Creating A Blueprint For Our Coast
Along New England's shoreline, what uses should go where?
How can multiple, competing uses co-exist compatibly?
What's often missing from planning is science-based information that evaluates the compatibility of conflicting uses and environmental impacts. New tools are available to help analyze current and anticipated uses of ocean and coastal areas to enable communities to achieve maximum economic and social benefits while ensuring that the ocean remains ecologically healthy.
There is a near term need to develop a regional response for our waterfront planning since the federal government is working towards a mandatory coastal waters management strategy which includes ecosystem protection.
Attendees learned about the process: how it’s developed and how to lead and direct the stakeholders within your community.
The 2011 Coastal Communities Conference, with its focus on the land/sea interface, highlighted the elements of Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning in the context of the competing uses in the near shore – how to knit together the shared edges between the blue water, the near shore, and the watershed. It explored new approaches and applied those understandings to benefit our coastal communities.
This conference was co-hosted by ReMain Nantucket and Egan Maritime Institute in collaboration with the Massachusetts Ocean Partnership, The Nature Conservancy, Maria Mitchell Association, the Urban Harbors Institute, UMass Boston, and the UMASS Boston Field Station on Thursday, September 29, 2011 and Friday, September 30, 2011.
