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Integrated coastal zone management: a specialist highlights the needs, benefits and techniques

Dr. Peter R. Burbridge is a well-known advocate of integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). In a recent Coastal Challenges interview he explained what integrated coastal management is and why it is needed. Here are some of the comments made by Dr. Burbridge, Emeritus Professor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the U.K.:

“The development challenges facing humanity are most complex in the coastal regions. Why? Partly because the richness and diversity of the coastal resources’ opportunities to support economic and social development are much greater than in the terrestrial environment or the purely marine environment. It is that interface between the sea and the land where we find the most complex, the most rich and the most diverse forms of natural resources. And they sustain many different forms of economic development. And that means that there is much competition for access to and often exclusive use of the coastal area and coastal resources. Now, the challenge we face as managers is trying to maximise the potential use of these resources without damaging the very resource base which creates those resources in the first place.”

“You need integration in the sense that there are different economic and social groups wanting to have access to the coast. And what you have to do is to try to treat them equitably, so that everybody has an equal chance of access to the resource but without damaging the resource for other people to enjoy and use in effective ways. And that means that you have to get the different economic sectors to try to coordinate their activities so that they don´t disrupt the potential flow of benefits from the coast – without destroying the natural systems. And that’s the challenge. And that’s why we talk about integration. It is integration of different economic sectors, different social demands from the coast and different political systems trying to coordinate the development process more effectively. We are talking about development planning here. We are not talking about environmental conservation. The environmental conservation is one tool to manage the natural systems.”

“Integrated coastal management is a set of principles to guide development planning. It is meant to create a working environment where people see that there are ways of doing things that are less environmentally damaging and more economically responsible, and create a greater social benefit. And that’s difficult, to get people to think of the environment, the economy and social aspects in the same sentence. And that’s what coastal management is trying to do. We are not purely trying to protect the environment, we are not trying to maximise the economic activities at the cost of social equity.”

“One of the problems we have is getting any political system to understand how complex the coastal resource pressures are, but also the great value of the coast, the strategic value of the coast in meeting social and economic pressures. And those pressures have to be managed. And the economic rationale behind that is that you can get greater social and economic benefits by wise management than you can by totally unregulated free-for-all development. And that’s the challenge, this convincing people that the strategic value of the coast is important enough to invest in managing the coast effectively.”

The interview (“Dr. Peter Burbridge and Integrated Coastal Zone Management” on Youtube) addresses more coastal management topics than those mentioned above. Here is the direct Youtube link:

Coral conservation in Honduras: building on local roots is important

Published May 17, 2012 Caribbean Sea , Coastal management , Coral reefs , Pollution , Sediment control , Tourism Closed

“We have got one of the best coral reefs in the Caribbean”, says Nelbin Bustamante from the Prolansate Foundation and Amatela reef conservation group of the Town of Tela, Honduras. More in detail, Mr. Bustamante summarises the good news of a recent underwater study on the Tela reefs in the following words: “The live coral cover on our reefs is nearly 70 per cent per square metre”. This high number was registered on the Capiro Reef just seven kilometres from the city centre.

Nevertheless, all the evaluation results were not positive. Mr. Bustamante says: “It could also be observed that the number of herbivorous and commercial fishes had reduced. Their biomass had gone down.”

As regards the threats, two main threats were identified in the study. One was the loss of forest cover. The other one was the lack of wastewater treatment. The Tela wastewaters flow directly into the sea and coral reefs. In addition to soil, the runoff contains many chemicals including fertilizers. The nutrients in the runoff may facilitate algal growth on the reefs as, at the same time, the levels of herbivorous fishes consuming the algae are lower than normal. Overfishing is an additional threat which needs to be controlled in Tela.

In any case Tela is a good and encouraging example in a world where the coral reefs are threatened by high fishing pressure, global climate change and other side effects of the growth of human societies. Off Tela, fairly healthy coral reefs can still be found and new awareness is creating motivation to protect the reefs.

Mr. Marcello Dicunta Servellón, who operates a dive centre in Tela, is satisfied: “Healthy coral reefs represents incredible opportunities. One of the most obvious ones is recreational diving. A well-managed dive industry on healthy reefs can result in high economic growth for the community.”

A Spanish-speaking documentary (Corales para amar – Tela protege sus arrecifes) with the above-mentioned content can be watched on Youtube:

Important progress in shark conservation

Published December 18, 2011 Endangered species , Fisheries , Marine parks , Sharks Closed

In the past, sharks were not appreciated because their importance as ecosystem top predators was not understood. As a result of that and global over exploitation of marine fauna, most shark populations declined to low levels. What contributed to the decline of sharks specifically, were their reproduction levels, which are much lower than those of other fish, i.e. from 2 (two) to 300 (three hundred) juveniles per pregnancy and female shark. Several other fish species produce hundreds of thousands of eggs. Of course, all of these eggs do not get fertilised.

