Integrated coastal management in Campeche, Mexico; a review after the Mexican marine and coastal national policy

The coastal zone of the State of Campeche provides a space where converge, in a complex interaction, numerous economic activities on which the state depends. Despite its environmental, social and economic importance in the State development, its management had been made in a sectorial and unintegrated way. In 2007, a Mexican Inter-ministerial Commission for Oceans and Coasts was created. Its aim was to attend the different activities that take place in the coastal zone. In 2006 the “National Environmental Policy for the Sustainable Development of Oceans and Coasts of Mexico” (NPOCM) was presented; and it was approved in 2011. After three years of its approval, it is important to identify the progress of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in the State. A combination of two methodologies were used: (i) the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts and Responses (DEPSIR) framework, broadly used in the Global Environmental Outlook reports; and ii) the Decalogue methodology to analyze government responses as the key issues in the State Public Administration. We identified that the ICZM in the State's administration is in an initial stage of execution. It was observed a change in the perception in relation of the coastal zone importance. The development and the government approval of the Campeche Bay Sanitation Zone Integrated Management Program (PMIZC-BaCam) triggered the creation and implementation of responses that are strategic to attend the coastal problematic.