The term "Sustainable heritage"was fairly new to me when i started my research on ways and means to preserving the natural heritage of our coastline. I encountered the term for the first time when it appeared as a part of the title for a conference that was to be held at Graz, Austria. When my abstract was accepted for presentation, I started my online research that helped me obtain deep insight into various aspects of preserving coastlines as natural heritage. I was initially overwhelmed by the detailed concepts etched out in the legislation passed by the Irish Parliament on coastal zone management. I had in fact sought the help of a few climate scientists at the Anna University, Chennai to understand the "how"and "why"of preserving our coastline and they were quite helpful enough in guiding me on the topic over phone.
The conference organizers expressed their interest in the contents of my paper. It was after a few months that I received a call from them asking me to proof-read my paper and make it ready for publication. Finally, after a considerable delay, it appears that the paper was indeed chosen for publication and I am hoping the inputs are useful to those in the field of regulating coastal management. I had presented an argument against regulating our coastline through a secondary legislation, even as I was aware of my incomplete research on the merits and demerits of secondary legislation. Recently, I discovered Hansard Society's paper on delegated legislation and the debate on its veracity as a policy making tool. The argument attempts to differentiate between the policy making powers of the executive and its actual role in regulating technical aspects of coastal zone governance. It is my opinion that India needs a statutory mandate to govern its extensive coastline considering the variants in the landscape, flora and fauna of the east and western coastal zones, a mandate that provides a clear and globally accepted policy on coastal zone management that eventually addresses climate change.