Integrated Coastal Zone Management: four entrenched illusions

The considerable efforts undertaken on all continents to carry out field experiments and refine the concept of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) have resulted in its adoption as the key paradigm for the sustainable development of coastal areas. Having reached a first phase of maturity, ICZM should now be challenged by critical assessments if it is to advance both theoretically and operationally. In this perspective, our paper highlights four deep-rooted illusions: the illusion that round table discussions can solve any problem, the coastal manager myth, the community illusion and the positivist illusion. It is argued that these illusions result from unproved conceptual over-simplifications and lead to a naive conception of action that often impedes ICZM implementation.