Lately, shark conservation has been slowly advancing, as the value of sharks, approximately 400 species in total, has been understood. Finally, real steps to save the remaining sharks are being taken. Especially the cruel fishing of sharks for fins only, up to 73 million sharks annually, had resulted in a lot of bad publicity. This negative publicity together with pressure from environmental groups made governments and inter-governmental bodies speed up shark conservation measures. Now there is new hope for the sharks worldwide.

As the global species conservation agreement CITES only prohibits the international trade (not fishing) of three shark species, i.e. the white, whale and basking shark, there has been much need for more efficient protection measures. For example Shark Conservation Trust has done a lot of lobbying lately to improve the management measures at the national and international levels. The Trust is a cooperation body of more than one hundred conservation organisations.

The recent advances include the following:

Palau, Honduras, Colombia, Mexico, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, the Bahamas, and the Federated States of Micronesia signed during the UN General Assembly in September 2011 a declaration in which they promise to establish shark conservation areas in their national waters.

In China and Taiwan, where shark fin soup is a highly regarded speciality of the local kitchen, progress also took place. In September a campaign against shark finning started in China. It features Yao Ming, a local basked ball hero, and Richard Branson, a British millionaire. As to Taiwan, towards the end of 2011, the country passed a law which will end shark fishing for fins only at the beginning of January 2012.

In the U.S., the legislative loop holes in the management of shark fisheries were eliminated in 2011. This followed the example given by Australia, where the legislation had been tightened earlier. The Australian observation has been that when the law forces the fisherman to bring to port the entire shark with the fins attached, the interest in shark finning nearly disappears.

Positive news have been heard also from the European Union countries. On 21 November, the European Commission proposed to prohibit, with no exemptions, the practice of shark finning aboard fishing vessels. Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said: “I very much look forward to the Council and the European Parliament accepting our proposal, so that it becomes law as soon as possible.” The proposal strengthens the existing EU legislation banning shark finning: member states will not be able to issue special fishing permits, which earlier have made the continuation of shark finning possible.

Days of Eastern Caribbean reefs are numbered

Published September 20, 2011 Atlantic Ocean , Caribbean Sea , Climate change , Coral reefs , Endangered species Closed

The West Indies’ coral reefs will disappear in a few decades. This is the shocking result of a new scientific study. Individual coral colonies will survive in the region even in the future, but the coral reef ecosystem as we currently know it will disappear. All this will lead to significant economic losses, particularly for island and coastal people whose livelihoods are closely linked to coral reefs and the ecosystem services they provide.

Global climate change is the main reason for the dramatic changes. The powerful adverse effects were shown in the Eastern Caribbean already in 2005, when the health of the region’s reefs weakened and live cover dropped during an extensive coral bleaching.

The study by Buddemeier et al. tells that it is already too late to stop the reef death. The big changes in the coral reef environment will take place even if substantial emission cuts of greenhouse gases are implemented in the coming years.

Coral reefs of the Caribbean are facing difficult times: efficient conservation measures are needed urgently. In addition to global emission cuts of greenhouse gases, innovative local conservation actions would be important. Photo copyright (c) 2011 Erkki Siirila.

The study published in the journal Climate Change in 2011 focuses on Eastern Caribbean reef health and especially the Virgin Islands’ area. The COMBO (COral Mortality and Bleaching Output) model was used for the predictions. Three realistic emission scenarios for greenhouse gases were the basis for the simulation.

The results indicate that future bleaching episodes will be followed by the reduction of live coral cover on the reefs. (Most of the damage will be caused by the warming of sea waters and related bleaching. The decline in reef condition will take place even if the adverse effect of ocean acidification is calculated as minor.)

If there is no adaptation by the corals to the elevated mean water temperatures, the live coral cover on the West Indies’ reefs will decrease to less than 5% already by the year 2035. In a scenario where corals develop an additional 1–1.5 degrees Celcius of heat tolerance (through a shift in the symbiotic algae that live in the coral tissues) coral cover above 5% could last until 2065.

The researchers did not include reefs which are located more than 30m underwater. Live coral cover between 5 and 10% was considered a limit where the reef would not be able to regenerate itself and could not be called a real coral reef any more. For several of these modeling scenarios, the researchers used starting levels of coral cover of 7%, 15%, and/or 30%. These values are realistic values in the Eastern Caribbean.

Buddemeier et al. summarise their study by saying that “coral reef communities are likely to be essentially gone from substantial parts of the Southeast Caribbean by the year 2035, given the current low cover values following the 2005 event” and that “the conversion of coral reefs to fundamentally different systems will have large implications for the provision of ecosystem services”. The authors add: “Given the modeling results presented here, urgent efforts are needed to identify and protect what appear to be the most resilient coral reefs in the Caribbean.”

The whole study (R. W. Buddemeier, Diana R. Lane and J. A. Martinich, Modeling regional coral reef responses to global warming and changes in ocean chemistry: Caribbean case study, Climatic Change, 2011, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-011-0022-z) can be found here: Study by Buddemeier et al.

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