Wednesday 4 June 2008

The coastal zone is home to an interesting array of bio-diversity due to the joining of two equally important yet very dissimilar environments, it is the place where the land meets the water, this makes for a hugely diverse natural environment in which many species and habitats exist. This rich diversity also fuels interest coming from all avenues of life, business, tourism, leisure, and interest from the natural realm such as; breeding fish find ideal mating grounds in estuaries, feeding birds thrive on the fish and their young while the waters flowing into the ocean off the land mass transport ever important nutrients which contribute to a nutrient rich environment in which shellfish flourish. Man’s activities have for centuries been drawn to these coastal environments for as long as history books can tell due to the ready availability of food, transport routes and a love for the area. Currently, ‘coastal squeeze’ or the encroachment of society on the coastal zone, is fuelled by an ever increasing popularity of beach based life which leads to development to accommodate the migrating masses and the business they bring. This makes for an interesting and challenging blend of management criteria when the pressures and needs of each of these components, or areas of vested interest, are taken into consideration. Many demands are made on few resources, and so a metaphorical tug of war can develop between man and nature.


In the management of the coastal zone a broad overall perspective on management is to be taken to avoid overlooking stakeholders interests as for the coastal environment to be properly managed all stakeholders are to be taken into consideration for a thorough and effective job to be done. A long term perspective is an important view to have on the implementation of management plans because as we have seen, nothing stays the same forever and environments and activities are constantly changing, this long term plan is complimented by a flexible and adaptive management method which may cater for any eventualities.

As well as working in a flexible way, we see that the natural environment is one which cannot be controlled and therefore it is important as this environment is the very thing we are trying to preserve and so we should work with natural processes in order not to disrupt the very thing which brings us life. An important aspect to obtaining this management method is having the support of all relevant administrative bodies involved in the regulation and law making processes in the environment which is being dealt with.


As far as career options are concerned, at the beginning of this course i had the idea of opening an environmental consultancy and still my idea has not changed, given a chance to enter into the environmental industry i hope to attain the relevant experience in a multitude of fields in a number of disciplines relating to the environmental sector which may stand me in good stead to open something to call my own or a partnership.

A few jobs which may interest me are in the links that follow.

  1. Disaster Response
  2. Environmental Consents
  3. Sustainability Officer

Preferably i would like to enter into the realms of environmental consultancy although these other positions are of interest to me.

Postgratuate opportunities which i would be interested in are work and work only.

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