Towards more integrated and participatory coastal management : insights from Victoria’s Estuary Entrance Management Support System.

Participation and integration are core elements of coastal management. A key argument is that involving stakeholders from the broader community in collaborative coastal management allows for a more reflexive approach to consideration of ecological science outputs. However the role of stakeholder participation is still problematic especially when the involvement is short term and limited in its knowledge co-production. We argue for the development of a participatory logic that includes five key elements: the institutionalization of the processes that derive from stakeholder co-production and co-management; the ability and capacity to make meaningful decisions about issues of importance in an on-going way; the inclusion of all stakeholders in the process; the flexibility of central policies that enable participation by stakeholders at local level; the allowance for pathways for the uptake of all knowledge systems. Using this approach we report in this paper on the Estuary Entrance Management Support System (EEMSS) and ask whether this is a model system for answering the following questions as part of participatory logic: What types of collaborative activities can be used to improve the management of coastal zones? Are these activities a sufficient pathway for integrating different knowledge forms including science into coastal management? How important is stakeholder participation to science uptake? How can stakeholder participation be institutionalized in coastal management?