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In the last APPG meeting organised by CoastNet, Ian Pearson – Minister of State for Climate Change and the Environment – expressed interest in extending the debate on the issue of compensation for those affected by coastal flooding and erosion in the UK.

Having visited various affected areas throughout the country, the MP highlighted the need for social justice, claiming people’s homes and towns have to be protected.

Overall, the Minister considered the key to adaptation to climate change is through a win-win approach that takes into account both social, economic and environmental interests and costs when it comes to managing coastal erosion and flood threat.

Keen to work in partnership with local authorities, Pearson pointed out the need for the Environment Agency’s strategic role in the process. However, participants demanded effective public consultation together with an Integrated Coastal Management Policy that could provide criteria for political decisions to be made whilst using planning tools such as Shoreline Management Plans.

“Although funding for erosion and flooding management has increased by 35% since 1997 there is still a long way to go”, the Minister suggested public finance initiatives (PFI’s) would be worth considering. Regardless, Pearson suggested the need for a long term funding scheme– “a 20 year investment strategy concerning all aspects of water management”.

These statements answered a few of the questions raised by the various stakeholders in the audience, most with different interests and points of view, coming from governmental organizations (Natural England and English Heritage among others), NGOs (such as Coastal Concern Action Group or the Wildlife Link), researchers and independent consultants.

The Minister expressed his readiness to engage with affected communities and a genuine interest in continuing the debate to tackle issues such as how to take into account social justice, specifically compensation issues.

The EC calls for the public, businesses and institutions to get involved in the development of their ambitious vision for an integrated Maritime Policy.

The CoastNet conference, hosted by the Marine Institute in Galway, brought together over 100 professionals through the COREPOINT partnership, who passionately debated the challenges and solutions. Concern was expressed about reinventing the wheel, and the meeting called upon the EC to learn from the experience already gained in integrated coastal zone management.

Seven countries and various sectors (eg. shipping, aquaculture, heritage and conservation) presented their own perspectives on the policy to the commission representative. Solutions such as marine spatial planning were proposed and debated by the participants.

The key issues to emerge were centred around the complexity of the oceans, society’s relationship with them. The adequacy of our knowledge of marine ecosystems as the basis for management, and how we can sustainably exploit the seas for economic benefit were central points. The concentration of activities on the coast was of concern to many, and it was recognised that our experience in managing the coast had wider applicability to the whole maritime territory. Alex MIdlen, Chairman of CoastNet commented, ‘The conference successfully started the debate on this new policy, but a question as yet unanswered was’ Can this ambitious vision be achieved?’

Mr Fernandez Deiz Picazo, from the European Commission, told the audience that their comments and proposals should be received by 30th June 2007. All submissions can be viewed at http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs

The WaveNet system has expanded in the North Sea with a further six sites (Kentish Knock, Southwold, Blakeney Overfalls (North Norfolk), North Well (Wash), Silver Pit and Tynes/Tees). Wave statistics and spectra are available from the WaveNet website (www.cefas.co.uk/wavenet) in real-time.

Historical data is also available from around the UK from the website on the “Advanced” webpages. Data can be downloaded using a wizard after registering.

The Wavenet system will also upload other wave datasets from around the UK.

The world is on the move Have you been talking lately about the EU enlargement, holidays, refugees, job seeking, commuting to work, meeting, family, retiring? Then you’ve been talking about migration. If international immigrants – nearly 200 million – lived in the same nation this would be the fifth largest on our planet, more populated than Brazil or Russia!

Migration is happening all over the world, between and within countries, and is on the rise as people move in response to an unequal distribution of resources, services and opportunities, to escape political, religious or environmental disasters. ( To learn basic ideas on international immigration ) (To see the latest report of the GCIM) (To consult a discussion of the pro’s and con’s of the EU enlargement)

People moving from rural to urban areas have contributed to the explosive growth of cities around the globe. A recent study about immigration in cities reveals that 20 cities of the world have over a million migrants, 14 of these are in coastal areas.(To see cities on a World map)

According to UN sources, Europe is the continent that received the largest number of international migrants in 2005, followed by Asia and the US.

