SUSTAINABLE TOURISM STRATEGIES TO CONSERVE AND VALORISE THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTAL AND MARITIME NATURAL HERITAGE
INHERIT is an integrated project with 15 partners from all 10 MED countries aiming to conserve and valorise natural heritage in MED coastal and maritime tourist destinations. The project will test and deploy a new approach adapted to MED specificities protecting natural heritage from the adverse effects of intensive tourism. INHERIT will promote sustainable tourism alleviating seasonality and tackling the surpassing of the hosting capacity, by designing and implementing a “bottom-up” protection approach relying on self-regulation and monitoring by local society and tourism stakeholders.

The INHERIT protection approach will involve all the key stakeholders (at MED, national, regional and local level) in its studying, testing and capitalisation activities, to deliver:
- A MED-wide policy strategy and protection measures addressing the negative effects of intensive tourism flows.
- MED INHERITURA sites, i.e. designated areas in which human activities coexist with substantial natural heritage, subscribing to the INHERIT protection approach and acting as models, to scale up and out the approach to other MED areas. 
- A network and management mechanism of the INHERITURA sites, that will assume the sustainability and the scaling up after project completion.
- Thematic tourism routes (e.g. remote islands, prehistoric sites) will be pilot-integrated in the INHERITURA areas using the improved protection as an asset to increase tourism attractiveness in a sustainable way.