Sharing benefits from the coast: Rights, resources and livelihoods

Coastal resources are vital for communities in developing countries, many of whom live in abject poverty. These resources also hold significant value for a number of different sectors such as mining, fisheries and tourism, which supply expanding global consumer markets. Although these activities provide opportunities for economic and income growth, global patterns indicate growing levels of economic inequality between custodians of these resources and those exploiting them, as well as an increasing incidence in poverty.

This book provides novel analyses of these issues, drawing from empirical research in South African and Mozambican coastal communities. It aims to deepen our knowledge about coastal resource use, who benefits and who loses and in what circumstances, why benefits and losses are distributed in the way that they are, the main blockages that prevent greater equity, and strategies to enhance more equitable benefit sharing. These findings have relevance and application for coastal livelihoods, rural governance and resource sustainability — not only in the research sites, but across a world in which community rights are increasingly undermined through land grabbing, unequal power relations and externally driven development interventions.