Challenges and Benefits in the Design of Coastal Walking and Cycling Amenities: Toward a More Integrated Coastal Management Approach

The planning and development of pedestrian and cycling amenities in coastal urban environments is a challenging process because a wide range of policies and considerations must be taken into account. Among these, the concepts of sustainability and more recently, resilience, have been gaining prominence. Green Infrastructure design approaches can integrate aspects of both sustainability and resilience, providing multiple services within single development projects. This study focuses on Dublin and examines a range of amenity projects at various stages of development that relate to the provision of new coastal walking and/or cycle routes. These are initially contextualized at the city level before focusing specifically on challenges and benefits associated with the design and implementation of such projects. Based on our findings, recommendations are made for optimizing the potential of future projects to effectively integrate with other initiatives so as to deliver broader policy objectives. A simple sequential model is presented that should assist developers and decision-makers to take a more integrated, multidisciplinary approach to meeting policy goals when planning and developing coastal amenities. Finally, this is remodeled into a set of considerations that are generally applicable to coastal development proposals of significant scale.     

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.     

Protectionism in practice

In the long debate about the UNCTAD Code, many opinions have been put forward about the consequences of cargo reservation. Some have been based on theory, whilist others have transposed behaviour patterns from other industries or other periods of time. Several countries, however, have been operating cargo reservation laws for sufficiently long to enable some initial observations to be made. This article outlines recent experience in Brazil.     

The economic context

The size of the Indian economy, its strong growth prospects and opportunities for structural change will attract private investors. But Government controls will remain widespread. Large-scale privatization will only be successful if public-private partnerships can be developed which enable the benefits of privatization to be widely shared.     

The use of flags of convenience by Latin American shipping

We are grateful to our Argentinian contemporary, the journal Consultor,for permission to publish the following article, consisting of extracts prepared and translated by Mrs Sheila Farrell from a recent series of papers^†by Dr Aurelio Gonzalez Climent. They discuss the varied reasons underlying the decision of some Latin American shipowners to register their vessels under flags of convenience. The article brings out the contrasts between the attitudes of these shipowners and their respective governments.