Legal tools for preserving France's natural heritage through integrated coastal zone management

The coastal zone is an area of conflicting processes, reflecting its position at the interface between the terrestrial and marine environments. Thus, this area needs further study as its importance in our biosphere calls for rapid enforcement of a coordinated conservation policy for the implementation of effective protection. This paper assembles the elements of current politics that are involved with the preservation of our natural heritage in view of an integrated management of the coasts of mainland France. Current legislation applicable to the coastal zone natural heritage exists on three levels: international, European Community and French. An in-depth analysis of the different institutions involved in gathering knowledge and managing the coastal zone is presented. Equally important to the enforcing of laws concerning natural heritage preservation is the defining of protected zones under various conditions such as where sector perimeters meet or overlap. Similarly, numerous organizations and institutions involved with the natural coastal zone environment exist; in many cases, lack of experience hinders integrated and concerted management efforts. The notions of sustainable development and integrated management of the coastal zones propose alternatives to current legislation, using a global and integrated approach to coastal problem areas. Numerous laws may be applied to the coastal zone, but laws elaborated specifically for this area remain rare. Despite being a complex combination of numerous international, community and national directives, natural heritage protection is more known for its weaknesses than its strengths. The French State is still too centralized and does not seem to have adequately adapted its services to the process of decentralization. This last factor is one of the last hurdles left in the effective protection of the marine and coastal environment. The interaction of multiple intervention levels requires a clarification of the network of current expertise, leading to an eventual harmonization and institutional coordination that would take into account everyone who is linked to this coastal zone. A reform of the status of the "Conservatory of the Coastal Areas and Lakeshore" (Conservatoire des Espaces Littoraux et des Rivages Lacustres, CELRL) has been recently proposed (law no. 2002-276 of the 27 February 2002). It aims to increase the responsibility of this organism and lighten the burden on the public domain in its role as a key player in the protection of the natural coastal heritage. The objectives of this article on the French metropolitan coastline are four-fold: to present the principal legal laws and statutes concerning their conservation, to highlight the difficulties connected to the application of these laws, to analyze the diffuse administrative responsibility and the increasing efforts to encourage or enforce the preservation of certain particularly important sectors, and to evaluate the legal tools available for preserving the natural heritage via Integrated Coastal Zone Management. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.