Updated
November, 2008
CCNS COASTAL POLICY FACTOR SUMMARY
CAPACITY AND RESOURCES
Coastal 2000 and ESSIM, in particular, are reminders that even well-thought-out coastal
policies and integrated management plans will not accomplish much without
adequate resources of various kinds, including funding, talent and technology, coming
together with government, stakeholder and community commitment and capacity. In fact,
fully half of the 10 ‘key issues in the coastal zone’ addressed in the Coastal 2000
consultation paper concerned institutional capacity and coordination. (As an illustration,
where oversight and approval powers are assigned but not funded reasonably, slow
and/or incompetent administration of coastal plans and by-laws can move public support
for coastal management in the wrong direction).
PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
As coastal policy is primarily a provincial domain, the question of capacity and resources
for coastal policy and planning is primarily a provincial one. The province’s fiscal
capacity is less than robust, but NS benefits from growing fiscal equalization (due largely
to Alberta’s petro-economy), and from its own offshore gas revenues. As in most
provinces, health care and education budget requirements leave little room to sustain
funding for other established programs, let alone launch costly new policies and
initiatives.
It is, therefore, fortunate that, although all policies and planning have cost implications, a
coherent and effective coastal policy for NS need not require a large new budgetary
allocation. That said, meaningful coastal policy cannot be implemented without
incurring some incremental budgetary costs for the provincial government.
Surprisingly, the authors of Coastal 2000 asserted that its proposed coastal policy would
“be delivered through an integration with existing services and resources. No new money
is required”. They also suggested that existing federal and provincial program sources
could handle the funding of the ‘community initiatives’ at the core of the plan. Evidently,
the fiscal discipline being applied in the province as federal restraint hit the NS Treasury
hard in the mid-1990’s necessitated a “no new resources” mantra, despite the clear
funding requirements of their proposals. With increasing fiscal restraint likely ahead, the
rejection of an unfunded Coastal 2000 plan remains salutary.
Approval processes and other regulatory elements typically associated with coastal
policies also have economic costs not reflected in government accounts. Intensive
land-use planning is perhaps the most resource-intensive coastal management process,
and coastal land acquisition can involve substantial capital as well. As more of these
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kinds of activities are included, policy implementation becomes more costly. Other
elements, such as a coastal SPI and model by-laws, could largely be incorporated into
existing arrangements and procedures, with more modest incremental provincial
government costs associated with monitoring and enforcement. Adding coherence to
coastal policy through better alignment of existing coast-impacting policies is the least
expensive component (hence Coastal 2000’s claim), but would not by itself constitute an
effective NS coastal policy.
Even though coastal policy need not be a prohibitively expensive item to absorb into
provincial accounts, the structure of public administration at the provincial level,
where as many as half a dozen departments carry important responsibilities
relevant to coastal management and development, poses challenges to the
development and effective implementation of such a policy in NS. Currently, a threeperson secretariat in DFA supports the inter-departmental Provincial Oceans Network
(PON), although a number of other departments (including DNR, Environment,
Transport and Infrastructure Renewal, and Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations)
have more statutory and regulatory powers affecting coastal management. Neither PON
nor its secretariat have substantial budgetary or other leverage (the PON secretariat’s
2008 budget allocation is $200k) to meaningfully influence the conduct of these other
departments regarding coastal matters.
An effective provincial coastal policy must be backed by some combination of
financial resources to support coastal planning and management initiatives, and
statutory oversight/review powers vested in a provincial authority. Oddly for a report
which set out to ‘define the institutional framework and responsibility for CZM’, the
Coastal 2000 consultation paper does not propose a lead department, somehow expecting
that a myriad of proposed inter-departmental coordinating machinery could be managed
without leadership within the provincial system. (DFA has the lead role in the
development of a Sustainable Coastal Development Strategy by 2010).
In contrast, the 2001 report of the Voluntary Planning Task Force on Non-Resident
Land Ownership recommended that the government establish or designate an armslength agency “ to advise on land use planning and policy with a particular emphasis on
the coastal zone”, with “on-going consultations with citizens”. The agency’s proposed
mandate included developing “a provincial interest statement on coastal coordination
and planning which would offer guidance from the province to the municipalities”,
spearheading the acquisition of coastal land and developing a long-term access strategy.
A coastal Statement of Provincial Interest would extend the influence of provincial
coastal policies into the all-important domain of municipal land-use planning, but an SPI
cannot work effectively on its own. [Whether or not a coastal SPI need, or should, be
backed by some provincial statutory responsibilities (rather than just policy
pronouncements) is examined in the Factor Summary on policies and planning].
