The Call aims to support interventions that actively contribute to the challenges of Decade of the Sea for Sustainable Development within the context of the UN 2030 Agenda. This involves promoting the protection of coastal and marine areas, and enhancing ecosystem services and valuable natural resources, with a particular focus on biodiversity and traditional cultural heritage.
Specific objectives
- Enhance and protect marine-coastal biodiversity, considering climate change and the need for CO2 mitigation.
- Promote an innovative, sustainable, inclusive, environmentally friendly, and biodiversity-promoting circular economy linked to the coastal zone that enhances local traditions and helps reduce the CO2 footprint.
- Preventing and reducing pollution of marine/coastal waters with special attention to the issue of plastics.
- Stimulate citizen fascination with the sea, raising awareness of its importance in human and planetary well-being (ocean literacy).
Italy, with its central position in the Mediterranean and surrounded by the Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, and Adriatic seas, faces the need for harmony between marine ecosystems and coastal human communities for its approximately 8000 km of coastline. However, this harmony is increasingly threatened by modes of exploitation and development that often disregard the natural component, where land consumption and pollution of air, water, and soil endanger biodiversity and the very quality of human life. Currently, 51% of coastal landscapes have been transformed and degraded by houses, hotels, mansions, ports, and industries, while only 860 km (23%) of linear stretches of coastline longer than 5 km – including islands – maintain a good degree of naturalness.
Italy is a member country of the Global Ocean Alliance, which aspires to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030 through an efficient network of Marine Protected Areas (goal “30by30” or “30for30”), including the Mediterranean, a global biodiversity hotspot.
In formulating the goals of this Call, SGI-Italy took inspiration from the following goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs):
- Goal 14: Life Under Water – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development: 14.1, 14.2, 14.7, 14b;
- Goal 15: Life on Earth – Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss: 15.5, 15.7, 15.8, 15a.
Such objectives focus on conserving marine ecosystems, protecting marine biodiversity, safeguarding natural habitats, and promoting sustainable management of marine resources to enhance economic benefits.
The Call aims to support initiatives that address objectives identified within the “Environment” area of intervention, which integrates the economic dimension towards promoting sustainable, equitable, and inclusive development and creating a society capable of safeguarding the interests of present and future generations.