Coastal management as a bargaining process

Abstract

Major challenges are ahead in managing the coastal zone of western Canada. Until now there has been no legislated focus through a coastal zone management act nor a policy for the management of coastal resources. Instead, policies and institutions have been evolving out of existing legislation responding to opportunities and needs as they have arisen. Management is predominantly a bargaining process the success of which depends on opportunities for informed participation by the affected interests. Considering the relatively small investments in management, bargaining appears to have worked rather well, but there are weaknesses. Fortunately, significant opportunities exist to improve performance at relatively low cost. In particular, there should be a shift from the past emphasis on inventorying, monitoring, and coordination, to the development of functional knowledge and sectoral planning that can be the basis for informed and representative bargaining.     

Some economic aspects of conflicts over land use in the coastal zone

Abstract

Recent land use legislation pays particular attention to the coastal zone where age‐old conflicts have recently accelerated. Flexibility is required in policy because visible conflicts are tied into complex physical and social systems which may require changing patterns of land use over time. Public policy is altering property rights and a thorough understanding of the economic and social roles played by those rights is required. Economic models can be used to understand some major changes such as types of alteration of the environment, but may be ignored or misused unless a better understanding of coastal decision processes is developed.     

Marine log transportation and handling systems in british columbia: Impacts on coastal management

Abstract

Over 90 percent of British Columbia's annual log harvest enters into complex water‐based systems of transportation, storage, and handling. These systems have considerable impacts on a wide range of coastal resources and uses. A number of site‐specific conflicts have arisen between forestry and preexisting or emerging values including fisheries, mariculture, recreational boating, and harbor redevelopment. Specific data on the impacts leading to conflict are often fragmentary. However, concerns about highly valued and fragile areas‐particularly estuariesalong with industrial concerns regarding log losses and handling efficiency, have prompted changes in log handling. These include moves to dryland sorting, log bundling, and a redistribution of forestry activities in estuaries to accommodate other values. Conflict adjustments and responses have in the past been largely ad hoc and attempted in a jurisdictional vacuum concerning control of coastal management. A more inclusive strategy is now slowly emerging, which involves the coordinated participation of federal, provincial, and industrial interests.     

Gender Issues within the Population-Environment Nexus in Philippine Coastal Areas

Sixty percent of the Philippine's population resides in the coastal zone. Women and men in coastal communities depend chiefly on the sea for subsistence. Over fifty percent of the dietary protein requirements of coastal communities are derived from municipal fisheries and shallow coastal habitats (reef fishes, marine plants, and mangroves). Coastal populations are young and expanding at rates that exceed regional and national averages. Expanding human pressures and man-made disturbances (over harvesting, destructive fishing, siltation, etc.) that offset natural processes are destroying habitats and creating protein food security crises and increasing malnutrition. At the same time conflicts among users of coastal resources are escalating. Access constraints, gender inequities, and cultural barriers stymie options for women and men to plan their families and create alternative livelihoods. National and local government agencies are addressing food security concerns through vertical policies and programs (e.g., fisheries management, integrated coastal management). The IPOPCORM project uses a cross-sectoral approach and quasi-experimental evaluation design to test the hypothesis that food security will be achieved more quickly when coastal resources management (CRM) and reproductive health (RH) management are implemented together. The purpose of this article is to review the project's experience and highlight the trends observed in program monitoring and evaluation during 2001–2004, which suggest better impact on RH, CRM, and gender indicators in the sites where the synergistic approach is being applied.     

The social and political economy of coastal zone management: Shrimp mariculture in Ecuador

Abstract

The paper examines the applicability of First World CZM policy for the Third World by focusing on Ecuador's shrimp mariculture, an industry whose explosive growth has reshaped the coastal zone and generated problems threatening loss of the resource base itself. This has led to recognized need for CZM and movement by development agencies to transfer the CZ policies of developed countries. Against this background, the analysis explores local concepts of investment and conservation, the role of government and law, and the influence of the social economy on mariculture development. It illuminates how local use and management of coastal resources is inseparable from specifically Ecuadorean cultural concepts, institutions, and practices. This places in relief the salient differences between management in the First and Third Worlds, illuminating how coastal zone management must not only be internally consistent, but cognizant of and integrated into the prevailing social, economic, and political conditions.     

Environmental protection motivation in coastal zone land‐use legislation

Abstract

Analysis of recent substantive coastal land use management laws shows that their main thrust is to provide for protection of the coastal environment from adverse impacts of uncontrolled development. The four purposes cited most frequently among laws of 17 states were: Protection of wildlife and fisheries, protection of ecosystems or the natural environment, control of development, and enhancement of esthetic values. Other purposes were to: Protect life and property, enhance public recreation, conserve soil, and protect water resources. Development and economic purposes were cited in relatively few laws.     

