop and implement these Plans. The Strategy was proposed to be based around a set of goals, objectives, and policies. Through these, a mutually supportive series of actions would serve to focus on improving the quality of life, livelihoods, development control and governance over use of coastal resources, for the benefit of coastal zone inhabitants and the nation. The Coastal Strategy would confront requirements for sustainable management and monitoring of natural resources and environment. For each of Achara, Apkhazeti, Guria and Samegrelo sections of the coast, an Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan would be developed. The Plan would identify those areas of the coastal zone within which certain forms of development may take place. The Plans would have due regard to the requirements of sound conservation and environmental sustainability. They would provide for delimitation of conservation areas, and management of these areas. (Legislation and institutional infrastructure already exists for managing the National Park in Kolkheti and Kobuleti Nature Reserve, developed under the Georgia Integrated Coastal Management Project component 2.) The four Coastal Plans are to be developed through cross-sectoral consultation, and allow for appropriate forms of development within various sectors including ports

and transport, tourism, agriculture, industry, and utilities. In developing the Plans, compromise and trade-offs need to be agreed between sector interests. The Plans would include a map or maps defining areas within which certain activities may be undertaken, supported by documentation on the types of development that are permissible within each area, as well as performance standards for each type of development. The Plans would also include a public works program for sound development. Five options for enhancing national legal basis for ICZM have been considered. Following stakeholder consultations two options were developed. These were a ‘Framework Law’, and a ‘Comprehensive Law’. While the comprehensive law model may theoretically provide a better opportunity for achieving ICZM, it is more complex and disruptive to introduce than a framework law. However, the two approaches are not mutually inconsistent, and can constitute successive stages in reform. It was recommended that Georgia should begin by introducing a Framework Law (Halcrow, 2005). This would create the necessary institutional structure for ICZM, and provide for effective coastal planning at national and regional level, while retaining the possibility of developing more comprehensive legislation in the future. A National Coastal Management Authority was proposed to oversee Strategy implementation, and development and implementation of the four regional Plans. The Authority would report to an inter-governmental National Coastal Commission. This structure should have reciprocal arrangements in Achara, Apkhazeti, Guria and Samegrelo, in each of which a Regional Coastal Consultative Councils, supported by Regional Coastal Agencies, would develop and implement Regional Coastal Plans.

MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

NATIONAL COASTAL STRATEGY

National Coastal Management Authority National Coastal Advisory Commission MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

REGIONAL COASTAL PLANS

Regional Coastal Management Authorities Achara, Guria, Samegrelo, Abkhazeti Regional Coastal Consultative Councils

LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENTS

DEVELOPMENT PERMITS LAND USE & PRIVATISATION

Fig. 1: Proposed Legislative and Institutional Structure for ICZM in Georgia.

The proposed framework model was developed into the draft ICZM law, which was structured and compiled into the following legislative topics: (i) definitions and mapping of the coastal zone; (ii) objectives and policy principles of integrated coastal zone management; (iii) national and regional coastal management authorities; (iv) planning via national coastal strategy and regional coastal plans; (v); mechanisms for implementation (vi) award schemes for improvements in public beach management and coastal environmental quality. (The draft ICZM law was, subsequently, re-worked into the Guidelines for ICZM and issued by the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources of Georgia as non-statutory document.) Described approach to institutional and legislative development of ICZM and geographic coverage of its application for Georgia are depicted on Figures 1 and 2. Other outputs of GICMP included thematically integrated set of components dealing with various aspects of coastal management, such as wetland conservation, beach and marine monitoring and spatial information systems, oil spill contingency planning and research in coastal erosion. The overall success of the project was prevented to fully materialize due to insufficient political will to impose necessary development controls, resulting in energy developments such as unplanned construction of major oil facility at Kulevi. Nevertheless, the establishment of coastal protected areas in Kolkheti were rated best in the project completion report by the World Bank (2007) as meeting the respective global environmental objective, quote ‘by and large, the project succeeded in the improvement of the protection and management of threatened forest and wetland natural habitats within the Kolkheti region and in integrating these protected areas into the broader objectives of development in the coastal zone’. EuropeAid ECBSea Project The EuropeAid funded project Environmental Collaboration for the Black Sea (ECBSea) and its ICZM component, initiated with stakeholder workshop in November 2007, provided bridging international support and strong impetus for reactivation of ICZM effort at the national level (Lucius et al., 2008). ECBSea project facilitated resumed functioning of the ICZM Working Group for Georgia, which has become instrumental in coordinating the interagency process of drafting the National ICZM Strategy for Georgia, making the best use of previously achieved results from regional and national activities. The draft ICZM Strategy contains an introduction to ICZM in Georgia and the region, refers to other supporting policies and legislation, outlines the major coastal issues the Strategy aims to address, comes up with a vision for Georgia’s coast and then lists the goals and objectives that will ultimately lead to realising this vision in the future and responding to corresponding coastal issues outlined. The document concludes with ICZM principles that support the objectives as well as some guidelines for monitoring and revision of the document. Strategy maps the coastal zone and its tiers, extent of which essentially conforms with those proposed in the draft ICZM legislation (Figure 2). Work on the Strategy was complemented by the ECBSea project funded pilot ICZM initiative in the coastal community of Tskhaltsminda along the Georgian province/region of Guria. The intention of the local ICZM pilot project was indeed to

