Coastal Management

INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER OF COASTAL MANAGEMENT Coastal Resources Center, University of Rhode Island Narragansett, Rhode Island USA • #40 • Fall 2001 FOCUS ON: Coastal Management: In Search of Success By William Matuszeski health of the coastal resources Baltic Sea. But, little has actually been here are now a great many themselves.These kinds of results written up for the professional audi- IN SEARCH OF SUCCESS COASTAL MANAGEMENT: COASTAL Tcoastal management efforts are fewer and more difficult to pin ence on how these places have been underway throughout the world. down. saved. As your Guest Editor, I have These undertakings have resulted in This issue of InterCoast seeks out only limited overseas experience and many studies, new institutions, and success stories and tries to explain contacts. So I found it easiest to draw Highlights commitments to bring change. what made them happen. It draws upon friends and colleagues here in Especially where integrated coastal heavily upon experience in the the US to put their experiences to 4 USA to Thailand: management has been tried across a United States.This is not because paper. Transferring range of issues, agencies and inter- there are no success stories else- The result is a set of articles in this Lessons Learned ests, there have been ongoing where.We all know of progress in issue by remarkably talented practi- efforts to evaluate success. But, the coastal resource restoration and tioners—people who almost never 6 Tampa Bay, USA ultimate measures of success must protection being made worldwide have the time to sit down and write be the recovery and sustained from the Great Barrier Reef to the out what happened and why. I know (continued page 2) 8 Singapore River and the Kallang Basin Chesapeake Bay, USA: Lessons 10 Cuyahoga River, USA Learned from Managing a Watershed By Ann Pesiri Swanson effort is designed to work within The Chesapeake Bay 12 he Chesapeake Bay is the the highly participatory framework The Chesapeake Bay has often been Boston Harbor, largest and most productive USA T of the American democratic cul- referred to as the “crown jewel” of the estuary in the United States and ture. Multiple players are involved United States’ 850 estuaries. Located among the most productive in the 14 at every stage of the restoration midway along the east coast of the Puget Sound, USA world. Efforts to restore the process including various levels of United States, it extends 180 miles Chesapeake Bay are now more than government, private citizens, and (290 km) from the tidal reaches at the 16 two decades old, and there are businesses.The lessons outlined in mouth of the Susquehanna River in San Francisco Bay, many lessons we have learned.This this paper are put forth with trans- Maryland to Cape Charles,Virginia, USA paper is intended to highlight some ferability in mind. Some may be where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. It of these lessons and to identify directly transferable to similar cuts across virtually the entire north- some of the successes experienced restoration efforts elsewhere in the south length of two states—Maryland Theme in the effort to manage the bay as a world. Others may need to be and Virginia— helping to define their Advisor: single ecosystem, including all of modified in order to work within landscape, their cultures, and their its waters and the land that defines the ecological, cultural, or political economies. William its watershed. framework of a given region or As an estuarine system, the Matuszeski The Chesapeake Bay restoration country. Chesapeake Bay is highly complex. (continued page 28) Matuszeski about restoring the underwater (continued from page 1) grassbeds in Tampa Bay. this because it was difficult to get An overseas success story comes many of them to do it for you. INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER OF COASTAL MANAGEMENT from Singapore, where L.M. Chou These are folks who are accus- Executive Editor: outlines how a coordinated govern- Stephen B. Olsen tomed to being in the field—out ment effort cleaned up the Editor: Noëlle F. Lewis there making things happen. I hope Singapore River and the Kallang Designer: Matt Castigliego you will join me in thanking them Basin. A great many difficult deci- InterCoast is an internat- for taking time out to tell their sions had to be made and many ional newsletter of coastal stories. people had to change their liveli- management, published three We start with Chesapeake Bay, hoods and their lifestyles, but a times each year by the Coastal the place I am most familiar with. I clear action plan and broad support Resources Management counted Ann Swanson among my brought measurable results. Project of the University of closest and most capable colleagues Back in the states, we look at Rhode Island's Coastal during the decade I spent with the two infamous examples of pollu- Resources Center (CRC) and Bay Program.The Chesapeake is tion where there were concerted the U.S. Agency for America’s largest estuary, and International Development efforts and major