Editor's note on the comments from Eugene P. Odum,Howard T. Odum,Leonard Shabman,and Sandra Batie

Abstract

It was pointed out in a recent article on shorelines management in France that no overall coastal management legislation in that country exists.¹ Nevertheless, certain existing legislation has been adapted to take account of the peculiarities of the shoreline and coastal zone, and new institutions such as the “Shorelines Trust”; have been created.² As is the case with most countries in the Western world, the processes of urbanization, industrialization, and recreational development place tremendous pressure on shoreline use. Resulting conflicts are sometimes difficult to solve unless adequate institutional frameworks exist. Some form of institutional change is thus inevitable.     

Decentralized Coastal Zone Management in Malaysia and Indonesia: A Comparative Perspective 1

Transferring decision-making process from central to local government and enhancing the role of local communities in managing coastal zones is an increasing commitment by governments in Southeast Asia. This article analyzes decentralized coastal zone management in two neighboring countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Federal system in Malaysia is argued to be able to influence more decentralized coastal zone management and to promote community-based management approaches. Meanwhile, the large diversity of coastal resources and communities combined with a still as yet tested decentralization policy in Indonesia is argued to bring more challenges in implementing the decentralization and community-based approaches in coastal zones. The lessons learned in this study provide insight in how far decentralized coastal zone management has taken place in Malaysia and Indonesia. The significant differences in the pattern of coastal zone management in these two countries are discussed in detail. This study recognizes that co-management and community-based approaches can be appropriate in dealing with coastal zone management. This comparative perspective is important to the development of a bigger picture of sustainable coastal zone management processes and cross-regional knowledge-sharing in Southeast Asia.     

Upstream pollution sources and coastal water quality protection in North Carolina

Abstract

A watershed‐based approach to water quality management is necessary for protecting coastal water quality, but the relative importance of inland pollution sources on estuaries is often overestimated. This can lead to a misallocation of coastal water protection resources and ignorance of coastal zone pollution sources. This overestimation of upstream contributions is attributable to a failure to recognize that many estuaries have little or no inland drainage area, the confusion of basinwide pollutant loading with pollutant delivery to estuaries, the low delivery ratios for many pollutants within drainage basins, and disproportionately high pollutant delivery for sources within the coastal zone. Examples are given from North Carolina. As a general rule, resources expended on pollution control within or near the coastal zone will result in more coastal water quality improvement per unit effort than resources expended upstream.     

Land Changes and Conflicts Coordination in Coastal Urbanization: A Case Study of the Shandong Peninsula in China

The coastal zone is an interaction region between land and ocean and an interface of geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere, as well as greatly affected by human activities. Driven by economic activities and increased population, urbanization is rapidly developing in coastal zones, and a series of land resource and environmental conflicts have occurred, especially in developing countries at times of economic transition. This article reports a case study of the Shandong Peninsula of East China. We analyze the land-use practices and land cover changes of six cities over a timeframe of nearly a decade. We then review the management conflict issues. The most commonly encountered conflicts fall into three categories: those between expanding constructed land and decreased cultivated land; those between land resource utilization and conservation; and those between increasing demand for land and degrading land quality. All in all, they reflect the fundamental conflicts between short-term economic development gains and long-term food security and ecosystem sustainability. This article puts forward an institutional approach to coordinate these conflicts so as to realize integrated and coordinated coastal management.     

Marina inventory and berthing supply projections: Mississippi's Gulf Coast

Abstract

The location as well as pace of marina development is a major issue in current coastal zone management. The supply and demand for marinas providing certain services in specific locations are growing and must be met. At the same time the environmental integrity of the coastal zone must be maintained against the many possible impacts of marina development. Compounding these problems from the view of both the developer and coastal zone manager is the absence of necessary data and accepted methodologies for estimating future supply needs for marine berthing. This paper describes a multi‐focii approach to the establishment of an information base and marina supply projections for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Data on existing marina types, services, and facilities are obtained via fieldwork; future marina slip supply needs are estimated using a combination of several techniques and data sources. The study serves two purposes. First, it initiates the basis for improved management of marina development on Mississippi's Gulf Coast. Second, on a more theoretical level, it stimulates research toward developing and validating supply and demand projection techniques for marinas.     

The Role of Universities in Supporting Integrated Coastal Management in the United Kingdom

Integrated coastal management has been seen as the way to deal with the challenges currently facing managers of our coastal zones. In the tropics, these areas are typified with resources such as coral reefs and mangroves that are able to support a variety of activities. Integrated coastal management takes a multi-disciplinary approach that involves the integration of the different institutions and stakeholder groups in the coastal zone. A survey of tropical coastal locations revealed that fully implemented integrated coastal management is limited with programs apparently failing at the implementation stage. These coastal zones share a number of common challenges exacerbated by poverty and conflicts between the coastal activities. Conflict management needs to be incorporated into the management process that pays particular attention to the overextraction of resources and destructive resource use.     

Israel's coastal program: Resource protection through management of land use

Abstract

Presently, much of Israel's 190‐kilometer‐long Mediterranean coast is either unoccupied, devoted to unsuitable uses, or is in use by activities which have no special need to be near the water's edge. This has resulted from years of lack of appreciation by policy‐makers of the coast as a valuable resource, of national development policies that directed attention to other regions, and of the relatively limited demand for coastal recreation.

