On the Meaning of Integration

The types of management actions that occur under ICZM are not exclusive to coastal management – they may be implemented under an array of environmental management and land use or spatial planning programs. However, what does set them apart from other types of environmental

management actions is the degree of integration that is required to enable a functioning, multi-sectoral management system.Tracing the history of ICZM, early attempts at coastal zone management for example in the USA were simply termed “Coastal Zone Management”. It was not until the 1980s that integration became recognised as an explicit feature of coastal zone management and became established as a key characteristic of coastal programs.

Kenchington and Crawford differentiate integration from coordination, explaining that a coordinated system is comprised of independent, generally equivalent components working to a common purpose, whereas an integrated system is complete or unified although it will generally have subordinate

components (1993:111-12). This more accurately reflects the political context within which ICZM occurs – that is, the hierarchy of central-local government and strategic policies – area/sectoral plans.

The same authors also note that the term “integration” had been part of coastal management discourse since the launch of the United Nation’s Regional Seas Programme in 1975, but at that early stage its use was ambiguous. Increasingly it became used to describe the more complex systems of coastal area management that were being developed.

The way in which ICZM differs from the earlier form of coastal zone management is described in a simple way by Post and Lundin, who explain that ICZM attempts a more comprehensive approach – taking account of all the sectoral activities that affect the coastal zone and its resources and dealing with economic and social issues as well as environmental/ecological concerns (1996:1).

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However, this explanation of ICZM does not adequately describe the ways in which integration can or ought to occur. For this we need to consider not only the range of activities or agents of ICZM but also the wider sustainable development agenda.

It was the UN Stockholm Declaration of 1972 that first called for integrated resource management in development planning (Kenchington and Crawford, 1993) and as sustainable development has become the dominant paradigm of economic development and global governance regimes one interpretation of integration refers to the conceptual merger of environment and development (Nichols, 99:393),

whereby the twin (and sometimes contradictory) objectives of achieving economic prosperity and the conservation of natural resources are achieved.

In 1992, against the backdrop of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio, integration was again given prominence as ICZM was endorsed by IPCC as “the appropriate framework *…+ to reduce vulnerability to accelerated sea level rise” (Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998:36).

More importantly, Chapter 17 of the Agenda 21 document agreed at UNCED made a strong

commitment to achieving sustainable development for the marine and coastal environments, stating that:

“This requires new approaches to marine and coastal area management and development, at the national, sub-regional, regional and global levels, approaches that are integrated and are precautionary and anticipatory in ambit” (UNCED, 1993).

Furthermore, Programme Area A for Integrated Management and Sustainable Development of Coastal and Marine Areas, Including Exclusive Economic Zones, called on states to:

Provide for an integrated policy and decision making process, including all involved sectors, to promote compatibility and a balance of uses (paragraph 17.5(a)).

And for:

Integration of sectoral programmes on sustainable development for settlements, agriculture, tourism, fishing, ports and industries affecting the coastal area (paragraph 17.6(i)).

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Institutional integration can take the form of a number of measures, and Underdahl lists these as first, redefining the domain of existing institutions - transferring issues both vertically, towards central government to provide a more strategic overview, and horizontally, to broaden the remit of what may be more narrowly focused, sector-based organisations (Underdahl, 1980:167). Brown et al also describe horizontal integration as the cross-sectoral harmonisation of policy and practice or joined-up decision making, whilst vertical integration concerns different scales of governance, from local to international (Brown et al, 2002:21). The transfer of sectoral marine controls for aggregates, fisheries and offshore renewable energy to the Marine Management Organisation under the Marine and Coastal Access Act represents one such example of horizontal integration and the broadening of perspectives.

A second institutional strategy is to change decision-making procedures, for example using more inclusive and participatory approaches such as environmental impact assessment (EIA), public hearings and joint proposals. This may be particularly useful in the case of voluntary partnerships where the partnership as a whole, does not, according to McKenna et al mesh effectively with external

organisations, lying “outside the loops” of power and influence of statutory bodies with decision making powers (McKenna et al,2008:945). Giving partnerships a greater role in, for example, consultations on Marine Plans could therefore facilitate greater institutional integration.