Finally, and somewhat ironically, the provincial government’s recent enactment of an
Environment Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, may actually make building
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coastal policy capacity within government more difficult. The Act features more than
20 targets with timelines, and sets out a process to monitor the province’s progress
towards meeting its commitments. Achieving some of these targets, such as a wetlands
policy by 2009 and protection of 12 percent of the province’s land, should benefit coastal
management directly, but overall the effect of the government’s ambitious environmental
agenda may well be to increase competition for scarce resources, including funds, talent
and policy attention.,
As officials and others (eg. Voluntary Planning) struggle to carry out (already
overlapping) policy reviews ranging from natural resources to wetlands and water
resources, the appetite and capacity to add another lens for coastal policy will be
limited. Hence, in the near term, a key part of coastal policy development in NS must be
ensuring sensible treatment of coastal matters in these closely-related policy initiatives.
For example, the consultation working paper from the natural resources review indicated
that several submissions urged coastal policy development and proposed specific
measures.
In this environment, the Sustainable Coastal Development Strategy seeks to build on the
mandates, commitments and initiatives of provincial departments and agencies related to
the coast, and to identify their strategic links and opportunities to collaborate effectively.
The challenge for DFA, as coastal policy champion, is to advance this horizontal
coordination with legislative/regulatory responsiblities and resources – ie. bureaucratic
clout – dwarfed by DNR and Environment in particular.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS
As outlined in the Factor Summary on land-use planning, municipalities exercise their
delegated jurisdiction over land use by regulating the location of development through
municipal plans and zoning by-laws. Under the Municipal Government Act, a municipal
planning strategy may include statements referring to protection, use and development of
lands within the municipality, including the identification, use and development of lands
subject to geological hazards or in swamps, marshes and other environmentally-sensitive
areas. Accordingly, municipal governments have the legal capacity to impose
development provisions in sensitive areas, to impose buffers, and to use zoning for
the protection of watercourses (which, under the stated definition, includes coastal
areas). [That said, other parts of the MGA stress that any “environmental” zoning is the
responsibility of the Province, underlining the importance of ‘horizontal co-ordination
across departments – and governments]. In addition to regulating development,
municipalities have the power to regulate landscaping, building materials and the
alteration, infilling and/or excavation of private land.
There is, however, limited operational capacity at the municipal level to utilize these
powers. Many municipalities cannot afford to hire a planner, and those that can may not
regard knowledge about the coastal zone or about coastal planning and land-use
management tools to be a priority. The reluctance of some municipal politicians and
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officials also derives from the development needs of their localities With regional/rural
decline an over-riding concern in many coastal communities, few municipalities wish to
appear less willing to welcome development than their neighbors. Helpfully, a number of
coastal and estuarial communities have found that re-discovering their ‘water sides’ can
have mutually-supportive ecological and economic benefits, and so have chosen
development strategies which enhance their natural coastal assets.
HRM’s recent regional planning process included a goal of protecting the natural
functioning of watercourses, including wetlands and estuaries, and a goal of coordinating
coastal zone management “to protect coastal areas such as beaches, salt marshes and
other significant coastal eco-systems”, including the use of coastal conservation zones.
The resulting HRM Regional Plan includes reference to coastal planning and protection,
but its principal coastal zoning by-laws remain coastal setback and sea rise provisions.
(John Charles’ MURP thesis, cited in the sources, provides a detailed examination of the
opportunities and challenges in moving HRM towards integrated coastal zone
management [ICZM] in HRM. The Municipality of Queen’s has also developed a
regional land-use planning strategy, after a public consultation process indicated a high
level of concern for the environment generally, and for the coastline in particular.
Because few municipalities can afford planning staff, let alone ‘coastal planners’. Hence,
most municipalities will have difficulty extending new provincial coastal policies into
municipal land-use plans and practices without some kind of template, such as a set
(or menu) of model by-laws relating to coastal management. Indeed, administering a
fund (ideally one co-funded by Ottawa) to promote and support coastal planning by
municipalities could be a core function of a provincial government unit charged with
implementing a coastal policy,
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
For at least the past decade, coastal policy advocates and planners have looked to the
federal government for leadership on marine and coastal matters. With Canada’s Oceans
Act (1997) and the subsequent (2002) federal Oceans Strategy, the federal government
explicitly committed the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to lead and facilitate the
development of a national oceans strategy to guide the management of Canada’s
estuarine, coastal and marine ecosystems, principally through the development and
implementation of integrated management plans. In the Maritimes, a Regional
Committee on Ocean Management (RCOM) was created as a senior executive-level
forum for federal and provincial departments and agencies with ocean-related program
activities, to provide coordination across the governments regarding planning,
management and regulation of ocean management.
