4 - Laws and Regulations Affecting Coastal Activities

In an attempt to alleviate the problems inherent in the ever proliferating
number of agencies and overlapping domains of local, state and federal
jurisdiction, the United States Congress passed its Coastal Zone Management
Act in October, 1972 (PL 92-583). Instead of instituting a new Agency or
Department, however, coastal zone management was conducted as part of the
responsibilities of NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) which
itself is part of the Department of Commerce. The resulting fight for turf
necessitated some subsequent changes and adaptations, e.g., closer
integration of activities, designating Lead Agencies, and separating
responsibilities for resources and for enforcement. On the whole, the
efforts have been reasonably successful, and an important result of
establishing the coastal zone as a focal point has been the bringing
together of government agencies, planners, academic and research
institutions and civic organizations. Special credit should be given to
Orville Magoon and his co-workers, who convened a very popular series of
biannual COASTAL ZONE Conferences and acted as editors for the prolific
output contained in the multi-volume Proceedings, published by the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
In the Caribbean, both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands took active
parts in developing legislative frameworks. Again, no separate Agency or
Department was established; for example, in the USVI, coastal management
responsibilities first resorted under the Planning Office, then under the
Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs (DCCA) and finally, under
the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). In particular, much effort was
expended involving and educating the public (DCCA, 1984/5).
In Puerto Rico, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER,
reorganized since 1994) is in charge of coastal area management and is
working on a revision of the original 1978 Commonwealth's Coastal Management
Program (CMP), which will include a proposal to incorporate the entire
island into the coastal zone for administrative purposes. DNER is
considering reviving the "Committee on Puerto Rico and the Sea" to provide
guidance in the drafting of the new coastal statutes for Puerto Rico (Boris
L. Oxman, pers. comm., June 26, 1995). The public beaches are part of the
public domain, and responsibilities for their development are shared by
DNER, the Planning Board, the Recreation Development Company and the Tourism
Company (PL 48). The new Maritime Zone Regulation enables the government to
take illegal squatters to court and eliminate structures which invaded the
public coastal domain.

Serious attempts to establish integrated coastal area management legislation
in the British Virgin Islands were ultimately defeated (Cambers, 1991 b).
Most of the other former British colonies and dependencies have resisted
specific coastal legislation and tend to accord low priority to coastal area
management. According to Lewsey (1991), there appears to be unwillingness
and resistance of governmental ministries with jurisdictional oversight over
resources and activities within the coastal zone to transfer their authority
to a new centralized agency. On the other hand, conclusions from several BVI
public hearings bore out that the public did not want too much power to go
to any single Minister, but rather to a commission. (Cambers, 1991 b),
Lewsey (1991) complains that Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago use a sectorial
approach to coastal zone management, that "to-date, the wealth of scientific
information has not been used to develop an integrated coastal management
plan for the islands," and that all East Caribbean countries show a
reactionary approach (rather than pro-active), concentrating on the solution
of isolated problems, not institutionalized and integrated. On the other
hand, it is understandable that, because of limitations in population size
and expertise, central planning has continued to be the main mode of
operation.
As part of our l995 questionnaire/ contest survey, we contacted the Public
Relation Office of the Prime Minister of every Caribbean island nation with
the question if their nation had a single coastal zone management act. None
of the few responses was in the affirmative, but two of the respondents (St.
Kitts and Dominica) were kind enough to forward an extensive list of
pertinent laws and statutes. According to their National Environmental
Action Plan, St. Kitts and Nevis "... will prepare an Integrated Coastal
Zone Management Plan and institute a development planning process that is
cross-sectoral, inter- ministerial, and encourages participation of relevant
government agencies and incorporation of environmental considerations." In
Barbados, a final draft of an integrated coastal zone management plan for
the south and west coasts is being submitted to the Attorney General's
Office for legal review, upon which it will be submitted to Cabinet for full
Government ratification. As to the east coast, consultants are shortlisted
to conduct a comprehensive study with a view towards plan preparation
(Coastal Conservation Project Unit, pers. comm., June 16, 1995).

Our survey also asked if the respondent's island had enacted any laws or
statutes dealing with specific coastal zone related activities. The
responses to that question are summarized by island in Table 3. It should be
pointed out that several responses are bound to be perceptions and that
verifications are still in progress. As these more 'official' data keep
coming in, they will be summarized on an island by island nation basis as
part of the WWW homepage discussed in Section 5.5. In the meantime, it is
pleasing to note that the positive 'perceptions' about the existence of laws
regulating mining of beaches and construction of hotels comprised over 80%
of the 75 valid individual responses. As to the relatively low rating for
laws regulating draining of wetlands, it should be pointed out that the
results include islands which have no wetlands so that a negative response
is not 'bad;' instead, one should look at the results for individual islands
which have wetlands to assess their legal status. Finally, responses are
still coming in and new input is actively solicited as well in order to add
to and enhance the value of the CCS homepage.

5 - Coastal Area Management

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