Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands

WiCoP Forum survey
(carried out during September & October 2001)

• «Multidimensionality and interconnectedness of problems of coastal livelihoods; international aspect highly appreciated»
• «Multidisciplinary (Interdisciplinary), identifies clearly contributors, concrete case studies, moderation includes archival backup retrieval, help and interim conclusions on discussion threads»
• «It is fine, with very interesting subjects, invaluable, helpful and very useful like it is; hope and encourage that it continues»
• «Results should be presented to the widest possible public on ICZM conferences; the idea of a world-wide forum is great; shares solutions»
• «Something different, very good first-hand info fast and conveniently; opinions can be taken or left and pre-established ideas enriched»
• «Importance of sharing experiences, especially those that have proved successful in other countries/regions and can be adapted for use in similar scenarios in other countries; value is in the examples of applications elsewhere and keeping in touch with developments «
• «The use of the word 'wise' as opposed to 'best' - a very good point; in small island states most international 'best practices' are not wholly applicable and donors, multilateral and intergovernmental organisations often do not understand this»
• «Helps in combining practical approaches and scientific aspects; to keep in touch with people's opinions (colleagues’ discussions); puts people in contact with one another and keeps them informed on other activities (sometimes far from present interest) to contribute or learn from»
• «Review of messages and exchanges often enjoyed»
• «Good comparative information, case studies are welcome»
• «Concerning consultancy in coastal zone management, the forum can be used to feed the reflexions of people in the community, and some examples are used for development of training programme»
• «Forum commended for being immediately available in 3 different languages and posting the message in the original language; crosses over some major cultural barriers»
• «Editing noteworthy, layout acknowledged, and moderation excellent, keeping so many different stakeholders on board around the globe, on such a variety of issues and themes and thus being the key to the success of the forum»
• «Forum more comprehensive with respect to the material represented, more participation and quality of responses have been careful and informative; with contents on top you are able to be selective; content is superior to other lists»
• «Forum covers a much wider range of distribution than other online group»
• «Exceptionally well supported with global representation and scholarly contributions and practical applications; breadth of issues, and diversity of background and perspective amongst posting; especially important is the focus on practical experiences and problem solving»
• «Participants of the forum provide arguments and information that is typically supported with more data than in some other online fora; stronger interest level in the issues discussed in WiCoP Forum»
• «Consistency and expertise demonstrated by the Forum and regularity and substance of communications is highly appreciated, ensures that it remains topical and of interest to readers (many other fora have a burst of activity and then nothing)»
• «Syntheses of responses are concise, relevant and based on detailed experience; other groups waste too much time on trivial issues and even flaming other correspondents based on silly prejudices (software likes and dislikes in particular)»
• «A useful and pathbreaking use of new technologies by UNESCO»
• «Forum provides information less tainted by a particular stand, and so is more useful if you want to follow the development of different policy areas, also 'human angle'»
• «Regular emailed contributions that are short but of high quality are the key to a successful forum»
• «Summarizing comments on a specific issue is very helpful»

• «Not much discussion taking place, or even missing»
• «Sometimes opinion of the forum is too idealistic»
• «Messages are way too long to be conducive to read, do not feel "part" of forum; if too long, people don’t even start reading the messages»
• «Personal interest more technical/scientific, whereas newsletter deals mainly with political issues»
• «More contributions coming out of the other forum»
• «Problem with the format; can't quite figure out how postings are put together, how it works»
• «Forum can be difficult to digest at times; sometimes it is hard to keep track of the discussion or decide whether it’s going to be relevant or not»
• «There is no real exchange of experiences between discussions»
• «Limitation is that mode of communication not available by all, or computer and email facilities sometimes not good enough to actively participate, some subsidy necessary to support more needy partners»
• «Previous messages could not be opened»
• «Formats of presentation sometimes confusing or takes some time to find out what it is about»

• «A bulletin board system might be easier, rather than having messages automatically in one’s inbox»