verify overall assumptions about weakness in coastal management, conservation challenges and possible solutions discussed and included into the ICZM Strategy. The application of an integrated spatial planning methodology (developed earlier by the Regional ICZM Activity Centre under a previous EuropeAid project for the utility of the Black Sea region) served to visualise with the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) the assets, conflicts and potential solutions in the community.

Fig. 2: Illustrative map proposed for Georgia’s coastal zone.

Monitoring Progress Evaluating progress with complicated programs like ICZM is challenging task. ICZM Progress Indicators developed for the EU context (EU, 2002) has been applied to monitor progress with ICZM implementation in Georgia (see a sample page reproduced in the Appendix). The performance was measured on approximately 5-year timescale, with the Black Sea ministerial meetings serving as key reporting milestones. Every case of upgrading or downgrading the performance indicator level was indexed and footnoted with clear rationale for particular change in the colour coded rating. Stakeholders present at the ICZM Working Group meeting were involved in validating the indicator based progress ratings derived for Georgia.

Recommendations Based on the evaluation of experiences from more than a decade of ICZM efforts certain recommendations are suggested. These recommendations could be noteworthy taking into account that consultations for the adoption of new or updated strategies and action plans are forthcoming both at the national and regional levels. National - Complete interagency consultations and adopt the National ICZM Strategy. - Develop, agree and approve ICZM action plan and provide necessary resources to support the implementation of the provision of the National ICZM Strategy. - Adopt ICZM legislation and provide means and resources for implementation and enforcement. - Attract national and/or international resources and funding for development and implementation of regional ICZM plans. - Enhance application of ICZM tools such as EIA, GIS, pilot projects, beach and setback management, permitting. Regional - It is suggested to agree that certain key provisions for ICZM become binding for implementation by the Black Sea countries, including the development and enactment of national ICZM legislation and statutory approval of coastal zone boundaries. - Tiered approach is advised for ICZM implementation with emphasis on land-sea interface with gradual extension of coverage: shoreline - coastal zone - river basins. - Imbedding ICZM components into coastal investment projects on a mandatory (public sector) or voluntary (private sector) basis would provide sustainable source of funding and set adequate safeguards for integration of planning and development.

References Gvilava, M. and Chomakhidze, K. (1996), "ICZM in Georgia -- from Regional to Local", Proceedings of the International Workshop on MED & Black Sea ICZM, November 2-5, 1996, Sarigerme, Turkey (Editor Özhan, E.). Gvilava, M. (1997), GEF BSEP: "National ICZM Policies and Strategies – Georgia", Tbilisi, Georgia, 1997. (http://www.ICZM.ge) Dzneladze, M. (1996), GEF BSEP: "ICZM National Report – Georgia", Ministry of Environment, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1996. EU Working Group on Indicators and Data (2005), "Measuring Progress in the Implementation of ICZM – Guidance Notes for Completing the Progress Indicator", http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/pdf/iczm_guidance_notes.pdf. Halcrow (2005), GICMP Component 1: "ICZM Institutional Capacity Building in Georgia", Final Report, Halcrow Group Limited (UK), ICZM Centre, Tbilisi, Georgia, June, 2005. (http://www.ICZM.ge) Lucius, I., Bakuradze, T. and Gvilava, M. (2008), "ICZM in Georgia in light of Regional and European policies", accepted for publication in The Proceedings of 9th International Conference LITTORAL 2008, November 25-28, Venice, Italy. World Bank (2007), "Implementation Completion and Results Report for Georgia Integrated Coastal Management Project", Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Department, the World Bank, Report No. ICR0000443, August 31, 2007. (http://go.worldbank.org/IZCK8USA61)

Appendix

Fig. 3: Filled-in EU indicator set for measuring progress in the implementation of ICZM (excerpt, page 2 of 4).