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International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.46, 389-401
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
390
approach to the management of coastal zones holds
the greatest promise for restoring marine ecosystems
and ensuring the long term delivery of their goods and
services for humans. Margerum (2001) highlights that
a variety of terms are used to promote this concept,
including Integrated Environmental Management,
Integrated Watershed Management, Collaborative
Planning, Integrated Coastal Zone Management,
Ecosystem Management and Integrated Resource
Management.
The term Integration has been a part of coastal
management discussion since the UNEP Regional
Seas Program was launched in 1975. Further to this,
the term integrated was added internationally to
coastal management through policy instruments such
as the Jakarta Mandate to the Convention on
Biological Diversity in the 1980s and Agenda 21 in
1992 when it became clear that the effective
management of coastal areas required a cross-sectoral
approach (Nichols, 1999, Atkins, 2004, Humphrey
and Burbridge, 2003).
Clearly, Integrated Coastal Management promotes a
holistic view that requires looking at the full range of
activities and programmes that affect a system or
region, and developing strategies for managing critical
components and interrelationships within that system.
To be more specific, integration is: ‘
to unify or to put
parts together into a whole
’ (Cicin-Sain and Belfiore,
2005, p855). Furthermore, Bower and Kerry Turner
(1998, p65) define integration in ICZM as ‘
including
integration across broad policy objectives and plans,
with different sectoral plans and management, with
different levels of government and with the public and
private sectors
’. In a word, integration in coastal
management is what distinguishes the endeavour from
traditional sectoral management. Success depends on
coordination of effort and effective inter-organizational
linkages for multiple use management.
As to the matter of integration, Lau (2005) argues that
there are two stages in integration. The first one is
internal integration, which means ‘
aligning all
government units with a direct coastal zone
responsibility at a national, regional, or local level
’
(Lau, 2005, p129). The second stage is external
integration: It aims at ‘
an integration of other
government departments (industry, transportation,
housing, urbanization, education, and tourism) in
addition to users and interest groups each with its own
specific goals
’ (Lau, 2005, p129).
In conclusion, the major purpose of integration in
coastal management is to coordinate the initiatives of
various agencies, private economic sectors, and
communities towards the best long-term socio-economic
outcomes (Clark, 1997). Management is integrated not
only when all components are included in a single
framework but, also, when potential and expected
factors are considered in practice (Kosiek et al., 2003).
To put it more simply, the basic philosophy of the
integration approach is that managers must address the
range of physical, ecological, social and economic
interconnections and produce a strategic approach to
management. Therefore, the key operational
component to achieving integration is interaction
throughout a process of planned change. Interaction
between stakeholders representing interest groups,
government bodies and individuals must occur at
every stage, from the scoping process to strategy or
plan development to implementation phases. So
integration is essential for ICZM to succeed.
1.2 The importance of integration
In a general sense, integration addresses the
inter-relationships or inter-dependence between issues
and sectors, and between environment and economic
development. For instance, the complex overlay of
issues and institutions along coastlines makes it
impossible for a single agency to meet the challenges
of management alone. A holistic view of the problem
requires a wide variety of stakeholders contributing
their perspective to a problem. Furthermore, multiple
perspectives are important for identifying goals and
the most critical issues that should be addressed.
Sufficient variety in the information gathered is
needed to match the complexity inherent in the
problem itself (Margerum and Born, 1995, Tobey and
Volk, 2002, van Kerkhoff, 2005, Ehler et al., 1997).
In the same way, Lane (2006) asserts that integration
is essential to coastal management for three reasons:
z
The coast is a space where multiple environments
(marine, terrestrial, estuarine) interact;
z
The coastal areas must be managed for multiple uses;
z
Multiple claimants and actors across government,
civil society and the market are involved in
coastal governance.