Recognition of a problem along the shoreline

During the latter half of the 1970's there was a growing concern over the perception of coastal erosion affecting the developing coastlines of Barbados . The concern was highlighted mainly as an economic one affecting the individual property owner and in the longer term having potential impact at the national level since the tourism industry was fast becoming the primary source of foreign exchange at that time. The media drew attention to this issue by depicting undesirable changes occurring along the coastline. These changes were considered to represent an economic physical and social threat to the island. This resulted in the concept of coastal zone management (CZM) being seen solely as a means to address the issues causing beach erosion, thereby ensuring that benefits from the tourism industry were safe guarded . This was especially important since the island by the early 1980's had set a course for economic development, which relied almost exclusively on beach tourism (i.e. sand, sea and sun). CZM in Barbados was therefore considered to be a problem solving activity in coastal conservation - the problem being beach erosion and within a wider context a rapidly developing coastal fringe.

In order to address these raising concerns the Barbados government in 1981 secured financial assistance from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to carry out the island's first coastal conservation study for the West and South coasts. This study was termed the Diagnostic and Pre-Feasibility Study (1982-84). The rationale behind this was that these locations possessed the highest level of tourism development and infrastructure investment on the island (Cambers 1987). A temporary project unit - the Coastal Conservation Project Unit (CCPU) was established within the Government Service to oversee the execution of the study. It was considered to be the start of a new phase in land use and environmental planning and management on the island as the coastal zone had been singled out for specialized attention (Cambers 1987).