| "The greatest threat to coastal conservation remains lack of public understanding and public indifference." |
Coasts, like coveted geography everywhere, are never finally saved. They are always being saved through perpetual stewardship. Looking forward to coastal management in the new millennium, we should be inspired by the promise of hope for an improved coastal environmental future and proud of a remarkable record of achievement. Coastal zone management (CZM) has matured considerably since its birth in California in 1965 and is now being implemented, in some form, throughout the U.S. and in many other countries. However labeled, public sector involvement in planning and regulation of one or another uses of coastal resources is here to stay and is vital to all coastal nations. The primary mission of coastal management is to protect, conserve, restore, and enhance natural and human-based resources of coasts and the coastal ocean for environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and future generations. Effective national engagement in CZM to advance this mission depends, in the future as it has in the past, largely on five key factors—understanding, vision, leadership, public support, and political will.
As we look ahead, we need also look to lessons of the past and build on that experience. Certainly mistakes have been made, many irreversible, but I am confident we can do better than repeat them. Humans alone have the capacity to wound and heal our environment, or not to wound at all.
There have been significant gains in environmental stewardship as well, though many are intangible and marked more by what cannot be quantified or measured than by what is readily accessible to the physical senses. Perhaps the greatest achievement is the environmental harm not done or that is less severe than might have been. Another is the flowering of environmental conscience that tells us the earth is fragile and vulnerable, worthy of profound appreciation and thoughtful care. Happily, we are slowly moving away from an exploitation mentality toward one predicated on stewardship, environmental sustainability, and precautionary principles.
More specifically, in coastal management the greatest accomplishments are the important habitats not destroyed; the public beach access and recreational opportunities not lost; landscapes and seascapes not diminished; destructive, sprawling development no longer proposed or not permitted; agricultural lands not converted; and so on. Other accomplishments attributable to coastal management include slowing the rapidity of change in many coastal areas; increasing understanding and support for coastal protection among public officials at all levels of government; significant economic returns from tourism; recreation and coastal-dependent commercial activities; higher quality development; greater public appreciation; active participation and support for coastal conservation; expansion of public parklands, and land and marine protected areas; the education, training, and employment of growing numbers of environmental practitioners; and positive developments in environmental law, education, science, and principles of governance.
We can point with equal pride to tangible achievements—countless acres of restored terrestrial and aquatic habitat; new public access and recreational facilities; revitalized urban waterfronts; a wide variety of public education and outreach programs; national marine sanctuaries; a string of national estuarine research reserves; federally approved coastal management programs in 33 of 35 coastal states and territories; marine water quality initiatives; environmental protections incorporated in all manner of new development projects; and increased capacity of local government to prepare and enforce environmentally sound land-use plans. Despite the gains much remains to be done, and the heavy lifting has just begun.
Evolving dynamics of international economics; advances in communication and transportation technologies and engineering and science; expanding consumerism and individual wealth; workplace changes; shifting demographics; and human desire to visit, live, and work in relatively unspoiled surroundings have elevated the challenges confronting natural resource managers by orders of magnitude. The short- and long-term effects of population growth and economic development pressures concentrated along land's edge around the world threaten to overwhelm environmental quality and biological integrity of all life in these communities. As we stride into a new millennium, effective protection of important environmental values in human and natural coastal communities will not easily be achieved, especially in developing countries.
Coastal management, broad in reach and concept, varies in meaning and applications in different communities. There is no one vision that embraces the whole of it. Rather, there are many that merge into the overarching vision of coasts in the new millennium whose integrity and vitality are preserved. However, while diverse, all coastal management initiatives contain threads of common themes and dynamics. Foremost is that all initiatives are infused with ideals nested in and powered by the expectation that through them we will realize a better environmental future for coasts to benefit current generations and those that follow in our wake. Other common themes include conflict and controversy, frustration and satisfaction, adaptation and change, innovation and risk, short- and long-term losses and gains, passion and learning. The stakes involved are enormous for individuals, the public, and natural communities. Because stakes are high and the issues involve questions of livelihood and personal financial profit, way of life, private rights, freedoms, and expectations, as well as strongly held individual philosophical views about the role of government, emotions run high and conflict and controversy are inevitable—a dynamic that comes with the territory.
We as coastal managers need constantly remind ourselves why we do what we do. The way of public service is not easy in these times of eroding community values and citizen disillusionment, frustration, indifference, and cynicism about the role of government in their lives. A sizable segment of the public seems unwilling to recognize the good works of public servants done every day. Many people demand public service but don't respect it, and don't want to pay for it. They simply take public service for granted.
Notwithstanding the realities of public service in contemporary society, there always remains the guiding light shining just the other side of hope. Most of us come to and stay with our work of environmental stewardship by choice and recognize that the rewards of our labor are wrapped around a bundle of intangibles. Most are driven by deeply rooted personal values, the way we view the world and ourselves, philosophy, and dedication to service in the best interest of life on the planet. We derive strength and comfort in the knowledge that our work is meaningful, honorable, and enduring—at once noble and ennobling.
Those who choose environmental stewardship as vocation hold in their care a precious trust. I am convinced that most people want us to do our jobs well, and expect that we bring vision, dedication, strength of purpose, knowledge, professionalism, and integrity to the task. When we do, public support will be there. Knowing this and the purpose of our work should empower us to hold at bay the cynicism and resignation that inevitably gnaws at all of us from time to time. And because our work is so much about rewards and values not easily held in hand, we must reach within for satisfaction and fortitude to keep on doing what we do. Inspired and driven by our vision of a better environmental future for the world, it is up to each of us to keep alive our dreams and keep stoked that fire in the belly.
Looking back 35 years, it is remarkable how much and yet how little has changed in the dynamics of coastal management. Controversial issues then, remain so today: local versus state-level control; unpredictable political support for land-use planning and regulation; public access; private and public land rights; protection of wetlands and other environmentally sensitive habitat; environmental justice; lack of diversity among practitioners in the field; population growth and economic development pressures; and more.
The greatest threat to coastal conservation remains lack of public understanding and public indifference. The viability of coastal management programs requires that more people share a vision of a healthy environmental future for coasts and oceans. For that to happen, we must do more to promote public education and involvement, and to train those who will carry on after us. Education is an area in which everyone can carry a share of the load to learn and teach about coastal and ocean ecosystems, and accept individual responsibility for environmental protection. The challenge is how to fire the public's imagination and stimulate active support. It will not be easy. The message must focus more sharply on the worth of coastal protection than worrying about the cost of doing so.
The key to communicating the message is that people understand the vital need to talk to one another in a civil and thoughtful manner. The search for consensus among a closely linked but highly diverse grouping of people preoccupied with their own special interests is perhaps the most profound challenge of our time. We, as a people who care about the environmental well-being of the country, have no choice but to engage the challenge and work at it until we stand together on common ground. We must listen closely and hear each other. We must build on what unites us and not dwell on our differences.
As the world becomes more crowded and the push and pull of hectic daily life wears and tears at the fabric of our emotional being, we will yearn for the solace of the shore. We will want and value landscapes and seascapes uncluttered by the doings of man. We will reach for tranquility and solitude in nature and find seashore and ocean as relief from the press and pace of urban existence. People in growing numbers will travel to land's end to embrace its soothing and healing power. Public lands and open space will be treasured and fiercely defended, and the public will raise higher its demand for protection of coasts and oceans.
And we, as practitioners in the field, are blessed with the opportunity and the public's trust in doing just that!
Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission (CCC), coauthored a citizens' initiative in 1972 that established the CCC.
