SOUTHERN PROVINCE, NEW CALEDONIA

The Southern Province requested that a Great South Spatial Prioritization and Development Plan be developed under RESCCUE. As at RESCCUE’s start, there was no planning tool at an intermediate scale between municipalities (Urban Development Plans) and the whole territory (New Caledonia 2025). The Province was therefore keen to trial the feasibility and added value of a regional planning document which, although with no legal status, would provide multi-use spatial planning and strategic directions for the Great South, where environment and development stakes are high.

This plan builds on, and brings coherence among, other planning document developed for the Great South under RESCCUE: the 2025 Protected Area Strategy, the Ramsar area integrated management plan, the Strategy for degraded sites ecological restoration, and the Forest Fire Management Plan.

As it has been delivered only at the very end of the project, it is too early to take stock of the Great South Spatial Prioritization and Development Plan utilization and added value.