The same story for 25 years...

"Lessons learnt from a collaborative management programme in coastal Tanzania."

This is the title of an article from the latest 2010 edition of Ocean and Coastal Management:

In 1997 this same journal devoted an entire issue to "Lessons learned in Integrated Coastal Management." One of the articles was entitled "Evaluating factors contributing to the success of community-based coastal resource management: the Central Visayas Regional Project-1, Philippines."

Then in 1995 we have this article "Community-based and co-management institutions for sustainable coastal fisheries management in Southeast Asia."

In 1993, again from the same journal, an article entitled "Will integrated coastal management programs be sustainable; the constituency problem," discusses the need to build constituencies for community-based or decentralized coastal management systems.

In 1992 the UNCED called for integrated, community-based, coastal management.

And even as early as 1985 USAID and the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Center were implementing community-based coastal management projects in Ecuador, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

It is time to move on. We have learned enough lessons about community-based coastal management. It was a step in the right direction, but we have been walking in circles for at least the last decade. Our coasts and oceans are still dying. Lets try something new.

The same story for 25 years...