In the last decade the importance of these factors has diminished. In turn, there is now mounting pressure for the development of coastal land. Increasingly, rising standards of living with a greater demand for recreational facilities, the growth of tourism as a major industry, and demands of the environmental lobby for conservation of part of the coastal land are factors bound to cause intensive change along the coast and to affect the quality of its resources. These trends have brought about public intervention in deciding the future of the coast. This paper reviews and analyzes Israel's coastal policy and its resource management programs, and also discusses the potential challenges to their full implementation.

Three types of programs were suggested as the main management tools: a coastal research and development effort, national coastal land use planning and pollution prevention, and monitoring and control programs. Major objectives of the programs were to be achieved through land use controls. Consequently, an important role is given in the development and implementation of the coastal program to agencies responsible for the management of physical land use planning and development.

Successful implementation of the management program, however, will depend on the ability of its administrators to coordinate the actions of many interests, on success in changing attitudes among decision‐makers as to the value of the coast, and on widening support for coastal resource conservation among a presently uninvolved public.     

Cooperative tourism and the coastal zone

Abstract

Most tourist development takes place in the coastal zone. Concentrated tourist use continues in spite of opposition by groups who feel that any tourism, especially international, threatens both the natural environment and local values. Although shorelines and “coastscapes”; belong to all, decisions regarding them are made by relatively few. The number of community organizations involved in coastal zone management decisions varies from almost none in some Third World countries to dozens in places like Hawaii or California. Constructive use of coastal zones requires an understanding of the interactions between biophysical and social systems. Planning tourism in this context requires that all groups with an interest in the coastal zone join in a new “cooperative tourism”; in which all contribute to decisions and face ultimate responsibilities.     

Planning for resilient coastal communities: Lessons from ecological systems theory

Abstract

One of the least understood aspects of coastal zone utilization is how communities respond and adapt to changes occurring in the marine environment and to changes which transform the socioeconomic, political, and administrative environment of the coastal zone. In Atlantic Canada, it is estimated that there are some 1,300 “fishing communities,”; yet these communities vary considerably in terms of population size, proximity to urban centers, and dependence upon the local resource base to provide employment opportunities and alternatives. Although numerous government planning documents have purported to support “community revitalization”; and “self‐sufficiency/self‐reliance,”; few inquiries have been directed toward ascertaining how communities have maintained resiliency in the face of unexpected and sudden shock, or have adapted to more gradual change. This essay argues that human communities and ecological systems may have similar attributes, and that appropriate resource development and management planning should take account of these traits as well as the sustaining structural support mechanisms.     

Model coastal zone statute

Abstract

This model statute sets out a mechanism for the management of the coastal zone by the coastal states. It provides a possible state response to the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972. The authors recognize that most states presently have some form of management or legal control over their coastal zone, and the model statute has been written with the intention that all or parts of it could be adapted to the wide variety of state regulatory schemes with the aim of providing unitary management to the valuable resource of the coastal zone.     

Marine and coastal protected areas in Latin America: A preliminary assessment

Abstract

One approach to the management of coastal and marine areas is the establishment of protected areas (e.g., reserves, parks, sanctuaries). Under the general rubric of “marine reserves,”; this paper examines the Latin American experience with this strategy. A comprehensive table lists most, if not all, national or state declared parks or reserves. The table is organized by country. All Latin American nations have, to a varying extent, declared marine parks and protected areas. The authors review the sources or uses which have been “managed”; by marine reserves, the management approaches, uses, and problem which have been identified in achieving management objectives. The authors conclude with observations about the potential future utility of marine reserves as a management approach for areas and resources of the coastal and littoral zones of Latin America.     

Eilat: Multiple conflicts in an inherently uncertain environment

Abstract

Ports are often at the center of conflicts regarding the use of coastal areas and their management. Yet, it is often impossible to forecast the future development patterns of a port due to its dependence on shifting international relations and markets. Such inherent uncertainty complicates the management of coastal areas affected by the port. This article looks at how such a case is being addressed in Eilat, Israel's Red Sea port.

The development of Eilat's port has been a function of the changing geopolitical situation in the Middle East. At the same time it is in the center of a number of local conflicts involving the management and planning of Israel's Red Sea coast. Evaluation of the two alternatives proposed to address these conflicts is hampered by the inherent uncertainty regarding the port's growth patterns. The use of robust evaluation techniques is suggested as one way to address inherent uncertainties.     

South Carolina's diked tidal wetlands: The presisting dilemmas

Abstract

South Carolina has a significant stock of diked coastal wetlands, dating from the days of rice culture before the Civil War. A survey of those controlling these sites along the entire South Carolina coast reveals that many continue to be used for waterfowl hunting, with management practices becoming more intensive than they were when partial data were gathered a decade ago. It also suggests that most of the acreage involved is located in large fields, where management is more difficult and mosquito control problems are more likely. This survey also indicates that public access is limited, but that there is evidence of continuing conflict over ownership. This situation creates a persisting dilemma for coastal zone management, shaping conflicts between alternative strategies for the use of natural systems.