From state budget cuts to new security zones impacting public use, it appears that many in the coastal resource management community did not escape being affected in some way by the events of September 11, 2001, and our nation's resulting war on terrorism. The question on a number of managers' minds is, "How much more change is to come, and how can we best prepare?"
While none of us has a crystal ball, the dialogue resulting from our asking how coastal resource management has been altered by the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., has generated the articles in this special edition of Coastal Services.
Covering Guam to Alaska and Mississippi to Maine, we conducted 67 interviews with managers from coastal zone management programs, Sea Grant, National Estuarine Research Reserves, and National Marine Sanctuaries, as well as related federal, state, local, and nongovernmental organizations.
Coastal managers in New York shared what their experiences were on that infamous day, their role in the response, and how their jobs have been affected. Managers across the country told us how they are tightening their financial belts in the wake of a weakening economy that was made worse by the terrorist attacks.
We listened as managers talked about how their facilitation skills, data and technology, environmental and hazards knowledge, and regulatory oversight might be helpful in homeland and port security, and to their concerns about pursuing these ideas, ranging from homeland security's absence from existing mandates to uncertainty about the needs of the emergency management community.
Changes in the use of information and technology were discussed as one of the ripple effects of September 11, and many managers wondered what the shift in the nation's legislative focus to defense, homeland security, and the economy may mean for the environment.
What is clear is that the impacts of September 11 will reverberate through our country for years to come. We hope this special edition will spur coastal management debate, and perhaps generate some ideas about how to incorporate these changes into the way we manage our nation's precious coastal resources.
-- Margaret A. Davidson
