Co-managing the coastal zone : is the task too complex?
Typically, resource management in the coastal zone involves multiple stakeholders and resource users. The small scale fisher, the fish-farming enterprise, the tourist industry developer, the private land holder, the local government, and the environmentally concerned citizen are all inhabitants of the coastal zone which they share as a common pool resource. Through this, their activities and destinies are interconnected in complex ways. Although they all depend on the resource base being sustained, their use patterns often overlap. Thus, their interests are often in conflict. In many instances they also represent worlds apart. They are driven by different values, goals and rationalities, which may seem impossible to reconcile without the coercive force of an external agency. In this paper I discuss the prospects of a collaborative process of management decision-making in addressing complexities of this nature. The core question is this: can the coastal zone, given the multiple and conflicting interests involved, really be co-managed?