Context and Development of the Coastal Marine Environmental Management In Colombia

In Colombia, in order to meet the challenges of coastal marine management and responding to international commitments, it was adopted in 2000 the “National Environmental Policy for the Sustainable Development of Ocean Spaces and Coastal and Insular Zones of Colombia - PNAOCI ”, which has an ecosystem approach and as a conceptual framework, the integrated management of coastal zones -MIZC (or integrated coastal management - MCI / integrated coastal management - GCI), seeking to balance environmental protection and economic development, to contribute to the Physical ordering of the territory (Territorial Ordering), from the environmental ordering. For this, criteria were defined to guide the definition of the coastal zone in the country and spatial units (Coastal Environmental Units – UACs, acronym in Spanish) were delimited, as continuous geographical areas, involving land and sea space, with clearly defined ecosystems, which they require a unified visualization and management that brings together local and subregional territorial entities; in addition to consolidating over 20 years, a conceptual, political, regulatory, technical and operational support. In the legal context, as of Law 1450 of 2011, the generation of normative support regarding the UACs and the Plans for the management and integrated management of coastal environmental units (POMIUAC, acronym in Spanish) was promoted, as a planning instrument (Decree 1120 of 2013, compiled in Decree 1076 of 2015); Likewise, based on practical cases, a methodological framework was built embodied in a technical guide for the preparation of the POMIUAC, adopted by Resolution 768 of 2017. On the other hand, although the advances in the coastal marine environmental regulation in Colombia are oriented under the MIZC, given the similarities in terms of definition, spatial scope, scope and methodology, that they have with marine spatial planning (PEM), it can be said that these processes developed in Colombia under the MIZC scheme contribute to the development of the PEM concept In the country, and in the opposite case, practical EMP exercises that are addressed could complement the advances that the country has made in this area under the policy and regulatory framework that supports it.