Blue Flag beach

The Blue Flag (also often en. Blue Flag, Fr. Pavillon Bleu ) is an environmental label in the field of sustainable tourism, which is awarded annually to beaches on the coast and inland waters and marinas, in the previous season standards for environmental education have complied with environmental management, service quality and water quality. The Blue Flag is awarded by the Foundation for Environmental Education at beaches in more than 40 countries in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the Caribbean.

Award

Thus, a beach, a dock or a bathing place is awarded the blue flag, it first requires an application by the appropriate municipality. Then examine national and international committees, whether the necessary criteria are met. The award is made for one season. Additional verification visits to ensure compliance with the criteria. For violations of the Blue Flag is withdrawn.

It is estimated that the annual cost of maintaining the certification a five-figure sum, as for example in Ireland about 40,000 euros.

Development of the program

The idea to reward compliance with environmental criteria with the Blue Flag was born in France in 1985, where she was awarded first coastal municipalities for wastewater treatment and its bathing water quality. The Blue Flag was one of the first eco-labels in tourism. In 1987, as part of the European Year of the Environment, the Foundation for Environmental Education began ( Foundation for Environmental Education, short FEE) with support from the European Commission to extend the criteria and introduce the program in Europe. The aim was to compliance with the European Bathing Water Directive ( 76/160/EEC time, now succeeded by 2006/7/EC ) to promote. First, each country developed its own criteria for the Blue Flag. In 1992, the participants drafted a common European criteria. From 2001 first countries participated outside Europe. In 2006, a worldwide standard criteria for the award of the label was born. In 2007, attended by over 3000 beaches and marinas in over 40 countries participated in the program. The program cooperates with the environmental program of the United Nations and the World Tourism Organization.

Criteria

Criteria for beaches

Operators must for obtaining the Blue Flag, for example,

The Blue Flag is therefore often used as a figurehead certain touristic regions. If a beach area excellent with the flag, which indicates a very high standard of cleanliness of the pool water and the surrounding nature.

Criteria for Marinas

The four main criteria, which are set based on the evaluation:

In the award-winning ports, water quality is monitored and announced in the harbor during the season by periodic analysis. The visible from a distance mark for compliance with quality requirements is blowing at full mast blue flag. In case of temporary non-compliance with certain criteria, it is set up to correct the defect corresponding to half-mast.

Effectiveness

Certification systems for beaches, such as the Blue Flag, play an important role by supporting beach managers to systematically improve beach quality and to seek certain minimum standards. So the Blue Flag has contributed in Italy to that beach communities improved their waste separation, waste water treatment plants einrichteten new or improved and further certifications aspired.

For beach-goers, however, the Blue Flag plays a subordinate role. Although surveys in Europe show that the Blue Flag compared to other eco-label in tourism has a comparatively high level of awareness of about 25-30%. When deciding to visit a particular beach, but reported only 1-10 % of the respondents said that the award had heard it for the most important decision criteria. ( By far the most important criteria was the cleanliness of the beach and water, security and near the beach. ) The majority of respondents were the standards, compliance with which is intended to signal the Blue Flag, not exactly known.

There are doubts about the effectiveness of the standards for water quality, a core element of the award. In the Caribbean, the requirements were lowered to the water quality, because too much contaminated waste water came into the sea. In Europe, the criteria based on the Designated Bathing Area status of the EU - a standard which was viewed by 2008 of individual authors as insufficient and as fulfilled by almost every beach resort. Directive 2006/7/EC of the requirements have since been increased.