as an essentially western concept which places artificial boundaries on the geographical extent of this transition. He considers it culturally inappropriate for Pacific islands, where the coast has traditionally been viewed as a transitional region between land and ocean; however, few coastal nations, especially in developed countries, take this enlightened traditional Pacific view of the coast. In this book we concur with Kaluwin (1996) that zone could be implied to mean a planning zone, and to ensure consistency we use coastal area or simply ‘at the coast’ or ‘on the coast’, except when quoting from original sources which use the term coastal zone.