Interviewing people about the coast on the coast: Appraising the wider adoption of ICZM in North East England

This paper tests the hypothesis that Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is the best strategy for achieving good coastal governance on the North East coast of England using two geographically adjacent case studies: the East Riding coast, which has an ICZM framework in place and the Northumberland coast, which does not. Semi-structured questionnaires were used for face-to-face interviews with local representatives at each study site to underpin a common context and understanding between the interviewer and interviewee. Postal surveys were used to solicit responses from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and governmental representatives. The majority of local respondents at both locations, as well as NGO and governmental representatives, favoured the management of environmental issues over social and economic considerations at the coastal zone, but held optimism for the plausibility of their combined management. In addition, all respondents emphasised their enthusiasm for acting in the context of an ICZM framework, yet those who knew of the framework were largely restricted to governmental representatives at the East Riding coastal zone. It may therefore be concluded that at the time of writing, the full potential of an ICZM framework to meet socio-economic needs, as well as environmental ones, has not been recognised, coupled with a lack of communication to all relevant stakeholders about coastal zone policy at both study locations. This may arguably be seen as a failure to convert ICZM theory into practice. However, before rejecting the null hypothesis for this investigation, that poses whether more effort should be invested in widening the adoption of ICZM at the Northumberland coast, it is recommended that a wider stakeholder survey be undertaken.