The Shoreline between Nature and Society, a Changing Heritage - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 208

States of the EU. France joined the experiment relatively late, as its
centralizing traditions were slowing down local initiatives. However,
after a decade, and since the proposal made in 1995 in the Bonnot
report (“For a global and coherent coastal policy in France”), the
principle has progressively made its way to the concensus, due to a
decentralization process, local initiatives created fertile ground for a
new vision of coastal territorial management, seen both as terrestrial
and marine. Today, it appears that the integrated management of
coastal zones, if implemented with common sense and flexibility,
could bring solutions to problems that the “models for the
development of the sea” were not able to solve. So, the rise of
principles based on an integrated management of coastal zone
approach should be seen as the expression of the progressive
convergence of visions under the pressure of globalization that rightly
supposes all global problems be tackled globally. Integrated
management does not disregard global warming, nor sea level rise,
with the risks associated with it. However, it goes further in
demanding tolerance for practices that mostly reflect local cultures
that should be respected. In this respect, integrated coastal zone
management rather expresses the triumph of a decentralized vision of
management, and if France adopts it as well, it is both out of
frustration (as none of the solutions that were steered by the State
produced good results) and also in the name of political realism that
acknowledges the construction of Europe, the principles of local
initiatives, that are more easily accepted in States where provinces
have historically had a strong level of autonomy.
Integration is a basic principle that is sectorial, administrative,
spatial, international and that should indicate the strong presence of
scientific research. In this, it links together research and sustainable
development whose integrated management of coastal zones is one of
the most prominent aspects. It is sectorial in that the participants are
selected on the basis of their being organized enough to debate and
influence the decision that will unavoidably be political. The transition
needs to be made from a logic of poorly solved conflicts (or conflicts
considered as impossible to solve) to a logic of transparency, dialogue
and reciprocal concessions. The norm is to look for a compromise; the
logic is no longer to “lobby” in the negative sense that is too often