Regarding coasts, the commitment acquired by the PSOE with the citizens in the general elections last year consisted of updating the Coasts Law in the face of the real threat posed by climate change, to increase protection and prevent the current destruction of coastal ecosystems from continuing. That responsibility that we acquired is partly specified in the Draft Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition that is being processed in the Congress of Deputies.
Article 18 of said Draft Law refers to the consideration of climate change in the planning and management of the public maritime-terrestrial domain. Our purpose is that the planning and management of the coast pursue two major objectives. The first is to increase the resilience of the Spanish coast to climate change and climate variability, and the second is to integrate adaptation to climate change into the planning and management of the Spanish coast.
On the other hand, the same Article 18 states that in order to guarantee an adequate adaptation of the coast to the effects of climate change, the management of the occupation titles of the public maritime-terrestrial domain and their extensions will take into account factors such as the state and evolution of ecosystems, the hydro-morphological, climatic and coastal dynamics conditions, as well as the accumulated pressure of the different uses supported by each stretch of coast.
Regardless of the above, one of the great challenges we have ahead lies in reconciling the protection of the coasts of our country with the historical singularities of its management and enjoyment by citizens. More than thirty years have passed since the Government presided over by Felipe González identified the problems on the Spanish coast, giving rise, in 1988, to one of the most outstanding milestones of public intervention: the promulgation of the Coasts Law.
We socialists then faced environmental deterioration, exacerbated by the concentration of population and the permissive privatization of the coast, as well as by the increase in economic activity in this strip. Over time, our country has become one of the leading tourist powers in the world due, among other reasons, to our incomparable sea shore. But, at the same time, the pressure on the coastline has increased, putting at risk the use and public access to the coast and its environmental protection.
The high degree of occupation of the coasts and the broad impact of the real estate and tourism sector, the division of powers on the coast, the economic crisis caused by covid-19 and global warming forces us to review the strategies. The current situation was already bad for the tourism sector itself, which is suffering from territorial deterioration and overcrowding of the coastline, progressively losing competitiveness compared to other destinations, in more virgin and attractive territories. But, environmental unsustainability is joined by social unsustainability, since many deficits are detected in the collective enjoyment of the coast.
We are aware that it is necessary to take another important step towards the protection and conservation of the integrity of the public maritime-terrestrial domain and of the coastal and marine systems, the guarantee of access and public use of the coast by all citizens, and the recovery of the maritime border in urbanized and degraded sections and the protection of the marine environment. Together with the constitutional recognition of the right to enjoy an adequate environment, all this should lead us to refocus the coastal policy through a sustainable design in ecological and economic terms, equitable in social terms and participatory in political terms.
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.