Third, the redistribution of resources or authority between institutions could increase capacity or create subordinate institutions to another with a stronger leadership. The final method of institutional

integration suggested by Underdahl is the creation of a new institution, either through merger of existing institutions, or creating a new lead institution with overall responsibility that can coordinate the work of others. Again, the creation of the Marine Management Organisation provides an example of how this may occur.

The second form of integration, sectoral integration, can occur across economic sectors, as identified by Ehler and Basta (1993), for example recreation and energy, across economic and environmental sectors (e.g. energy and marine mammal protection), or between coastal and marine sectors and other land- based sectors such as agriculture (Cicin-Sain, 1993:25).

Other forms of integration can include spatial and temporal dimensions, covering the landward and the marine sides of the coastal zone. The concept of the coastal zone as a unique environment forms a substantial body of discourse within coastal management literature. Traditionally the coast has been thought of as a frontier where the land meets the sea, although Alder and Kay (2005:1) observe that this

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boundary is generally not a clearly defined line on a map but rather a transitional zone. It is for this reason that the coastal zone is commonly referred to as “the interface between land and sea” (see for example Cicin-Sain, 1998, Post and Lundin, 1996, Chua, 1993).

Alder and Kay (2005) propose two main methods of defining the coastal zone. These are in terms of policy-oriented definitions which focus on designated areas and are politically determined, and the biophysical, where there are interactions between the land and sea.

2.3.1 Policy Oriented Definitions of the Coastal Zone

The evolution of policy-oriented or political definitions of the coastal zone - which may take the form of fixed or variable distance definitions, definitions according to usage (e.g. economic sectors, protected areas and settlements) or hybrid definitions - can be traced back to the maritime activities of the Seventeenth Century, when the “Cannon-shot rule” developed by Cornelius Bykershoek was used to extend national territory out over the three nautical mile belt of sea around the coast (Nichols, 1999). Yet it was not until after World War II as nations began to assert their economic rights over adjacent seas that a new, more formalised system of national jurisdiction and responsibilities for the sea was developed.

The Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) was agreed and came into force after being ratified by 60 states in 1982, following three Law of the Sea conferences hosted by the United Nations. UNCLOS was highly significant in that it provided a new “constitution” for the world’s oceans (Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998:69) or a framework for ocean governance covering all aspects of maritime activity. Central to this was the establishment and acceptance of maritime zones measured from a carefully defined baseline at mean low water mark and including:

Internal waters (on the landward side of the baseline),

Territorial waters – now extending sovereign territory out to 12 Nautical miles and “often the domain of coastal planners” (Nichols, 99:390),

The Contiguous zone (extending from 12 to 24 Nm), in which nations can exert limited legal powers,

Exclusive Economic Zones (extending out to a maximum of 200Nm), for which nations have sole control over economic resources such as fishing and oil exploration, and

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Archipelagic waters (boundaries around islands) and the continental shelf (the natural extension of a territory along the underwater continental land mass).

Whilst these definitions are widely accepted in the global marine management regime, within individual nation states the exact nature of the coastal zone is still subject to administrative and sectoral

requirements. Cicin-Sain relates sections of the coastal zone through a political economy dimension to a continuum of private-public property and associated governance, whereby in inland areas private property ownership tends to dominate, coastal lands contain a mix of public and private, and in coastal waters or the high seas public ownership and concerns are dominant. In parallel with this,

local/provincial government interests and multi-purpose agencies predominate in inland areas, with national and international concerns and single-purpose agencies, for example for shipping or

conservation taking greater importance further out to sea (1993:27). This relationship is presented in Figure 2.2 below.

