Australian Coastal Management: A Clear Picture or a Cluttered Foreground?

Abstract

Australia has the longest ice free coast in the world, containing a diversity of marine habitats with management arrangements similarly diverse. Policy towards the Australian coast is shaped by the political, legislative and administrative overlap in interests and responsibilities between the Commonwealth, State and local governments with a number of reports commenting on various limitations in existing management arrangements. This paper provides a review of the Resource Assessment Commission’s recent Coastal Zone Inquiry, arguing that the detail within the RAC’s final report poses challenges to governments and the public. The challenge arising from the RAC’s Coastal Zone Inquiry is for governments, managers and the public to concentrate on the clear picture for improved coastal management policy and practice emerging from what appears at first glance to be a cluttered foreground of individual recommendations.