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THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF TRILATERAL POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
Common Principles
At the sixth trilateral Governmental Conference in Esbjerg in
1991, the trilateral policy was embedded in a common structure
consisting of a Guiding Principle, a number of Management Principles
and a set of common objectives for human use.
The Guiding Principle of the trilateral Wadden Sea policy
as agreed at the Esbjerg Conference in 1991 is to achieve, as
far as possible, a natural and sustainable ecosystem in which
natural processes proceed in an undisturbed way.
For the implementation of the Guiding Principle eight Management
Principles have been adopted which are fundamental to any decisions
concerning the protection and management of the Wadden Sea.
Common Management Principles:
Principle of Careful Decision Making
to take decisions on the basis of the best available information
Principle of Avoidance
activities which are potentially damaging to the Wadden Sea should
be avoided
Precautionary Principle
to take action to avoid activities which are assumed to have
significant damaging impact on the environment, even where there
is no sufficient scientific evidence to prove a causal link between
activities and their impact
Principle of Translocation,
to translocate activities which are harmful to the Wadden Sea
environment to areas where they will cause less environmental
impact;
Principle of Compensation
the harmful effect of activities which cannot be avoided, must
be balanced by compensatory measures
Principle of Restoration
where possible, parts of the Wadden Sea should be restored if
it can be demonstrated by reference studies that the actual situation
is not optimal, and that the original state is likely to be re-established;
Principle of Best Available Techniques
to apply the latest stage of processes, facilities or methods
with the aim of limiting emissions, reducing bycatch etc.
Principle of Best Environmental Practice
to apply the most appropriate combination of measures with
the aim of limiting environmental impacts
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Common Objectives
At the Esbjerg and
Leeuwarden Conferences the regulation of basically all major
common uses and activities in the Wadden Sea was laid down in
so called common objectives. These objectives set standards for
what should be done by the countries to ensure that the Wadden
Sea is protected as an entity and used in a sustainable way.
Here, as an impression, some agreements are listed:
- for sea defence it has been
agreed to prohibit, in principle, further embankments of the
Wadden Sea and to minimize unavoidable loss of biotopes by sea
defence measures;
- for mussel fishery the negative
ecological impact on the Wadden Sea shall be limited by closing
considerable parts of the Wadden Sea for this activity;
- zones shall be established
covering the most sensitive areas where no recreational activities
are allowed.
Human
activities for which common objectives have been adopted:
- agriculture
- civil air traffic
- coastal protection
- cockle fishery
- dredging activities
- exploration and exploitation
of oil and gas
- extraction of sand and clay
- fin-fish fisheries
- harbour and industrial facilities
- hunting
- input of polluting substances
- military activities
- mussel fishery
- recreation
- shipping
- Shrimp fishery
- spisula fishery
- wind energy
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Common Delimitation
A prerequisite for
common management is that the area under consideration has common
borders. From an ecological point of view the Wadden Sea consists
of a transition zone to the North Sea, the islands, the tidal
area, the salt marshes, the estuaries and areas on the mainland
which have a close ecological relationship with the Wadden Sea.
At the 7th Trilateral
Governmental Conference in Leeuwarden, 1994, agreement was
reached on the following common delimitation of the so-called Trilateral Area of Cooperation (see
map) which has been further adapted at the 9th Governmental Conference
in Esbjerg, 2001:
The geographical range of the Wadden Sea
Plan is the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation Area, in short, Wadden Sea
Area, which is
- the area seaward of the main dike,
or where the main dike is absent, the spring-hightide-water line,
and in the rivers, the brackish-water limit;
- an offshore zone 3 nautical miles
from the baseline as fixed nationally or where the Conservation Area
exceeds the 3 nautical mile the offshore boundaries of the
Conservation Area;
- the corresponding inland areas to
the designated Ramsar and/or EC Bird Directive areas being the
adjacent inland marsh areas of the Danish Wadden Sea Region
designated as international nature protection areas and the Bird
Directive Areas of Schleswig-Holstein adjacent to the Conservation
Area;
- the islands.
The trilateral conservation area, in
short the Conservation Area, is situated within the Wadden Sea Area, and
consists of:
- in The Netherlands, the areas under
Key Planning DecisionWadden Sea;
- in Germany, the Wadden Sea national
parks and the protected areas under the Nature Conservation Act
seaward of the main dike and the brackish water limit including the
Dollard;
- in Denmark, the Wildlife and Nature
Reserve Wadden Sea.
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Ecological Targets and Wadden Sea
Plan
The objective of
the trilateral management is to guarantee the natural functioning
of the ecosystem through proper regulation of human activities.
At the Leeuwarden Conference
(1994), it was acknowledged that the best guarantee for a
natural ecosystem is to achieve the full scale of habitat types
which belong to a natural and dynamic Wadden Sea. Each of these
habitats needs a certain quality, which can be reached by proper
management of the area. This quality can be described by certain
characteristic structures, the presence of certain organisms,
the absence of disturbance and toxic effects and by the chemical
condition of the habitat.
For the common management six habitat types are distinguished:
- the offshore zone
- the beaches and dunes
- the tidal area
- the saltmarshes
- the estuaries
- the rural area.
For the first five of these
habitats ecological targets were adopted with the objective to
increase the area which is natural, dynamic and undisturbed.
For the rural areas on the islands and the mainland the target
is to improve the conditions for the birds.
In addition supplementary targets on marine mammals, birds and
mussel beds have been agreed upon, because these are important
indicators of the biological quality of the ecosystem.
Targets on the chemical quality of the Wadden Sea ecosystem were
adopted at the Leeuwarden Conference as well. The essence of
these targets: the concentrations of naturally occurring substances
(for example nutrients and heavy metals) should be at natural
levels and the discharges of non-natural substances, for example
pesticides, should be zero.
The ecological targets are valid for the whole Trilateral Cooperation
Area. There will, however, be differences in the extent to which
the targets will be implemented, depending on whether nature
conservation or human use has priority.
At the Stade
Conference (1997), the trilateral Wadden
Sea Plan was adopted based on the trilateral Targets. The plan
entails agreements on a common policy and trilateral activities and
project to implement the targets.
A revised
Wadden Sea
Plan was adopted at the Sylt Conference in 2010. The 2010 Wadden Sea Plan updates the
trilateral policies and management since the first Wadden Sea Plan was
adopted at the 8th Conference in Stade in 1997. The Wadden Sea Plan
constitutes the common framework for the protection and sustainable
management of the Wadden Sea as an ecological entity. It is also the
common management plan for the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site.
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Research, monitoring and assessment
An important basis
for political decision making are assessments of the quality
status of the Wadden Sea ecosystem. This work is done by experts
from the three countries and coordinated by the Common Wadden
Sea Secretariat. The results are published in so-called Quality
Status Reports which are, in principle, prepared every three
- five years.
The experts base their evaluation on information about the pollution
status, the intensity of human activities and the status of flora
and fauna. Most of the information comes from national monitoring
and research programs.
With the aim of harmonizing the monitoring, a Trilateral
Monitoring and Assessment Program (TMAP) was initiated in
1994.The monitoring of seals and birds has already, to a large
extent, been harmonized trilaterally.
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