Is the ocean always bluer on the other side? Studies have shown that migrants would choose to stay in their home countries if they could earn a living wage and work in a safe environment, with better access to jobs, education and free access to basic healthcare. By and large, humans move to improve their quality of life. Priorities vary depending on their satisfied or unsatisfied needs. Maslow’s theory, of the 1940’s, illustrates his view of humans’ hierarchy of needs and motivation and may be thought provoking in reasoning why people decide to move. (click here to see Maslows theory) Although migration has existed as long as human history, between 1965 and 1990 we witnessed increases of 45 million. And the numbers are rising.

International organisations talk about the opportunities of migration, quoting Brunson McKinley, International Organisation of Migration Director General: “ Migration is a catalyst for change and development, and in a world that is changing at a lightning pace, not harnessing the power of migration is shortsighted. Countries such as the US have been built on immigration while traditionally emigrant countries such as Ireland or Italy are witnessing booming economies thanks to migrant labour”.

But many others see the issue as a problem. Tragic episodes like the drowning or arrival of migrants in flimsy boats to the coasts of the Canary Islands or the Strait of Gibraltar raises the issue of Illegal migration and regulations in Europe. (click here to see a map of death toll around the coasts and seas of the EU)

In the UK the concerns about immigration can be summarised by consulting Migration Watch, the most active “watchdog” organisation on Immigration issues

Does migration specially impact coastal areas, or vice-versa?

The impacts of immigration on the environment are being widely argued, mostly on the principle that an increase in population leads inevitably to a stronger impact on the environment. Anthony Browne, Environmental Editor of the Times, in his book “Do We Need Mass Immigration” suggests Britain is full and argues that citizens are losing their quality of life due to unsustainable immigration (Consult this publication).

The environmental costs provoked by seasonal migrants are widely recognised. Malta, as many other coastal areas in southern Europe, receives three times its residential population of tourists. This leads to serious consequences on water services or waste management and this is not to mention the effects on society such as healthcare, house prices (To see an example of economic activity related to seasonal migration), economic dependence, cultural identity, etc.

More radical views are held by various anti-immigration organisations who are using environmental footprint as one of their arguments against immigrants. One of the most extreme groups is the US based Vdare. They claim their nation needs to keep immigrants out in order to keep up the American lifestyle (and thus to retain the largest per capita ecological footprint on the planet according to the Redefining Progress 2004 Report on Nations Footprint). The use of these arguments has pushed organisations like Friends of the Earth to raise their voice on this issue, “While population growth puts pressure on the world’s natural resources, Friends of the Earth does not believe that it is the main cause of environmental degradation. The world’s richer nations, including the UK, are putting by far the greatest pressure on the world’s atmosphere, oceans and forests. The richest 20 per cent of people consume 86 per cent of the Earth’s resources and tend to have the lowest birth rates” (click here to see the whole briefing note). Number 10 of the top ten migration issues according to Migration Information in 2005 have been the record numbers of displaced people due to environmental disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 (see related article) or hurricane Katrina (see related article). Up to 10 million people fled drought and famine in the Sahel region of Africa in the 1970’s and 1980’s settling in wetter coastal regions that lead to severe environmental degradation. Climate Change may well be a global issue to keep an eye on. A study for the Washington-based Climate Institute suggests that 200 million people could be displaced due to factors such as climate change and sea level rise by 2050. This has been further confirmed by the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn who have reported that environmental factors attributable to climate change will create up to 25 million new ‘environmental refugees’ over the next five years. But recent studies by authors from universities of the UK and the US have been questioning the direct cause-effect relation of population growth and environmental degradation as well as the impacts of migration in coastal environments and social resilience (see related article on a case study in Indonesia) and research on social resilience to migration in Coastal ecosystems in Vietnam). Another study explored the impact of Rapid Migrations on Environment Stability in the Phillipines. It is notable that all of these studies have been centered on developing regions.

In 2006 UNESCO published A handbook for measuring the progress and outcomes of Integrated Coastal and Ocean management, Governance Performance, Ecological and Socioeconomic indicators that may provide coastal managers with some basic socioeconomic information regarding migration. Indicators such as diversity, residential and migrant population, land and water tenure are a few of those recommended to allow decision-makers to determine whether Integrated Coastal Management interventions are achieving their intended goals.

