ABSTRACT
Coastal zone management (CZM) is a relatively new field and a number of terms are used interchangeably: coastal management (CM), integrated coastal management (ICM), coastal resource management (CRM), coastal area management (CAM), integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) and more. Many common elements regarding ICM represent challenges/themes such as financial sustainability, inadequate capacities, weak law enforcement and a lack of integrated and collaborative efforts. These elements are also common in beach management, which is a subset of the more voluminous ICM literature, but with particular reference to pragmatic local management. When the 1972 USA Coastal Management Act was implemented, it kick-started global ICM programmes in which Clark's (1996) book has provided a fundamental philosophical and practical basis. In this context, Vallejo (1991) has pointed out that the ICM marine dimension may be divided between coastal and ocean areas. The former was defined by Ketchum (1972: 4) as, ‘the band of dry land and adjacent ocean space (water and submerged land) in which land ecology and use directly affect ocean space ecology and vice versa. The coastal zone is a band of variable width.’ ICM is essentially a broad-brush approach for this coastal zone and traditionally has emphasized fisheries (seemingly with the Tragedy of the Commons in irreversible decline), tourism and recreation and, increasingly, hazards (mainly erosion, flooding, storms, tsunamis and dunes – especially migrating dunes), while corals and mangroves also serve as important markers in the present-day coastal zone.
