Managing Coastal And Inland Waters

Besides the erroneous assumption that tropical fisheries are ‘open access’, the cases demonstrate that pre-existing systems (1) are concerned with the community of fishers and ensuring community harmony and continuity; (2) involve flexible, multiple and overlapping rights adapted to changing needs and circumstances; (3) that fisheries are just one component of a community resource assemblage and depend on both the good management of linked upstream ecosystems and risk management to ensure balanced nutritional resources of the community; and (4) pre-existing systems are greatly affected by a constellation of interacting external pressures.

Besides the erroneous assumption that tropical fisheries are ‘open access’, the cases demonstrate that pre-existing systems (1) are concerned with the community of fishers and ensuring community harmony and continuity; (2) involve flexible, multiple and overlapping rights adapted to changing needs and circumstances; (3) that fisheries are just one component of a community resource assemblage and depend on both the good management of linked upstream ecosystems and risk management to ensure balanced nutritional resources of the community; and (4) pre-existing systems are greatly affected by a constellation of interacting external pressures.

In recent years there has been growing concern about the management of wetlands, particularly in the USA and increasingly in Europe. These wetlands, ranging from a small harbour, such as Christchurch in the UK, to the large mangrove swamps of Malaysia, are natural resources which require comprehensive management. Whilst considerable research has been undertaken and documented on the management of wetland ecosystems, little emphasis has been focused on the geomorphic, hydraulic and hydrologic behaviour of wetlands and the consequent implications for practical management solutions.

The maritime environment includes both the water resource of the terrestrial coast and estuarine and coastal inshore waters. This book, for undergraduate students and those training in the field, relates the need to manage water-based leisure activities with the need to manage the maritime environment on which they depend.

Biliana Cicin-Sain and Robert W. Knecht are co-directors of the Center for the Study of Marine Policy at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware and co-authors of The Future of U.S. Ocean Policy (Island Press, 1998).