Clearly, migration is an issue of global proportions, but one which manifests itself at the local level. The potential impacts are to be seen in competition for resources, pressure on public services, and cultural tensions. On the positive side, migrant labour may be vital to many agricultural and service sectors, especially the tourism economy, and cultural diversity can bring many positive benefits. And how should coastal managers take migration into account? The jury is still out on this question. And as with so many coastal issues, a better separation of information between coastal regions and the hinterland is required before we can draw any conclusions.

How many times have we heard in Coastal Management conferences, meetings and workshops: “We need the public to know what is happening in their coastal areas”, “We need a more diverse and larger number of people involved” “ We need to enable effective decision making”?

But how well do coastal managers and professionals know the public they are supposed to be working with? And how do they facilitate their participation? And then further questions arise: How representative is participation? Are minority groups represented? Immigrants? Youth? Women? Drawing social profiles is not an easy thing to do, neither is estimating who will be affected or interested in a certain project or issue. This is one of the major challenges the Aarhus Convention has laid ahead for public administrations.

In UNESCO’s recent publication on Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management Indicators, the concept of governance is considered one of the three dimensions, along with ecology and the socio-economic system, to measure success in managing coastal ecosystems. Coastal and ocean governance is defined in this report as “the processes and institutions by which coastal and ocean areas are managed by public authorities in association with communities, industries, NGOs and other stakeholders through national, sub-national and international laws, policies and programmes, as well as through customs, tradition and culture, in order to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the communities that depend on these areas and their living resources”.

Inspired by this document and our latest work (see our Conferences, All Party Parliamentary Groups and CoastNet’s Centre for Future’s Research) we have started asking ourselves and others questions related to governance and social issues in coastal areas… . This month we’ve been keeping an eye on the media, and the interest of immigration issues has caught our eye. From the tragic deaths happening along the coasts of Europe to the recent enlargement of the EU together with public concern worldwide about the increasing number of economic migrants, migration has been making the headlines practically every day. On the other hand, the risk of the mobilisation of hundreds of millions of people from coastal zones due to the impacts of climate change is increasingly worrying.

At a European level the lack of integration of migration strategies and regulations has been deeply criticised by governmental and non governmental organisations. Under consultation is the EU Green Paper on Maritime Policy, a proposal to integrate, to mainstream coastal and marine policies. In chapter 3 “Maximising quality of life in coastal regions” the Commission suggests the need for socio-economic statistics available in a coastal format in order to provide a more comprehensive view to decision makers and stakeholders. Illegal immigration has been considered as a coastal risk in this paper alongside climate change, pollution or natural risks.

Just a few of the questions we have started asking ourselves… Is immigration (legal or illegal) an issue to be considered in coastal management? Does immigration have a special impact on the environment? Why are people migrating and where do they go? Do immigrants have their say in Coastal Management issues? What global issues are linked with immigration? Is coastal specific socio-economic information needed for decision making?

To learn more read our review on Coastal Migration.

Of the three pillars of sustainable development there are two that barely get their fair share of research and consideration by Coastal Management plans and studies. However, social and economic issues are, by and large, those that the public has most interest in: how to access our desired lifestyle, housing, education, motoring, crime, jobs, gender issues, food, entertainment, immigration, health, sport or travel, are at the top of most peoples priorities although environmental well-being and risks are admittedly creeping up this scale…

This is why we have decided to embrace a cross sectoral approach to our Editorial Strategy for CoastWeb. Each month we’ll be addressing Coastal Management issues through everyday topics, we’ll be highlighting relations between sectors, issues and projects and providing opportunities for thinking out of the box, sharing ideas and perhaps doing things together.

In addition to the CoastWeb page on the Internet, our monthly online CoastNet newsletter will be sent directly to your mailbox. Then, you may also benefit from other features such as: stories, a “coastal person of the month” interview, tools and techniques, perspectives, recommendations of books and films, Coastal Management project information, notice board with jobs, events and recent publications, etc. To subscribe send us an email to: admin@coastnet.org.uk.

