Conservation, Protection and Rehabilitation of Coastal Communities and Ecosystems

Human society and coastal ecosystems are very closely interlinked and interdependent. A vast majority of the population live in coastal areas, and depend on marine and coastal resources for food, employment and income. Focused assessments made by United Nations University (UNU) indicate that this human dependence on the life-sustaining coastal resources is under threat from a range of destabilizing effects associated with human activities, including different forms of pollution and over exploitation (Adeel and King, 2002). Coastal communities need to respond to these issues with informed management of coastal areas, and to share the lessons that they have learned in rising to this challenge.