In this short article, I’d like to present the view from a more ‘bottom up’ perspective. The one thing the initiatives listed above have in common is that they are all national and international ‘top down’ approaches. One of the challenges they are likely to find is that ‘the devil is in the detail’ as far as data and information are concerned! At the local and regional levels, Engineers, Planners, Surveyors, Tourism and Recreation officers, Developers, Marine Industries, Fisheries officers, Port managers, Environmental managers, Conservations, Wardens, Archaeologists and Scientists all collect and use marine and coastal data and information for a variety of purposes. As we focus on the sub-national regional scale, vast data and information are already being employed for practical planning and management purposes (although there remain significant gaps in our knowledge). The challenge is to co-ordinate this better, not only for the purpose of producing the new marine plans, but for a variety of other planning and management purposes, for which this information constitutes a vital evidence base. Read More
