Coastal Management in Northern Australia: : Proceedings of the Workshop on Coastal Management in Northern Australia, held at the Museum of Arts and Science, Darwin, N.T. 4-11 November 1984

Abstract

Coastal zone management is gaining prominance in government land use planning in Australia as well as overseas. The reasons for this are clear to all of us who work with or are concerned by the wise use of scarce resources. Conservation of estuaries, unalienated shorelines, reefs and nearshore shallow seas, as well as the fertile lowlands of coastal water catchments depends upon a full appreciation of the pressures these ecosystems are under. In northern Australia, problems of water pollution, alienation of land for residential and industrial purposes, and the over-exploitation of resources have not yet become severe. We still have relatively few people spread over a very large expanse of coastline. Nevertheless, a persistent 'frontier philosophy' linked to widespread unfamiliarity, or even unease, with the physical and biological environment of tropical Australia by the white population, creates a potential for incidents of ecological mismanagement. The likelihood of such incidents is exacerbated in the Northern Territory where there is also a strong imperative for rapid economic development. Coastal zone management is primarily about conservation of resources. As an objective, conservation must be viewed not only as a way of retaining what we have but also for creating what we want. In the Northern Territory, coastal environments are for the most part still unspoilt and very often near to original, except in localised areas. There is, therefore, an opportunity not existin9 elsewhere in the tropical world, to assess what we wish to plan towards and to establish the infrastructure by which such plans can be achieved. In his book on coastal zone management Dr. John Clark (1983) observed that environmental management is a form of art that prospers in direct proportion to the scientific knowledge on which it is based. A lack of detailed knowledge of tropical environments remains a serious constraint despite the increasing level of scientific attention now occurring. Recent advances in our understanding of the Australian wet-dry tropics and in the monsoon affected coastlines of our region have been documented in Ridpath & Corbett (in Press) and in the proceedings of the Conference on Coasts and Tidal Wetlands just held (Bardsley et al. 1985). It is appropriate that this Workshop on Coastal Management in northern Australia should be held now to further develop the art to which Clark referred. The approach adopted by the Workshop convenors recognizes that the use of a resource depends upon how it is perceived by potential users, how society deems it should be used and how the use is carried out. These three elements we have paraphrased as: definitions and perceptions of the resource policy formulation, and implementation and monitoring in effective coastal management and these are the headings of the three information discussion sessions of the Workshop.