February’s focus will be on social issues, specifically on migration. Enjoy your reading and happy thinking!

Is cooperation against human nature? That would be sad news, in particular for the Coordination Action ENCORA, which aims to promote and facilitate sharing of knowledge and experience among coastal professionals in Europe. “Critical Mass”, the recent bestseller of Philip Ball, former journalist of Nature, is a fascinating account of new insight in the often surprising outcome of interaction processes among people. He shows how social behaviour and cooperation may result from interaction processes among people, who individually seek to optimise personal interest. However, beware of simple rules, is one of the messages, because social interaction processes have a strong stochastic or chaotic component and depend on spatial and temporal scales. Instead of giving thumb rules, Critical Mass provides inspiring thoughts on social organisation and valuable understanding for everyone who is involved in broad cooperation initiatives.

At the very end of January we organized and delivered the 3rd meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coastal and Marine Issues. It was a great success, with more than 30 attendees and 5 speakers providing opinion and insight for UK Members of Parliament.

Another event we are organising is the CoastNet/Corepoint conference “A Very Visible Truth – Climate Change at the Coast”, for which we are recruiting interesting and diverse speakers. We’ve been working with the Coastal Partnerships Working Group and DEFRA to organize and deliver the 5th Annual UK Coastal Partnership Forum.

Attendance to EU funded project meetings like Corepoint in Cardiff (Wales) and Aberdeen (Scotland) or ENCORA in Thesalonicca (Greece) has kept us on the move. In the meantime we’ve been developing technical activities like our Coastal Library and Coastal Ontology or Knowledge Base in collaboration with ECS from Southampton University and Peter Kingsley, an expert in editorial management. We have started an Action Research Evaluation of the ENCORA portal, and resources such as the Coastal Wiki.

Some advisory work has been developed for the East of England Regional Assembly Maritime Task Force, to advise on their response to the UK consultation on the EU Maritime Policy Green Paper. We have also been commissioned to develop a scoping study to gather information about current coastal activity and gain understanding of the national ICZM programme and implications for East of England.

We’ll be presenting our new resource for Marine Educators, a booklet called “Dive Straight In” in which CoastNet’s team brought together good practices from workshops with practitioners around the UK. This will be in a workshop in Exeter organized by the Finding Sanctuary partnership project at the end of March.

As well as this we’ve been staff searching to increase our dynamic team, networking, helping out members and improving our quality management systems… Phew…it’s been tiring just writing all this!!!

This month CoastNet is happy to tell you about ENCORA, a challenging and innovative project in Coastal Research. It is a European Network on Coastal Research, an EU Framework Programme that aims “Integrating and strengthening the European Research Area”.

The ENCORA network is bravely addressing 3 major causes for stagnation in the implementation of ICZM in Europe: (A) Fragmentation of coastal science, practice and policy; (B) Difficult communication between science, policy and practice; (C) Lack of multidisciplinary approaches. Partners from most EU nations as well as existing networks from Russia and North Africa are uniting forces to initiate a self-sustaining process of cooperation in Europe and between scientists, practitioners and policymakers. How are they doing this? Most partners have developed national networks and thematic networks have also been established (have a look at the graphic). A number of activities will be developed through these, such as Exchange Visit programme for young researchers and practitioners, a European contact search organization, the creation of operational links with other coastal networks and the development of Communities of Practice on critical coastal research, management or policy issues.

One of the many outcomes of the ENCORA network is its great online portal, that has already been visited by more then 13000 visitors! Some of the resources you can access are a “user friendly” Contact Search database, CoastWeb’s online Library, an online Forum, you could also become an active participant of a Coastal Wiki (if you become a member of a thematic network).

CoastNet is an active partner and supporter of ENCORA networks and is developing a Coastal Ontology (Knowledge Base) to help computers and the Internet “understand” the language of Coastal Management. In this way the coastal community will be able to find and share good quality information and knowledge more quickly and effectively. Other tasks we’ll be responsible of are evaluating the Encora portal and ensuring good quality documents are made available from the CoastWeb Library.