• «A "digest" newsletter with major points of discussion would be welcomed every now and then with short texts and the possibility to link to an internet page for longer messages»
• «A bit of extra organisation on the forum would help, e .g clear table of contents or key words, weekly executive summaries etc., to facilitate info retrieval and easy access to desired topics; maybe write a 2-line summary at beginning of what follows, so forum members can decide whether the subject will be of interest/relevance to them»
• «Issue of time to go through all the info, perhaps specific topics could be selected each week, and then can be picked what interests most; important that it is easy to see in a glimpse what it is all about»
• «Maintenance of an archive that consolidates the postings for each topic including details of discussions that continue after the initial posting»
• «Because of breadth of concern, there is now a need to focus on the most critical issues; through identification of regional priorities and actions/interventions made to address these; either priorities made by UNCED, CBD, etc. or identified within own context of CSI philosophy; starting with the above, the forum might evolve into a global ‘think tank’, but on specific priority concerns within the CSI mandate. 18 months of data and information from so many countries is enough to start a more concerted effort to actively utilize and advocate the most salient and useful ones in truly addressing global issues; CSI must have a strong representation in the coming UNCED in South Africa»
• «The information sent to forum participants should be more informative and shorter; sometimes it comes pages and pages and there is no time to read all»
• «Maybe when posting or referring to some literature or recent studies, you may include the highlights of the material instead of going to another webpage to access the complete material»
• «Cut out unnecessary info at the beginning of the message, so that the email get straight into the actual text»
• «Using new pattern of design, with little hints»
• «More concise subject titles»
• «Make forum visually more digestible (headers of messages untidy; too much text at the top; use some bold lettering to pick out the main points and reduce font size for all the "peripheral" text; consider listing key words at the top); moderator could suggest threads for discussion in order to widen the scope within each issue; there is definitely scope for expanding the discussion list to involve its readers in more tangible activities such as conferences, workshops etc.»
• «The messages are quite large, but would not wish their length to be reduced either; one approach is to post the email message on website and to send a one-sentence message to the email list that the latest version (or installment or newsletter or bulletin) is available at the website »
• «Contributions sometimes too long and 'dense' and, especially if written by academics, difficult to see the application to end users; so more bullet point summaries and noticeboard items»
• «Post a small, short essay of the situation overall, unbiased before the discussions begin»
• «Perhaps a moderator to guide/highlight the linkages for discussion; or the more serious issues; or to ask more specifics, etc.; also to focus on unreported field experiences and not reporting published material and examples (publications can be mentioned)»
• «Improve keyword searches, better indexing of articles for easier finding»
• «Systematic translation of all the interventions into E, F, S is recommended» 
• «Ask everybody to chose a language, then the printing out of all 3 languages could be spared»
• «It is necessary to aim mainly on the thematic plan, otherwise one embarks on an accumulation of testimonies but no real exchanges»
• «Concentrate and develop focus areas; the ones suggested in an earlier forum, i.e. 5. conflict resolution; 1. governance and institutional issues e.g. economics and finance; 4. use of modern technology in management; 2. integrated approaches, successful and unsuccessful case studies; priority issues where there is a high likelihood of success (3. demonstration of value of MPAs)»
• «Maybe more information/direction would be helpful on how to actually use the forum, how to reply, what to do, assisting future contributors in documenting case studies and wise practices; some people did not even know whether they have to reply or not, whether they can at all contribute etc.; perhaps, the moderator can run down again the "rules" and if there is a list of topics to be discussed»
• «The administrator of the forum must have direct contact even if the contributions are not in agreement with the forum, not to respond to requests of the participants leaves a very bad experience; apart from having the totality of texts in English, Spanish and French, I repeat the suggestion to the administrator that I would be able to make the translations in castilian»

• «Form a forum for discussion; could there be a place for ongoing conversation, a more active forum on a day-to-day basis, a lively exchange of ideas and shared information?»
