A quote attributed to Greek writer Aesop goes something like, “there are two sides to every story, it is well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either”. In the context of nature based coastal adaptation, there are at least three sides to every story: that of the natural environment, the people and groups who have a relationship with the natural environment, and the governing body (or bodies) responsible for decision making. When determining if nature-based approaches are the best fit at a specific site, all three stories must be thoroughly considered before committing to implementation.
For a long time, only the environment and governance perspectives have been prioritized and marine and coastal planning has been primarily non-participatory. Sometimes planning processes will include public input periods. However, when these input periods (or similar approaches) involve consulting with communities and impacted people groups, but not necessarily meaningfully using their input to influence decisions, they can be considered ‘tokenistic’ (for more information about tokensim and different levels of engagement check out work by the OG – Sherry Arnstein and more recent work by Maggie Yet and colleagues).
The problem with tokenistic engagement is that communities are often left feeling excluded from decisions that impact places they are deeply connected to, leading to distrust and broken relationships lasting beyond the timeframe of a specific project. So, even if a coastal plan will protect the shoreline people depend on to fish, kayak, and swim, community members’ distrust of the governing bodies implementing that plan may prevent them from supporting it, i.e., withholding social license. There are of course other influential factors, such as proximity to a site, cultural and relational ties to place, and influence from media and other sources. We don’t have time to dig into all of those here but keep a lookout for a hopefully forthcoming paper I’ve been working on with colleagues that will go into more detail.
My mentor, Katie Williams (check out her work here), has always talked about the importance of seeing decision making like an addition problem. All the different social, economic, environmental, and technical factors must be considered together, rather than trying to use one to cancel the other out. When thinking about nature-based infrastructure in coastal and marine spaces, I find it helpful to think about that addition problem using a scale metaphor (see graphic above). There is only one scale that must weigh the costs and benefits of different approaches for the natural environment, impacted people, and governing bodies/decision makers.
Literature in adjacent fields, like fisheries and social impact assessment, indicates that one of the most effective approaches for avoiding broken trust and other consequences from overlooking impacted people is to consider social impacts as early as possible. Gaining social license is an ongoing process, not a check box on a project proposal. Understanding factors that influence social license can therefore help us understand why people do or do not accept or support different projects and plans, and whether a nature-based approach is the right fit in a specific location. Saying we need to consider the natural environment, people, and governance when planning for nature-based coastal adaptation is simpler than actually doing so. To quote manga artist, Natsuki Takaya, “it’s all very simple. But maybe because it’s so simple, it’s also hard.”
Hard, indeed. But I would argue that with benefits like more equitable planning processes, more sustainable infrastructure, safer coastlines, and healthier coastal and marine ecosystems – it’s certainly worthwhile.