Looking ahead from 2008, however, there are few signs of continuing, let alone
renewed, federal leadership on coastal policy and planning. Specifically, there is no
indication from DFO regarding the extension of its marine/offshore IM initiatives to
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coastal or estuarine areas, as was clearly intended under the Oceans Strategy (2002) and
subsequent Oceans Action Plan (2005-07).
Although the former Department of Regional Economic Expansion (DREE) and now
ACOA have funded significant development projects related to coastal resources (such as
the Halifax waterfront development of the 1970s), DFO (with ESSIM and Bras d’Or
watershed projects) and DOE (with ACAP and the national water strategy) have
been the primary federal departments devoting resources over time to coastal and
marine planning in the Maritimes. DFO continues to fund marine and coastal science
under the Oceans Strategy, but the latest (2007) federal budget increases for ocean
protection and management are directed to the priorities of a National Water Strategy and
an expanded network of Marine Protected Areas. Initiatives related to climate change
adaptation may also lead to some opportunities to partner with federal agencies on coastal
planning and management (esp. mapping work), but this source will not provide core
funding for a provincial coastal policy.
Beyond funding provincial, municipal and stakeholder initiatives, the federal
government remains hugely important with regard to expertise and research. The
Oceans and Habitat Management Branch of DFO and the Sustainable Communities and
Eco-systems Initiatives Branch of DOE are probably the most substantial institutional
advocates for coastal and marine protection in this region. DFO Oceans and Habitat
Management has carried out or funded much of our available coastal mapping, such its
2007 Ecosystem Overview Report for the Minas Basin, which has provided baseline
ecosystem information in advance of the province’s upcoming tidal power demonstration
projects at the mouth of the Basin. DFO Science conducts an extensive programme of
marine and coastal research, and is currently a contributing sponsor of the State of the NS
Coast Report. DOE’s Sustainable Communities and Eco-Systems Initiatives group
continues to support 5 ACAP initiatives in the province, but after 15 years some see
ACAP as stale, and perhaps at risk of being left behind in DOE’s shift to ‘Atlantic
Habitat Ecosystem’ initiatives. These departments also manage several other coastal and
marine areas under federal statutes. These include: National Wildlife Areas, including
coastal areas (Canada Wildlife Act); Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in estuarine, coastal
and marine waters (Oceans Act); and National Marine Conservation Areas (NMCA) for
submerged waters and coastal lands and islands (Parks Canada).
STAKEHOLDER AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
There have always been stakeholder interests represented in provincial resource
and environmental policies, and in municipal planning and land-use management.
In the past, some of these stakeholders were regarded (and regarded themselves) more as
clients than as stakeholders, such as the fisheries sector by DFO or mining and forestry
companies by DNR. Industry remains a core stakeholder, but is now required by
governments (often as a result of pressure from other stakeholder interests) to reflect a
wider frame of reference in its activities and proposals.
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As described in the policy summary on land-use and resource planning, inclusive
stakeholder engagement is now seen as an essential element in effective coastal
policy, planning and management processes, requiring substantial commitments of
time, expertise and other resources. For example, the Coastal 2000 consultation paper’s
implementation strategy was centred on multi-stakeholder Community Groups, which
would have been responsible for identifying community ‘aspirations and priorities’,
drafting management plans ‘with defined program goals, targets, measures of
achievement, and assigned roles and responsibilities for community members’, and for
implementing and monitoring the community coastal management plan. Provincial
departments would have ‘assisted’ community groups through Regional Representative
Groups of regional personnel, coordinating government responses to, and identifying
potential funding sources for, community coastal ‘initiatives’. Currently, the ESSIM
Stakeholder Advisory Council (SAC) has over 30 members, a third from government
(federal, provincial, municipal and aboriginal), another third from industry (fisheries. oil
and gas, shipping, tourism, cable telecoms.), plus conservation groups (3), community
groups (2) and academic and corporate research (2).
Government stakeholders typically underwrite the overhead costs of planning processes,
and government and industry often bring additional analysis and research to the table.
Community and other voluntary sector groups (such as environmental and heritage
NGOs) seldom have access to substantial resources beyond their own time commitments
and expertise. If community-based activities are to be core building blocks of coastal
planning and management, they will need a range of financial and other supports to
develop and maintain capacity. Ideally, at least some of the financial support by the
Province to community-based action groups would be in the form of trust fund income, to
provide a modest base of on-going core funding. (Core funding could be channeled
through interested municipal councils, but should not enter municipal revenues directly if
they are to be ear-marked effectively). The Ecology Action Centre (EAC/ Janet Barlow)
have long advocated for the creation of a provincial environmental trust.