• «Local discussion/working groups on certain themes at a specific date - opportunities to extend what is contained in the articles presented to contextual application at a local level; basis for professional development activities; most coastal management practitioners are fairly isolated»
• «Opportunity to post questions to the group, or identify a place some experts questions can be posted to»
• «It would be good, and useful to organize a specialized "Library"- information about newly published books (textbooks) about the CZM, CZ Planning etc.»
• «Postings about CZM in the developed as well as the developing world»
• «Maybe it could be integrated directly in an internet site; more animation; as a list-service, it is probably the best UNESCO can do, an alternative is to transform it into a web-page with interactive facilities, but that would require more resources in the secretariat»
• «Forum could be used to further strengthen and influence public opinion through greater involvement of local government councils and other civic and community leaders as well as through the school system from kindergarten to Community College, vocational/tech.»
• «Have a planned schedule for circulating information on given topics; e.g. let October 2001 be "sustainable development issues"; November 2001 be "education and communications" etc.»
• «Perhaps better identification of case studies/problems discussed, in terms of how they relate to ongoing UNESCO projects or to work of UNESCO partners; vis-à-vis connections with other UN bodies, in order to enhance intra-UN coalescences»
• «Advertising/introduction of the Forum to academic institutions and research units conducting related work (often based on fieldwork) [this could be done by starting from regional research associations]; advertising/introduction of the Forum for chosen qualitative environmental electronic forums and journals»
• «Some cases would be better understandable if illustrated with some (not so big, formatted) images, figures, tables»
• «Relate more to real-life management situations; for example, the tools in real life often include protected areas, land use planning, EIAs and pollution control»
• «Discuss or present more adaptation issues»
• «The forum should eventually evolve into solid recommendations to governments and all members of the UN, particularly those that feel very strongly to our common future, and the advocacy/movements from the grassroot levels in different countries. For further effectiveness or understanding of these issues, it is suggested that a system be devised so that two simultaneous conferences be induced: one from the top or the governments (governors or managers) and another from the bottom (the governed or the lowest economic level of people who are directly affected by the deterioration of the coastal resources --which must be tied up with the reforestation efforts (constant dredging of rivers is very expensive and is not the answer). This type of approach (found in Philippines NGO experience) is more effective because it gives the masses, beneficiaries/victims ownership of the ideas that they adopt and implement them without or minimum government help/finances.»
• «You might want to periodically offer a summary of discussion or an expansion of the discussion to a respected publication like "Nature" for their online forums»
• «A. Take up case studies and discuss; B. Enhance interactions at regional/ local levels»
• «Inviting readers to answer questions about their local context on the current topic treated in the forum»
• «In the third world, more information is needed not only on particular natural disasters or conservation efforts. But more references are needed that might be helpful to solve the local/regional problems (e.g. need to know the fish which are endangered, the markets or the global enterprises which operate anywhere and what kind of fish is bought or caught, which of the practices are disadvantageous to people etc.)»
• «Evoke much more the management of oceanographic data, sciences of geographic information»
• «Need to stimulate new threads from time to time; could consider a publicity campaign (forum relaunch?) to renew interest in the forum and attract newcomers to coastal management»
• «Give news about upcoming meetings etc, new regulations, calls for proposals; perhaps some information on upcoming international conferences relating to coastal management. (On personal note, information on how to get into the international coastal management field, perhaps allowing people to post job announcements would be a good way to start)»
• «If funds were available, have a meeting to bring participants together; you could also consider an Electronic Journal»
• «Possibly with some invited strategic contributions around which comments and local comparisons are encouraged in order to improve the conceptual value - the underlying assumption here is that we don't have enough people educated in interdisciplinary ways of working for sustainability and thus a case-by-case approach is very slow if at all able to distill (an admittedly limited number of) generalised questions/issues. However, this is exactly what would be required to improve approaches on a broader front than through local projects, and therefore increase impact on the long road to sustainability.»
• «To evolve standard format for writing Wise Coastal Practices.»
• «Think about setting contact centers/persons in each country to coordinate activities and mobilize a sizeable audience for wise coastal practices and related issues; Set up regional associates.»
