Logo of State of the Environment 2011; Photo by Andrew Griffiths, Lensaloft

State of the Environment 2011 (SoE 2011)

State of the Environment 2011 Committee. Australia state of the environment 2011.
Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
Canberra: DSEWPaC, 2011.

11 Coasts

4.5 Hopeful signs

Although the above assessments are somewhat critical of current arrangements with regard to resilience, some very hopeful trends are emerging that will potentially build greater resilience of coastal social–ecological systems. In Section 3.2, we reported on a range of cooperative initiatives being taken by coastal councils to address many of the deficiencies discussed above. One of these, the South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership, is cooperating with the CSIRO to use management strategy evaluation to address some of the environmental, economic and social impacts of coastal urban areas.54

In Section 3.3, we reported on the 2009 report to the Australian Government by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts, and the subsequent establishment of the Coasts and Climate Change Council and its recommendations to government. Both sets of recommendations go to the heart of the issues about resilience and adaptive governance raised in this section. Coastal management might move in these directions in the coming decade, resulting in improvements in coastal resilience and the state of coastal environments.

Point Lonsdale, Victoria. Photo by Michael Boniwell