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federal perspective that bear noting. Mentioned several times with IST hosts at the national level, was the very low practical ability of the national government to monitor implementation and administration of state
and local coastal programs. Once programs are certified there is little recourse for the federal government to be involved in decisions at the local level or in review of the management aspects of the program. Federal
personnel noted this would help the overall development of the United States ICMP.
2.4 State and Local Response to the CZMA Through Integrated Coastal Management Pro- grams
The coastal zone of United States and territories generally includes lands and waters from the territorial limit of three nautical miles to sea, to some inland boundary which may correspond to political boundaries
e.g., the inland boundary of all coastal counties, administrative boundaries e.g., the nearest roadway, functional boundary e.g., important ecosystem boundary or some combination of these. This CZMA re-
quires only that the coastal zone boundary be defined and allows state and local governments to decide on the appropriate method according to local conditions.
Many states use a tiered approach for defining the coastal zone, usually two tiered. The first tier includes the area with the ‘most direct interaction with the coast’ or the ‘zone of primary influence’. Tier two includes
the rest of the coastal zone considered to have indirect interaction with the coastal zone. Permitting in Tier one usually requires that any proposed development use be designated as a ‘coastal dependent use’ before
being considered appropriate for near coastal zone. Tier two would then consider for permitted use those developments that are less dependent on being located immediately adjacent to the shore. Meetings between
IST participants and the Coastal Commission of Rhode Island, a smaller state than most others, revealed a three tiered approach. These include a “zone of primary influence, a second zone delineated by the inland
borders of the coastal counties and a third that includes the entire state in the coastal zone”. Florida and Hawaii also designate the entire state as coastal zone except for federal lands and Indian Tribal lands.
Under the CZMA, the management structure for receiving national certification is not determined. Ap- proaches range from complete direct state control of all designated coastal lands and waters, to regional
agreements among various agencies for to co-management. Generally, states do not manage their coastal zones as one contiguous, all encompassing unit. Usually, coastal zone management authority is divided
among various state and local authorities to which a considerable amount of coastal management review and permitting authority is delegated. In some states these local units are county or municipal governments,
others are special management area commissions that manage areas that cross political boundaries e.g., dividing the state into regional zones which may be individually managed. However, in all cases, a lead
agency retains oversight of these local programs through some mechanism.
There is widespread use of state-local administrative relationships in United States coastal states and terri- tories. Usually local county or municipal city or township authorities create local coastal zone manage-
ment programs with technical help from the state level. Once these local programs are approved, some degree of permitting and enforcement authority is delegated to the local level with continued but loose
oversight from the state lead agency.
In Florida these partnerships also include federal government agencies in win-win partnerships with state and local agencies. In Key West, continued development resulted in heavy impacts on the adjacent coral
reefs from human waste discharges. These reefs are the only reefs in the United States adjacent to the mainland and are of tremendous value in terms of tourism and other benefits. However, the local population
was so small approximately 80,000 they could not bear the US50 million cost of installing a sewage
The United States Experience in Decentralized Coastal Management: Lessons for Indonesia
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treatment facility. A partnership was reached with the federal government to declare the Key West reefs a National Marine Sanctuary. This resulted in federal funds being made available to finance protection and
management of the reefs, including major financing for a municipal sewage treatment facility.
The use of Special Area Management Plans SAMPs is widespread and occurs in almost all state coastal management programs. SAMPs are used to protect a wide range of habitat and ecosystem functions from
mangroves and wetlands in Florida, to the Puget Sound and its watershed in Washington State. SAMPs are also sometimes used in protection of indigenous rights of Indian tribes. In Washington State’s Puget Sound
Watershed Area, the state worked with federal officials to declare the Nisqually Indian Tribe lands as a national wildlife refuge. This provided the Nisqually Indians with special use rights, while protecting the
watershed in terms of impacts on water quality in Puget Sound. SAMPs are uniquely diverse, with varying structures, a broad range of descriptive names and a wide range of program elements. SAMPs are alterna-
tively called marine sanctuaries, marine or wetland protected areas, wildlife refuges or areas of particular concern. They provide a higher degree of specificity in terms of acceptable uses within the designated areas.
Federal, state and local consistency plays a prominent role in federally certified state coastal management programs. This requires that federal, state and local activities and actions are consistent with the require-
ments and policies of each approved state CZM program. As the IST participants learned during the Wash- ington meetings, NOAA plays an important role in ensuring consistency between state and local coastal
programs of federal agencies, projects sponsored by federal agencies, projects permitted by federal agencies and projects funded with federal funds.
In each state, the lead coastal management agency reviews federal activities to ensure compliance. If they do not comply, the lead coastal management agency contacts the agency responsible for the non-compliant
activity and notifies NOAA. In this way potential conflicts are resolved or avoided. Helping in consistency compliance, and providing conflict resolution help among federal and state agencies, is one of the most
important services NOAA provides to states with certified programs.
Several program elements in the states bear special note. In Rhode Island, violations of the coastal manage- ment plan are recorded on the deeds of property for specific owners. This places limits on certain actions
that the owner can undertake while these violations remain in effect, for example, assuming mortgages.
While not visited during the study tour, American Samoa’s Village LiaisonFacilitator Program is another example that effectively maintains a village-centered traditional government that incorporates centralized
coastal management regulations. Each village selects a village liaison while the coastal management pro- gram selects a facilitator. This allows effective discussion of issues and resolution of conflicts within and
across traditional village laws similar to Indonesian adat laws.
Essential among state programs are the approaches that have contributed to effective publicstakeholder involvement, successful co-management or joint decision making processes, conflict resolution processes
and coordination and harmonization processes including consistency with the CZM program by state agen- cies. Each state and territory is different in how this is accomplished. The states and programs visited
provide some insight into some of the institutional arrangements that are used.
2.5 Design of the Study Tour and Selected Comments on Information Exchanges
