The Promise of Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management: Questioning the Past, Rethinking the Future

Abstract

There is general agreement that the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro provided global recognition and acknowledgement of the dismal failure of sectoral management in understanding, anticipating, and responding to consequences arising from our interactions with other biotic and abiotic components of coastal and marine ecosystems. The conference is credited with also providing a globally accepted alternative approach to marine and coastal area management and development as outlined in Chapter 17 of Agenda 21.1 One that spans not only multiple jurisdictional levels but requires the co-ordination of sectoral activities and influences across the land-sea-air interface. With over 178 heads of state signing the final text of the agreement at the Rio Conference, the stage was set to adopt and implement integrated coastal and ocean management (icom). In her 1995 reflection on progress regarding the implementation of Agenda 21 and the integrated approach for managing coastal and ocean activities, Elisabeth Mann Borgese cautioned that we needed to take a long-term view and not be frustrated by the apparent lack of political will and means available for implementation that she was observing some three years after the Rio Earth Summit.2 She had reason for such optimism as within a few years, scholars and practitioners alike from across the globe were documenting the exponential growth in projects and programs focusing on developing and implementing icom.3