Interrogating private property rights and path dependencies for coastal retreat

Abstract

For too long, implicit acceptance of and assumptions about colonial property rights have directed the flow of adaptation policy pathways. Though there is increasing recognition of the challenges that flow from private property rights for effective, long term adaptation planning, there is yet to be sustained and systematic attention to how property rights act as a mechanism that entrenches maladaptive tendencies by further embedding path dependency. This is complicated by law, which on the one hand is thought of as a vehicle to help institutionalise adaptative capacity, but on the other embodies and amplifies property rights. Property discourses are embedding a dominant property rights path dependency for coastal climate adaptation. This path dependency entrenches an incremental approach to coastal governance, with normative ideas on private property rights and the path dependencies they create, underpinning managed retreat theory and action. Lessons from case studies in coastal locations in Australia provide important insights into future behaviours of property owners. These insights are useful as coastal management strategies seek to embrace climate change adaptation, and as the financial sector reassesses climate risk exposure.