Promoting the co-evolution of human activities and natural systems for the development of sustainable coastal and maritime tourism
CO-EVOLVE aims at analyzing and promoting the co-evolution of human activities and natural systems in touristic coastal areas, allowing sustainable development of touristic activities based on the principles of ICZM/MSP. CO-EVOLVE couples a presently unavailable analysis at MED scale of threats and enabling factors for sustainable tourism with local studies on representative Pilot Areas, to demonstrate through pilot actions the feasibility and effectiveness of a ICZM/MSP-based planning process. The coherence and cross-fertilization between the two analysis should produce wide and long-lasting results. On one side, they will promote the development of policies and increase the coordination of strategies between territories at interregional and transnational level, addressing the sound use of national and EU funds. On the other end, they will produce concrete actions affecting the life of coastal communities living on tourism, promoting robust and transparent decision-making processes. Such actions will be systemic, ecosystem-based and dynamic, taking into account future scenarios of natural (i.e. climate change) and anthropogenic changes. This dynamic concept and perspective is the trademark of CO-EVOLVE. CO-EVOLVE recognizes as a key challenge for sustainable coastal and maritime tourism development the strengthening of cooperation among regions and the joint development and transferring of approaches, tools, guidelines and best practices.