World Harbour Project: Conflict and the Future in the World’s Harbours

• Main Authors: Pearson, SG, Alexander, K, Brewer, T
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic; Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_45584; https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/a34b3980-af88-4cc9-ae32-5a2b678aa2b2/download; https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/26286

World Harbour Project: Conflict and the Future in the World’s Harbours Pearson, Stuart*1, Karen Alexander2 and Tom Brewer3 1 School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia 2 Centre for Marine Socioecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Hobart, TAS 7000 3 Northern Institute, Arafura Timor Research Facility, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT 0909 [e-mail] As a result of residential and industrial development, harbours are often subject to elevated loads of pollutants from various shipping activities, industrial spills and leaks, sewage outfall and agricultural waste (amongst other sources). Managing conflict in harbours, the most intensely altered part of the littoral zone, has been a successful focus of an international collaboration. This paper will share key findings from the 2016 paper Conflicts in some of the World Harbours: what needs to happen next? Conflicts appear clearly in rapid developing harbours when values or uses of harbours are changing (Jakarta Bay, Jiaozhou Bay) and can become latent in other situations (Sydney, Plymouth). Yet we suspect there is remarkable agreement if the timeframes were extended out into the future – say 10 years. Likewise looking back from 20 years hence gets users engaged in avoiding undesirable futures and making decisions now to increase the chance of achieving plausible and desirable future states. Decisions, valuations and risk are framed by views of the future and so it is prudent to examine how these are developed in harbour users. Futures are important and useful discussions in conflictual environments because they help lift people into more creative solution spaces. In the World Harbour Project Working Group 3 the future was seen as a useful place to make a contribution for discovering shared and sharable insights into the ways harbour conflicts could be discussed and resolved. An initial paper shows that the ways conflicts are managed is sometimes framed by a deep embodiment of ...