Coastal Zone Development and Sustainability

Catering for needs of rapidly growing coastal populations could result in unsustainable practices and lead to pollution and degradation of coastal ecosystems. Sustainability is hampered by both the size of coastal population and the concept of free natural resources -- a basic notion in the current economic paradigm, which leads to environmental externalities and overuse of natural resources. The experience in some industries shows that costs of conservation as a part of achieving environmental sustainability, can be internalised and the benefits outweigh costs. An industrial case study supports this assertion. It is concluded that sustainability is a collection of methodologies that could be employed to steer developments through their nvironmental voyage.

Keywords:

Sustainability , conservation benefits , externalities , symbiosis , sustainable tourism , natural resource use