Figure 2.2: Nature of Property and Government Interests and Institutions in Coastal/Ocean Areas

Coastal ocean spectrum

Inland areas Coastal lands Coastal waters Offshore waters

High seas

Nature of Property

Private Private/public Predominantly public

Nature of government interests

Local/provincial Mix of local/provincial/ national Mainly national Mainly international Nature of government

Multi-purpose agencies Single-purpose agencies

Source: Cicin-Sain (1993:28) In the UK, the delineation of the coastal zone is complicated further by the historic legacy of the Crown (Gibson, 1993) which owns approximately half of the intertidal strip of land known as the foreshore

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around the UK. The Crown Estate also owns the seabed out to the limits of territorial waters, and inland up to mean low water mark. These boundaries were originally devised to demarcate property and were re-enacted in the Local Government Act of 1972, without taking into account the needs of coastal zone management (Gibson, 1993:120).

In 1992, a House of Commons Select committee on Coastal Zone Protection and Planning reported that although there was widespread support for the treatment of the coastal zone as one integrated unit comprised of land and sea elements, the management of these two environments formed two distinct activities or areas of jurisdiction.

The Committee found that:

“The division between the planning control system at sea and on land may be regarded as forming the root of many of the problems with current coastal protection and planning policies… Harmonising the planning systems of below and above the low water mark seems to us to be the basic requisite for an integrated approach to planning in the coastal zone”

(1992:30)

Thus a recommendation was made to harmonise landward planning control and seaward planning control as far as the 12 Nautical Mile limit of territorial waters. However this was not enacted, and thus the cessation of local authority planning controls at mean low water mark remains the norm in England2 (see PPG 20: the Coast), although PPG 20 also states that “Local planning authorities will need to consider how best to define the coastal zone for their areas… based on local circumstances and the key coast-related planning issues to be covered in their planning policies” (1992:5). Up until the enactment of the Marine and Coastal Access Act in 2009, sectoral agencies controlled activities further out at sea, such as aggregate extraction, however much of this sectoral legislation has now been brought under the auspices of the Marine Management Organisation which is responsible for most marine planning and management activity in England, whilst the Welsh Assembly Government and Marine Scotland will undertake marine management duties for the devolved administrations. .

2

In Scotland under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, terrestrial planning controls extend to the mean low water mark and marine fish farming.

36 2.3.2 Biophysical Definitions of the Coastal Zone

Addressing the biophysical perspective, Alder and Kay (2005) acknowledge the link between water catchments that may be far inland but that have an influence on estuaries and coasts, citing Ketchum’s (1972) definition of the coastal zone as

“the band of dry land and adjacent ocean space (water and submerged land) in which terrestrial processes and land uses directly affect oceanic processes and uses, and vice versa” (in Alder and Kay, 2005:2)

Perhaps the most important biophysical perspective for defining the spatial unit to be the subject of coastal management is the ecosystem approach, which may be applied to both marine and coastal environments. Ecosystems represent functional units of interacting biotic and abiotic components that operate as dynamic, open systems. Where the ecosystems approach is operationalised for coastal management purposes, it is described as

“The integrated management of human activities based on knowledge of ecosystem dynamics to achieve sustainable use of ecosystem goods and services, and maintenance of ecosystem integrity” (ICES, 2000).

Post and Lundin (1996:3) point to the wide variations between national definitions of the coastal zone and the arbitrary nature or convenience with which the coastal zone is placed within jurisdictional limits. This could potentially lead to a mismatch between ecosystems and administrative boundaries (e.g. government regions) and inadequate recognition given to the true scale of the interrelated components that make up a particular coastal or marine ecosystem.

It should be noted that although shoreline management planning, river basin management planning, Marine Planning and ICZM are all in theory applied to ecosystems, these forms of planning and

management are operationalised within the parameters of predefined administrative areas. In the case of shoreline management, Coastal Groups are based on sediment cells, but responsibility for planning lies with the adjacent local planning authorities. For river basin management, Basin Management Plans are produced for a number of specifically delineated River Basin Management Districts. The ICES definition of the ecosystems approach outlined above underpins the UK government’s approach to marine stewardship as outlined in Safeguarding Our Seas: a Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of Our Marine Environment (DEFRA, 2002) and takes a broader strategic

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perspective than traditional coastal management boundaries, including both water catchment and high seas influences on the coastal zone.

