Candian port administraion: its future structre

The administration, management and development of ports in Canada is a Federal government responsibility. This centralist control of ports has been the subject of criticism by many for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not responsive enough to the affairs of the local level. This problem, along with others, has resulted in the introduction in the Canadian Parliament of proposed legislation over the past five years to alter port administration and development in Canada. The proposals culminated in the recent passage of the Canada Ports Corporation Act which, among other things, will see the abolition of the National Harbours Board. A review of the administrative structure the new Act replaces, along with a review and assessment of the Act itself and the proposed legislation which predated it, forms the basis of this paper. It will be seen that because of the new Act the centralist approach to port administration is maintained, but greater local autonomy and financial self-sufficiency will also be available to ports. However, the central administration will still have the problem of co-ordinating the development of Canadian ports, since ports will continue to be constituted under at least four different pieces of legislation.     

Small-Scale Sicilian Fisheries: Opinions of Artisanal Fishers and Sociocultural Effects in Two MPA Case Studies

Marine resource management and related stakeholder conflicts have been clearly defined in recent decades as pressing issues worldwide. This article provides a comparative study of the management regimes of the Gulf of Castellammare Fishery Reserve and the Egadi Islands Marine Reserve in Sicily, Italy. What managers in these two reserves have neglected to include in management is a social science evaluation scheme to ensure the development of more effective overall management. This is a significant problem in both Italy and the rest of the Mediterranean, where few sociocultural and economic studies have been conducted. Using data collected with standard anthropological field methods, analysis was conducted on how artisanal fishers are impacted by reserves, the extent of their knowledge regarding regulations, their opinions on management, and demographics. The results indicate that while fishers in the two case studies are all aware of the marine reserves where they fish, most fishers are not well informed of the associated regulations. Fishers feel alienated from the management process, and would feel more comfortable with reserve managers and regulations if they were involved in management. The article concludes by showing how such data could help to develop more useful and practical management practices in both these and other MPAs with similar problems.     

Factors Affecting Knowledge,Perceptions, and Attitudes Regarding North Carolina Coastal Reserve Management

During the period May 25–October 28, 2007, we collected data in face-to-face interviews on four sites in the North Carolina Research Reserve system. We subsequently conducted analyses on the effects of education, income, length of visitation, and frequency of visitation on visitor knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes regarding management. Visitors to the sites were well-educated, listed incomes above the state median, and were racially homogeneous. At the overall level, the majority (63%) knew who owned the sites, but only 43% correctly identified the managing agency. The majority also believed that overall conditions at the sites were stable, although those that had been visiting longer perceived conditions as deteriorating. Education was positively correlated with knowledge of ownership and management, and with support for additional rules and enforcement. Neither income, nor frequency of visitation showed any correlation with any of the dependent variables at the overall level. Some site-specific findings differed from the overall findings and varied from site to site. These differences were addressed individually.     

Criteria for Evaluating the Design of Implementation Models for Integrated Coastal Management

Despite the emphasis placed on the contextual nature of integrated coastal management (ICM) implementation in the literature, many uniformities are encountered in ICM implementation worldwide. In this article the tangled threads of ICM practice are unravelled and a theoretically founded set of criteria for evaluating the design of ICM implementation models is provided. First, paradigms in integrated environmental management (IEM) implementation, the broader domain within which ICM practice is nested, are characterized in terms of their key concepts. Next, the paradigms are used as a mechanism to distill uniformities in ICM practice as reported in review articles. Finally a set of fourteen building blocks against which the scientific credibility of contextual, country-specific ICM implementation models can be validated, is generated by translating the theory-based characterization into evaluation criteria readily accessible to practitioners.     

OCS development: A new law and a new beginning

Abstract

This article reviews the conflicts that led to the establishment of a special Congressional Committee on offshore oil and gas exploration, development, and production and the attempted resolution of various issues by that Committee and the Congress in the 1978 Amendments to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953. A short review is provided of the history of Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) development, of the conflict between the federal government and other interested entities and persons, and of the Congressional mechanism to respond to these conflicts. A more detailed analysis is provided of the most significant OCS issues. The article describes the various risks and benefits of offshore activity and the various benefits and risks of proposed changes in the law concerning such development. A review of the Congressional mechanism to assess these risks and benefits and balance them is included in a discussion of the various issues and legislated solutions. Finally, the article notes the need for continuing oversight and review of the benefits and risks and how effective the 1978 Amendments are in balancing them.     