For the time being, stakeholders rely on connecting with a number of governmentsupported but arms-length organizations concerned with coastal policy and management,
typically as part of an oceans science/habitat orientation. These include Coastal Zone
Canada, the Oceans Management Research Network and the Atlantic Coastal Zone
Information Steering Committee, whose website and monthly newsletter keep track of
current events and issues in coastal management regionally, nationally and
internationally.
As yet, there are no on-going funding sources available for the development of integrated
coastal management policies at the provincial level, or of integrated coastal management
plans at the local or regional level. A NS coastal policy will require some provision to
assist community and NGO participation in the process, particularly in the development
of coastal area plans. In New Brunswick, under the watershed classification process of
the Clean Water Act, the NB Eco Trust funds community watershed groups to do
watershed mapping and monitoring. In Nova Scotia, the Municipal Government Act
makes provision for establishing advisory groups. Where interest warrants, community
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advisory groups could work with municipal councils to anticipate and address coastal
issues. Government-backed agencies with mandates to encourage and support community
development projects, such as regional development authorities, could also facilitate
community-based coastal zone planning.
SOURCES
Despite important gaps in addressing its goal of defining the institutional framework,
responsibilities and resources for coastal zone management, the Coastal 2000
Consultation Report (Depts. of Environment and Fisheries, 1994) examines several key
issues of institutional and community capacity and coordination, and of public education
and coastal ‘management promotion’. Three appendices deal with:
I) The Diversity and Value of Resources in the Coastal Zone, covering water
resources, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry, mineral resources, energy resources,
agriculture, parks and wildlife, tourism and recreation, transportation and settlement, and
cultural heritage (which pretty much summarizes the departmental interests represented
around the Coastal Zone Management Issues Group which prepared the report);
II) A Survey of the Current Legislative Environment, which set out laws, policies,
programs and initiatives then affecting the coastal zone; and
III) Coastal Zone Management Issues, Goals Objectives and Actions, organized
around 7 main goals, including a pro-active approach to environmental and resource
protection, defining the institutional framework and responsibility for CZM, generating
and managing current, accurate, and accessible information on all important aspects of
the coastal environment and its resources, and involving all sectors of NS in the
stewardship of the coastal environment and its resources.
A number of the presentations at the Changing Tides Workshop (CCNS, 2004 focused
on government activities and capabilities from federal, municipal and coastal planner
perspectives. Defining the role of the coastal planner in NS, Mark TeKamp saw the
planning process as hampered by a chronic lack of coordination, lack of decision-making
power at the local level and reduced or minimal resources (people, funds, time).
Researching the Role for Communities in Integrated Coastal Management in NS
(Joanne Weiss Reid, Dalhousie thesis, 2004) provided much of this summary’s
information on the ICM capacity of governments (particularly municipalities) and
communities. Her study emphasizes the importance of building middle-level commitment
and capacity in the provincial system, empowering municipalities to engage in coastal
planning and developing a process for meaningful community participation in ICM.
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The Rural Communities Impacting Policy (RCIP) research initiative (2001-2006) of
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), with
support by the Coastal Communities Network, Atlantic Health Promotion Research
Centre and Dalhousie University, produced several studies examining aspects of
rural/coastal community capacity, such as Coastal Area Management in NS: Building
Awareness at the Municipal Level (Corey Toews, RCIP, 2005), which considered the
roles of municipalities and community-based organizations in coastal management.
Similarly, the Coastal Communities Network, which since 1994 has provided a forum
to promote rural coastal communities in NS, has material outlining coastal community
planning needs and capacities. The CCN also continues to encourage community
resource-building through workshops and local initiatives.
On the technical side, DFO’s Oceans and Habitat Report Series contains public
discussion papers, consultant reports and other public documents on topics related to
oceans and coastal planning and management, conservation, habitat protection and
sustainable development. Copies of series reports, such as the Ecosystem Overview
Report for the Minas Basin (2007-05), are available electronically (and in limited paper
format) from the Oceans and habitat Branch of DFO.
Similarly, DFO’s Significant Habitats: Atlantic Coast Initiative (SHACI) has
produced a number of lengthy manuscript reports, including very detailed ecological
studies of, for example HRM’s coastline (2005) and the Sydney Bight (2004). This kind
of on-going work confirms the view of Coastal 2000 which, even a decade ago, judged
that sufficient scientific and ecological information and analysis was available to support
coastal zone planning and management in NS.