Although the eight ICZM principles set out by the EU in Recommendation 2002/413/EC concerning the implementation of ICZM in Europe are based on the ecosystem approach set out in the Community’s Sixth Environmental Action Programme, experience in the UK of implementing non-statutory ICZM has to date been based on a weak interpretation of the coastal zone that does not give sufficient

consideration to the marine aspect of the coastal environment (Gubbay, 2002). Therefore much coastal management/ICZM activity in the UK has focused on the land and as such is subsumed within the framework of terrestrial spatial planning. The lack of integration between offshore, coastal and terrestrial environments has been identified as a shortcoming of the current ICZM regime in the UK, though this has mainly been due to the lack of coordination between the bodies responsible for activities in each zone (DEFRA 2007b:9).

Referring to Figure 1.1 in the previous chapter which outlines the jurisdictions of government bodies in England in the coastal and marine environment, it can be seen that the extent of the MMO’s jurisdiction for Marine Planning overlaps with Local Planning Authorities’ jurisdiction for terrestrial spatial planning between High and Low Water. This should facilitate some integration between marine and terrestrial planning, and according to the recently issued Draft Marine Policy Statement this will be achieved by ensuring consistency between marine and terrestrial planning policies and documents, liaison between respective responsible authorities, a shared evidence base and adopting the principles of ICZM (HM Government, 2010:23). However it could be questioned whether this approach to issues of overlap of is really sufficient to encourage spatial integration, and how this works in practice may not be known for several years.

Integration in the temporal dimension can refer to the seasonal changes which occur in the physical environment, and also the integration of planning cycles with evolving ecosystems, as identified by Olsen (2001), who cites the mismatch between cycles of governance and cycles of coastal ecosystem change Rather than standing in isolation from natural processes, Olsen notes that governance efforts at an intermediate time scale between short term governance initiatives and longer term periods over which environmental change are evaluated (two to four decades) have been crucially important for areas such as the Great Lakes and the Netherlands (2001:334). Spatial and temporal integration, therefore, have a strong ecological component and as such may also form part of an ecosystem approach to ICZM.

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Integration across disciplines is also important – a 1996 GESAMP report cited in its definition of ICZM that it “unites government and the community, science and management, sectoral and public interests”, and on a more abstract level, the contested nature of the coastal resource and management approaches require a deeper understanding of the perspectives and value judgements inherent in decision making systems. Visser (2004) exemplifies this, citing Osseweijer (1999) and Van Helden (2001):

“The implementation of an integrated approach to the sustainable development of a marine park area… shows that conflicts can be generated that appear to be about practicalities but in fact result from the different epistemological histories of marine biology and anthropology. The conceptual differences about the size of a territory become in practice almost a kind of ideological conflict between the biologists and the anthropologists involved in the establishment of a marine park” (2004:29).

The integration of policy is probably the most important form of integration as it can either constitute an ultimate goal of ICZM to be worked towards, or it can precipitate other forms of integration, such as the sectoral or institutional. Underdahl (1980) specifies three criteria which must be met for policy integration to occur. These are:

1. Comprehensiveness – recognising the consequences of policy integration as a premise for decision making, using all the information available at the time.

2. Aggregation – the ability to evaluate policy alternatives from an overall perspective rather than by sectors or individuals. This requires the weighing of interests and setting priorities, which may become more difficult to develop as the scope of public policy broadens and more actors are involved.

3. Consistency - this is achieved when there is conformity in policy through vertical dimensions (central to local government) and horizontal (all agencies working towards the same goal, e.g. local authorities).

Whilst various types of integration are identified and characterised here, the point made in Chapter One by Cicin-Sain (1993) and Cicin-Sain and Knecht (1998) that integration is not a discrete characteristic of ICZM, but rather a continuum, must be kept in mind. This is particularly pertinent when integration is