Sewering the coast: Bane or blessing to marine water quality

Abstract

local wastewater management policies can be important tools for protecting marine water quality when coordinated with sound land use and environmental planning. that relationship is examined through a review of the point and nonpoint source pollution issues associated with centralized versus decentralized wastewater management approaches, sewerage extension and plant expansion effects, and sewerage management practices. we use information provided by 161 local jurisdictions in coastal regions of the southeastern united states and various secondary regions of the southeastern united states and various secondary sources. the article concludes with a discussion of policy implications and recommendations to improve the coordination of local sewerage extension/expansion practices and land use planning.     

A combined science and management framework for developing regional monitoring objectives

Abstract

Designing environmental monitoring programs to deal with widespread, subtle, and/or cumulative impacts on a regional basis is challenging. It requires a shift away from focusing primarily on individual point sources to a more regional perspective. It also necessitates involving scientists and managers together in a cooperative effort to establish priorities and articulate clear objectives. In our view, this objective‐setting task is neither a strictly scientific nor a strictly management activity. It depends on effective communication between scientists and managers but is confounded by differing perspectives, value systems, and behaviors. We present a conceptual framework to assist managers and scientists in this process. This is intended to structure such communication by helping to create a context that permits fruitful give‐and‐take between the two groups. We then describe a six‐part model for specifying the key elements of regional monitoring objectives.     

The Elliott Bay/Duwamish restoration program: A status report

Injuries to natural resources from the release of hazardous substances into aquatic environments have led to hundreds of millions of dollars in compensatory damages awarded under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and other legislation. The institutional mechanisms for negotiating and carrying out the terms of CERCLA natural resource settlements are still in their infancy, and each case has a unique set of injuries, assigned damages, payout schedules, trustee council membership and operating procedures, and environmental conditions and constraints. One of the settlements that has made significant progress toward large‐scale habitat enhancement has occurred in Elliott Bay, a busy, seriously impacted urban harbor in Washington State. The Elliott Bay case is unique among natural resource injury settlements because of the active involvement of two local governments, the City of Seattle, and Metro, who were named as defendants in a lawsuit brought by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on behalf of the natural resource trustees of Elliott Bay. Both local governments have maintained, and continue to operate, outfalls that discharge into Elliott Bay, and both entities were subject to attempts to recover damages under CERCLA. Following the filing of the lawsuit over injuries to the natural resources of the estuary, alleged to have resulted from the operation of these outfalls, the parties involved negotiated a consent decree settlement. The Elliott Bay/Duwamish Restoration Program has established a process to redress some of the injuries that were attributed to the operation of these outfalls.     

The Effectiveness of Coastal Zone Management in the United States

The Coastal Zone Management Effectiveness Study was undertaken between 1995 and 1997 to determine how well state coastal management programs in the United States were implementing five of the core objectives of the U.S. Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). The five core objectives studied were: (1) protection of estuaries and coastal wetlands; (2) protection of beaches, dunes, bluffs and rocky shores; (3) provision of public access to the shore; (4) revitalization of urban waterfronts; and (5) accommodation of seaport development (as an illustration of the policy to give priority to coastal-dependent uses). Separate articles in this issue of Coastal Management report the findings of the five studies, each dealing with one of the core objectives. Each of the articles assesses issue importance, processes and tools used, and the limited outcome data available for that objective. This article provides an overview of the purposes of the study, the methodology used, the summary findings of each study, and overall conclusions and recommendations of the study team. State coastal programs are found to be effective in addressing the five CZMA objectives examined, but this conclusion is based on very limited information about program outcomes. A more definitive conclusion will require better outcome information. Coastal managers in the United States have not agreed upon indicators of success, which severely inhibits systematic and sustained collection of outcome information. A national outcome monitoring and performance evaluation system is recommended to address these deficiencies and allow better determinations of program effectiveness in the future.     

The analysis of entropy models with equality and inequality constraints

Entropy models are emerging as valuable tools in the study of various social problems of spatial interaction. With the development of the modelling has come diversity. Increased flexibility in the model can be obtained by allowing certain constraints to be relaxed from equality to inequality. To provide a better understanding of these entropy models they are analysed by geometric programming. Dual mathematical programs and algorithms are obtained.