• «Include links to members, professionals, government programs, consultants and/or their websites, references to other websites»
• «Building sets of URLs to key sites on core issues, requesting group members to provide their favourites, together with a very brief description of its scope and usefulness»
• «Requesting that participants cite any publications or other supporting data when making specific statements about particular information (e.g., facts that are pertinent to their arguments).»
• «It should be more aggressive in introducing new concepts, companies, etc. which may further the goals of the organization; the more possible options which can be investigated in a wide group or in a number of situations can help verify the success and sustainability of these»
• «More practical ways of resolving problems and how to seal with apathetic governments»
• «There is a need for a parallel, more informal forum, (where one does not have to worry about grammar and punctuation!), and where brief exchanges on issues related to WSP, among all the members can be discussed. This could also be used as a forum for exchange and supply of data, references, literature etc. related to management of coastal resources.»
• «Initiating concrete project proposals which could generate interest from funding agencies and donors»
• «Get forum out to more people involved in sustainable development, stakeholders and general public in whole to assume even greater responsibility for the care of the environment and our very fragile coastal resources, in general» 
• «More diffusion, and more contributions and participation from around the world; promotion in Rio+10 forums»
• «Connect the forum more to actors in littoral management and concerned scientists»
• «Advertise Forum more widely on ICM websites»
• «Make accessible a database of photographs of coastal marine sites»
• «More issues related to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions»
• «Design Forum to be more interactive»
• «Suggesting more topics for others involvements, such as practical urban matters, local economic development to support improving coastal practices, ... etc.»
• «The Forum must now move from 'knowing to doing’; Coastal management, especially integrated practice, needs much more than information and knowledge; deluged with information flow; the most urgent issue is access to resources to implement and execute verifiable and result-oriented programs and projects; the Forum must move into this domain and try to enable new partnerships to come together, bring attention to funding sources, involve donors in the discussions, perhaps even carry a suite of approved projects to raise funds, technical assistance, etc.»
• «Provide essential bibliographic references at the end of contributions»
• «An education arm»
• «The contributions about ICZM and its practices are theoretically weak. Most workers adhere, however, tacitly to a top-down, instrumentalist paradigm, which in other fields, such as public planning and Third World development, has been largely discredited and discarded over the past 20 - 30 years. The classical recipe for ICZM under this paradigm seems to be more science, more management control and more education of the "poor ignorant natives". It appears to me that the paradigm itself needs to be examined, at least occasionally, and alternatives discussed; for example, how to link modern theories of discursive democracy and communicative planning to management strategies, and how to bridge the gap between instrumentalist and communicative approaches to ICZM. It also appears to me that the intrinsically political character of ICZM tends to disappear in the instrumentalist paradigm, although politics are crucial to the success or otherwise of ICZM on the ground, at national, regional and local levels. In addition to wise practices, we need to look at how practices work, or why they don’t, which involves 1) taking a critical look at management itself and 2) looking into the political, social and cultural contexts of management and how these influence outcomes.»

• Adviser for culture in the Pacific
• Anthropologist
• Archaeologist
• Architect
• Assistant Administrator for the Overseas
• Civil engineer
• Civil servant
• Coastal and marine resources consultant
• Coastal ecologist
• Coastal engineer
• Coastal zone expert
• Demographer
• Deputy director of planning department
• Development worker
• Dive operator
• Ecommerce and tourism expert
• Economist
• Ecotoxicologist
• Editor (Caribbean Compass)
• Environmental advisor
• Environmental attorney
• Environmental management specialist
• Environmental policy specialist
• Environmental research officer
• Fishery manager
• Freelance project economist
• Geographer
• Geologist
• Independent
• Islands specialist
• Journalist
• Landuse planner
• Lawyer
• Marine biologist
• Marine resource manager
• Meteorologist
• Nature reserve manager
• NGO employees and director
• Oceanographer
• PhD student
• Policy advisor
• Professor
• Programme director
• Public management technician
• Researcher
• Resource management planner
• Science writer
• Scientific assistant of ANGAP (Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées)
• Scientist/ manager for oceans programs (Fisheries and Oceans Canada)
• Senior programme officer - UNEP
• Social scientist
• Student
• Study tutor
• Sustainable tourism expert
• Teacher
• Urban planner

• Administration
• Agenda 21: Local
• Agriculture
• Anthropology
• Antarctic
• Applied mathematics/physics
• Applied sedimentology
• Aquaculture
• Aquatic ecology/environmental action programs
• Aquatic resource management, ecotoxicology
• Architecture/Urbanism
• Archeology in coastal zones
• Benthic ecology, bottom biotopes, invasive species
• Biochemistry
• Biodiversity
• Biology, oceanography, fisheries
• Boat building, grassroots development projects
• Botany, biofertilizers, reclamation of arid costal wastelands
• Chemical oceanography and marine biogeochemistry
• Civil engineering
• Climate change; impacts, activities including vulnerability of various sectors
• Coastal dynamics
• Coastal & marine geology
• Coastal & marine resources management in islands
• Coastal & river morphology
• Coastal and environment management
• Coastal and marine ecology and management
• Coastal and marine fisheries and environment
• Coastal conservation/bivalve aquaculture
• Coastal ecology, economics and management
• Coastal engineering
• Coastal erosion
• Coastal geomorphology and shoreline management
• Coastal habitats sand dune/saltmarsh/ shingle/cliffs
• Coastal hazards, coastal erosion issues, management responses
• Coastal law
• Coastal management - human impacts - policy analysis, and marine policy, development economics, network co-ordination, physical oceanography
• Coastal processes, sediment transport
• Coastal protection, environmental sustainability
• Coastal regions of small tropical islands in the Indian Ocean
• Coastal research
• Coastal resource management, biodiversity
• Coastal resource management/aquaculture Coastal science
• Coastal tourism
• Coastal vulnerability to climate change
• Coastal zone ecology
• Coastal zone management, land management, transfer of marine and limnological technology, social inclusion
• Communication development
• Community development
• Community organisation, e-commerce and tourism
• Community-based approaches to protected areas management; coastal resource management
• Conservation, biodiversity, conservation area management for terrestrial and coastal area, etc.
• Coral ecology, artisanal fisheries
• Coral reef biology
• Coral reef ecology and management, especially artisanal fisheries, island environmental management
• Cultural anthropology, Hawaii
• Cultural heritage study and protection
• Development, local, coastal, territorial, urban, rural
• Dune management
• Ecolabelling
• Ecological economics
• Ecology/evolution/environmental science
• Economics
• Ecosystem management
• Ecotourism and infrastructure
• Education
• Environmental archaeology
• Enviroment protection
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental education; community & gender issues
• Environmental engineering and planning
• Environmental impact assessment
• Environmental law, advocacy, CBRM
• Environmental management
• Environmental policy, environmental economics
• Environmental reporting
• Environmental science
• Environmental vulnerability indices, risks
• Ethics of cyberspace
• Evolution of coasts
• Fisheries, management, enforcement, artisanal
• Flood prevention
• Foreign trade
• Forestry
• Futurism and trending as a national principle
• Geochemistry
• Geography
• Geology
• Geomorphology
• Global change
• Housing and urban development management, local finance and economic development
• Human ecologist, paleoanthropologist and medical doctor
• Hydraulique maritime
• Hydrology
• Integrated coastal management (ICM), policy, higher education
• Integrated coastal zone management; Mediterranean/Black Sea regions, planning, concepts and methodologies, subsistence fisheries, intertidal resources
• Indicators of sustainable development
• Institution building
• Information technology
• International environmental policy with emphasis in integrated coastal management and sustainable development
• International science and environment cooperation
• Invertebrate zoology
• Lagoons
• Man and the Biosphere (MAB, UNESCO)
• Mangroves/Shrimp aquaculture issues
• Marine biology
• Marine chemistry
• Marine ecology and environmental science
• Marine environment
• Marine fisheries and mariculture
• Marine Geology
• Marine protected areas (MPAs), management, littoral, Asia
• Marine resource management (anthropology)
• Marine risk assessment and environmental sensitivity analysis
• Maritime planning
• Meteorology
• Migration
• Mining engineering /Natural resources characterization
• Museum education
• Natural disasters
• Nature and forest management
• Nature conservation, protection, dune management
• Oceanography, physical and biological
• Pacific islands society and culture
• Pacific cultures, population and development
• Pilot project implementation
• Plankton
• Planning and impact analysis
• Plant ecology
• Policy issues
• Pollution
• Population and environment dynamics
• Portuguese language
• Public participation
• Remote sensing and GIS in CZM
• Resource management
• Salt and fresh water interaction in coastal aquifers, salt-water intrusion
• Sociology
• Sailing
• Spatial planning
• Sedimentology
• Shore protection theory and experiments
• Small islands
• Soil Science
• Social vulnerability to climatic changes
• Species diversification
• Stormwater drainage
• Sustainability of coastal and marine resources
• Tourism, and heritage
• Tropical marine and coastal ecology, especially Indian Ocean
• Urban and Regional Planner, local administrations
• Volunteer environmental work
• Waste management, waste water treatment (ecologically engineered) and erosion abatement by pressure equalisation modules
• Water issues, management, quality protection, resources, watershed, municipal/drinking water management
• Waves, coastal defense
• Website development, data management
• Wetland, management, inventories
• Wildlife biology
• Zoological ecology

• Electronic discussion group with about ten persons from August ’98 to October ‘98 to prepare for December ‘98 workshop on wise practices (Towards Wise Coastal Development Practices; www.unesco.org/csi/pub/info/wise.htm).
• A second electronic discussion group with a similar number of persons, but different individuals, to follow-up on the December ’98 workshop, and particularly to focus on the list of wise practice characteristics.
• Web forum created March ’99 with first posting on 30th April (example wise practice related to coastal planning, based on COSALC project) and requesting project leaders, workshop participants, and other selected persons, to draft and post on the forum example wise practices (ewps), using the wise practice characteristics format, and to respond to items already posted.
• By August ’99, 47 ewp’s (not all following prescribed format) had been posted; 43 responses had been posted to the ewps, which had resulted in some very interesting discussion lines; forum temporarily closed for customization.
• September – October ’99: programming in of « regions »,  « topics » and « approaches » and reordering of ewps and discussion items accordingly; adding facility of postings automatically distributed by e-mail.
• November ’99: reopening of the forum with the same participants as before and asking them to respond to items already posted; preparation of first work-in-progress report – a brief overview of the forum (WIP1).
• From January ‘00: addition of e-mail addresses of other people to automatic e-mail distribution list; selected postings translated into French and/or Spanish.
• May ‘00: first draft of second work-in-progress report (WIP2).
• Mid ‘00: decision implemented to fully moderate the forum and post contributions once a week.
• July – August ‘00: customization of ‘set preferences’ and ‘search’ facilities, including multilingual explanatory texts; csiwisepractices.org adopted as definite name.
• September ‘00: finalization of WIP2. 52 ewps + 117 discussion items; about 2000 people connected.
• February ‘01: articles on the forum published in Sources; 4000 people connected.
• During ‘01: posting rhythm changes from once per week, per 10 days, per two weeks.
• March ‘01: WIP2 on the website and introduced to forum readers via 3 postings with full text in three languages (E, F, S).
• Mid ’01: introduction of a system of focusing on selected topics for a period of months, concluded with a synthesis prepared by the moderators.
• September ‘01: survey of persons connected (6025).
• December ’01: 52 ewps, 160 discussion items (all in English; several also in French and/or Spanish); 7300 e-mail addresses on list; decision to post all texts in three languages.
• January ’02: three languages; focus on small islands, local and indigenous knowledge, Small Islands Voice, conflict prevention and resolution, water.
• March ‘02: 8500 people connected.

	Introduction	Activities	Publications	search
	Wise practices	Regions	Themes