Coastal management cooperation, enforcement key to avoid pending crisis for millions: ...(ppropriately to ecology and political ju...)

According to the report: By 2050, 91% of the worlds coastlines will have been impacted by development, says the report, adding that much coastal development is poorly planned and all of it, as well as much inland development, impacts the coastal ocean.

The report cites several worrisome ongoing trends:

• Intensification of large-scale agriculture, driven by global agricultural production, including now bio-fuels, contributes to over-nutrification and the creation of offshore dead zones.

• Rising pollution and the influx of exotic species due to shipping and commerce;

• Ill-planned tourism in ecologically sensitive areas, that often causes irreversible damage;

• Development that destroys vital near-shore environments, alters patterns of water movement and disrupts ecosystem functioning;

• Over-fishing of coastal and pelagic stocks which, in combination with damage to the coastal nursery grounds of many fishery species, is already causing far-reaching consequences for economies and ecosystems.

Says lead author Peter Sale: Important ecological processes that sustain coastal ecosystems are impeded by our careless alterations of coastal habitats fisheries decline, water quality deteriorates and so does human health and quality of life.

The report blames five causes:

• Most people fail to understand the immense economic, cultural, and aesthetic value that a sustainably managed coastal environment provides, or the societal cost of allowing them to degrade;

• Coastal impacts grow and change in tandem with population and demands for environmental goods and services, making the task of management ever more difficult. What worked yesterday will not be adequate tomorrow;

• Management is fragmented across and
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