ABSTRACT
Sandy beaches are iconic marine environments comprising most of the world’s open-ocean coasts, and providing important goods and services. Their position at the land-sea interface renders high socio-economic and ecological value, but also enhances their vulnerability to impacts, e.g., from inappropriate coastal development, high coastal population densities and poorly managed human use, on which climate-change impacts are superimposed. This calls for a revolution in the way one perceives, manages and conserves beaches so that one may maintain the many benefits they confer. A two-part action plan of formal and informal interventions are proposed. First, despite complexity in governance structures across the land-sea divide, formal conservation and management need to account for ecological processes and connectivity across the ecotone, and move away from piecemeal planning and decision-making. Second, the values people hold about beaches provide opportunities for building a stewardship mindset through education and citizen science for informal conservation action by individuals that complements formal interventions. Ultimately, safeguarding this invaluable ecosystem and maintaining its benefits through sustainable development requires integration of coastal land and sea as the planning domain; of economic, social and ecological dimensions; of governance structures, decisions and actions; and of science and society.
