Lebanon has not ratified the Barcelona Convention and its Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean. However, given the importance of the protocol and the interest that the Government of Lebanon is allocating to it, an adhesion procedure has been initiated to formalize its commitment. Nevertheless, a number of projects have already been implemented by the MoE reflecting the efforts of the Government of Lebanon in this cross-sector problématique. Among these projects, the Coastal Area Management Program (CAMP) implemented between 2002 and 2004, which contributed to the protection of marine resources in Southern Beirut through the application of tools for sustainable and integrated coastal and marine zone management (ICZM) to the economic and social development activities of the area. Another project is the regional MedWetCoast project that aimed at building capacity and promoting the development of national policies and tools addressing the policy-related reasons of loss of wetland and coastal biodiversity and the protection and removal of such root causes in two (2) key demonstration sites. However, these projects did not reach establishing an integrated marine and coastal biodiversity management strategy.
To this day, Lebanon still lacks an integrated plan or strategy for coastal zone management and protection. The coastal zone in Lebanon being considered as a national treasure of high economic value, the adoption of such a strategy/plan has become, by the day, increasingly important and urgent due to some of the irreversible damages to this zone.
The ERML project, through its second component, aims at enhancing the socio-economic opportunities within the coastal zone of Lebanon. This objective is met through a two-phased methodology: