Physical Alterations and Destruction of Habitats (PADH)

About the project

The Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA) Coordination Office is undertaking a project which aims at supporting the efforts of stakeholders in protecting coastal and marine habitats against physical alteration and destruction. It will focus on sediment mobilization effects by four economic sectors that potentially pose a threat to such habitats. Those sectors include: tourism; ports and harbours; aquaculture; and mining (sand and aggregate extraction).

The project will attempt to assist those sectors through, among other things, the development of checklists and guidance for each. Case studies and examples illustrating the environmental, social, and economic benefits of positive action will be documented and disseminated through the GPA Clearing-House. Regional stakeholder meetings will be held to develop regional and sector specific checklists and initiate actions such as pilot projects.

The increase of populations and economic activities in coastal areas is leading to an expansion of construction, which in turn leads to alterations to coastal zones and waters. Excavation, mining (such as sand and aggregate extraction, the building of ports and marinas and building of coastal defenses and other activities linked to urban expansion are giving rise to alterations of coral reefs, shorelands, beachfronts, and the seafloor. Important habitats are being destroyed. Wetlands are being transformed, into agricultural lands, and through coastal development. Tourism, unrestricted and uncontrolled aquaculture, and clearance of mangroves are also causing the physical destruction of important habitats. Spawning grounds, nurseries and feeding grounds of major living marine resources of crucial importance to world food security are being destroyed. This destruction of habitat exacerbates overharvesting of these living marine resources leading to a growing risk that they are being depleted. This is an increasing threat to the food security of coastal populations, in particular in developing countries.