turnarounds.The worldwide is exceeded in size only Cuyahoga River in Cleveland is (USAID). Funding to publish by the Ob in northern Siberia.The InterCoast is provided by right up there with the Santa Chesapeake Bay Program is the USAID's Global Environment Barbara Oil Spill as a touchstone Center and the National granddaddy of US coastal restora- for the awakening of America’s Institute for Coastal and tion efforts, and the issues it deals environmental consciousness.This Marine Mangement,The with are as vast as its enormous was the river that was so polluted Netherlands. watershed and as complex as the it caught fire and burned in 1969. InterCoast’s objective is to interactions in its 700,000 acres Since then, it has seen a remarkable facilitate information exchange (280,000 hectares) of shallows. recovery.This past summer at the on coastal management issues. Ann’s article captures the key les- Coastal Zone ‘01 Conference in Readers are invited to contact sons from 25 years of intensive Cleveland, US, I sat in an outdoor Noëlle F. Lewis with contribu- management efforts. restaurant on the river in down- tions, questions, and com- Donna Nickerson’s piece ments. town Cleve-land, dining on Great explains how the US National Lakes seafood with friends and InterCoast Estuary Program (NEP) grew out watching the yachts go by. Coastal Resources Center of the Chesapeake Bay effort and University of Rhode Island The other remarkable comeback expanded to eventually encompass has been Boston Harbor.As recent- Narragansett, Rhode Island one-third of the nation’s estuaries. 02882 USA ly as 1988, the waters were so pol- Tel:401 874-6870 She goes on to provide a set of luted that they were an issue in the Fax: 401 789-4670 insights on how the NEP model presidential election campaign. E-mail: [email protected] and experience was applied to a Since then, there has been massive Website:www.crc.uri.edu bay in Thailand, with measurable investment of public funds to InterCoast's policy is to positive results. rebuild the sewage treatment sys- limit submissions to a short Next we turn to Tampa Bay tem of the metropolitan area. Rich essay or summary.The editor Program in Florida.This is a NEP Delaney’s article explains how it all routinely edits submissions with a comprehensive restoration happened and the results so far.The heavily and removes refer- plan, and they have taken the lead ences. Such changes are com- lesson here is that coastal cleanups on a range of issues, including the in urban areas have to deal with the monly made without further impact of deposition of air pollu- consultation with the author. basics of human sewage, and the tants on the water and the living solutions are not cheap. resources of the bay.We asked Keeping finance in mind, we Holly Greening, the Program’s next learn about Puget Sound in Chief Scientist, to take a specific Washington State, one of the first issue and demonstrate how goals NEP to complete its conservation were set and results achieved. She and management plan.We asked has provided us with a myriad of Nancy McKay to focus on how insights related to how they went (continued page 40) 2 InterCoast • Fall 2001 OCEANS AND COASTS AT RIO+10 TOWARDSTHE 2002 WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,JOHANNESBURG ASSESSING PROGRESS,ADDRESSING CONTINUING AND NEW CHALLENGES PARIS,FRANCE DECEMBER 3-7, 2001 Background It has been almost a decade since many important new agreements on oceans and coasts were adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)), including Chapter 17 of Agenda 21, and the oceans-related aspects of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since that time, too, the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea has come into force, and several modifications to the convention—related to straddling stocks and to deep-seabed mining— have been adopted.There has been much investment in the management of coastal and marine areas by national and international donors, and the number of nations undertaking coastal and ocean management has increased significantly. International entities have done extensive work in providing guidance for sustainable development of coastal and marine resources, and national governments and communities are increasingly experimenting with models of management emphasizing sustainable development, integration, and the precautionary approach. Purpose The Global Conference on Oceans and Coasts at Rio+10:Assessing Progress,Addressing Continuing and New Challenges, to be held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on December 3 through 7, 2001, is intended to provide an overall assessment of progress achieved on oceans and coasts since the Earth Summit and to provide input to the discussions by governments which will take place in Septemeber 2002 when nations around the world will converge at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) in Johannesburg, South Africa, to assess progress made in the implementation of all aspects of the world agenda on environment and development agreed to at the 1992 Earth Summit.

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