Background The Latvian coastline formed a border of the Soviet Union for several decades. Access was strictly controlled and the coast was out of bounds. As a result, its impressive array of habitat types – grey, white and wooded dunes, coastal lagoons, boreal Baltic coastal meadows, and calcareous fens – are still in good condition (23 habitat types listed in the Habitats Directive). These are mainly concentrated in a narrow belt some hundred metres from the shoreline. Recognising the importance of this coast and continuing more than 150 years' protection of the coastal belt, the national government introduced a law in 1997 offering basic protection to the first 300 metre strip of land beside the sea. Since then around 45% of the coast has also benefited from a stricter protection status, e.g. as national park or nature reserve. Yet despite these laws, the coast is under increasing pressure from the developing building and tourism sectors. As more and more people wanted to visit the beach and the dunes, there was an urgent need for management plans and investments in order to steer visitors away from areas of conservational interest. Objectives The project aimed to conduct a full inventory, mapping and functional zoning of the coastline to identify areas that would qualify for protection as Natura 2000 sites. The project would then focus on 14 demonstration sites, including 20 ha of grey dunes and 115 ha of coastal meadows, and develop four management plans in close consultation with local municipalities and communities. The aim was to map and include Natura 2000 sites in management plans of the municipalities on the Latvian coast. Once these are established, a number of urgent on-site actions would be undertaken to restore and protect key areas from further damage or degradation. This entails an extensive programme of visitor management to channel the increasing stream of tourists away from the most sensitive areas. Accompanying this would be a national awareness-raising campaign aimed at visitors and local communities. Results The basic framework for the sustainable management of the coastal protection belt of the Baltic Sea in Latvia has been created. Information gathered by the project on habitat mapping and functional zoning is being widely used for the planning of nature conservation measures and the drawing up and evaluation of the territorial plans of the costal municipalities. The building of a small-scale demonstration site consisting of pedestrian trails, stairs, resting sites and car parking sites etc served to raise awareness among local stakeholders. Costal municipalities and landowners were able to learn about sustainable coastal management. The local stakeholders are equipped to continue conservation initiatives at the end of the LIFE project. The project also drew up comprehensive digital maps of habitats of Community importance and functional zoning for the protection measures in the costal zone of Latvia. All maps are available to interested stakeholders via the project website and on request. These maps have been used by local government bodies as a way of integrating conservation into the management planning of 24 municipalities. The maps are also a very useful tool for the elaboration of the Natura2000 network in Latvia. The implementation of management plans is ongoing in a proposed area of 987 hectares. In addition, 65 micro-reserves have been approved. Dissemination activities included: 2 films, 12 seminars, 7 booklets, 20 leaflets and working with newspapers and broadcast media.