Coastal Resources Management Project

The CRMP was an eighteen year partnership (1985 through 2003) between the CRC and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The CRMP enabled the Center to work with a range of nations to do a better job of allocating, using, developing and conserving coastal resources in order to improve the well-being of the people of the place, the development of the nation, and the health and quality of the environment. The countries in which CRMP worked range from small, very poor but relatively peaceful and stable nations like Tanzania, to middle-income countries like Mexico and Thailand, to nations experiencing political transformations and social turmoil such as Indonesia and Ecuador, and to nations in a longstanding civil war like Sri Lanka. The program took what has been learned — place by place, year by year — to inform how coastal issues are defined and addressed at larger regional and global scales. The program pioneered an approach to Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) based upon three principles:

  1. A definition of ICM that includes both conservation and development: CRMP embraced the following definition of ICM: “A continuous and dynamic process that unites government and the community, science and management, sectoral and public interests in preparing and implementing an integrated plan for the protection and development of coastal ecosystems and resources.” (GESAMP, 1996)
  2. Recognition that while ICM’s fundamental purpose is to move towards more sustainable forms of development, progress is made through a linked sequence of outcomes that progress from the assembly of enabling conditions, to implementation of a plan of action expressed as changes in behavior and then to a harvest of improvements in societal and environmental conditions.
  3. Recognition that ICM is a governance process that goes through a public policy cycle in which each cycle represents a “generation” of governance. It is through completion of successive generations, with each generation building on the accomplishments and lessons of the previous one. The policy cycle and the essential actions that need to occur at each step of the process provide a roadmap for sustained progress.

The CRMP evolved through two distinct phases with similar goals:

  • CRMP I (1985 – 1995) was designed to “demonstrate that the principles and practice of integrated coastal management (ICM) can be usefully applied to critical coastal issues and geographic areas in developing countries.”
  • CRMP II (1995 through 2003) had as its goal “Increased conservation and sustainable use of coastal resources” in selected USAID-assisted nations.

CRMP I and II provides a unique and well-documented body of experience tracing the evolution of coastal management initiatives at the local to national scales in a very wide diversity of environmental, cultural and economic contexts. This has given rise to methods for making operational the principles of effective stewardship and adaptive management. These methods have been set forth in a number of publications, are a unifying theme in CRMP training courses, and have been the basis for evaluations of coastal management programs sponsored by several international funding organizations. The CRMP-promoted ICM policy cycle and the four Orders of Outcomes are increasingly recognized as valuable tools for designing, administering and evaluating coastal management initiatives. They have been featured in keynote presentations at the conferences in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the Global Water Forum in Kyoto and the Miami conference that integrated research on the land ocean interface (LOICZ) sponsored by the International Geosphere Biosphere Program.

The CRMP evolved through two distinct phases with similar goals:

  • CRMP I (1985 – 1995) was designed to “demonstrate that the principles and practice of integrated coastal management (ICM) can be usefully applied to critical coastal issues and geographic areas in developing countries.”
  • CRMP II (1995 through 2003) had as its goal “Increased conservation and sustainable use of coastal resources” in selected USAID-assisted nations.

CRMP I and II provides a unique and well-documented body of experience tracing the evolution of coastal management initiatives at the local to national scales in a very wide diversity of environmental, cultural and economic contexts. This has given rise to methods for making operational the principles of effective stewardship and adaptive management. These methods have been set forth in a number of publications, are a unifying theme in CRMP training courses, and have been the basis for evaluations of coastal management programs sponsored by several international funding organizations. The CRMP-promoted ICM policy cycle and the four Orders of Outcomes are increasingly recognized as valuable tools for designing, administering and evaluating coastal management initiatives. They have been featured in keynote presentations at the conferences in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the Global Water Forum in Kyoto and the Miami conference that integrated research on the land ocean interface (LOICZ) sponsored by the International Geosphere Biosphere Program.