Comprehensiveness, integration, and coordination : a study of their application and role in coastal management in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

Coastal management practices in Aotearoa/New Zealand have historically been counterproductive in terms of maintaining environmental quality. A plethora of complex legislative and jurisdictional arrangements is identified as a primary contributor to high social, economic and environmental costs. The nature of the coastal resource, and the demands placed upon it, dictate a more comprehensive, integrated approach to management.

Recent reform of resource management law has produced a framework for coastal management that is found to be in many ways superior to any previously existing, but still far short of replicating any 'ideal type'. The new legislation and institutional arrangements are characterised by a more comprehensive approach, and contain integrative mechanisms. A greater degree of comprehensiveness and integration is desirable, but will not, for a number of conceptual, political, and practical reasons, be readily achieved.

An argument is advanced that at least some of the shortcomings of the management regime as it is interpreted and practised may be overcome by better co-ordinating the activities of agencies and individuals that have an impact on the coastal environment.

The verb 'co-ordinate' is used in this instance quite deliberately. Like all language, the word is value laden, and capable of being interpreted (or 'deconstructed', to use the post-modern vernacular) in an enormous variety of ways. Some care is taken to establish exactly how the term is utilised, and should be interpreted, in the context of this paper.