The state of Washington, through the Department of Ecology, participates in the nation-wide Coastal Zone Management Program. The CZM program is a voluntary state-federal partnership which encourages states to adopt their own management programs in order to meet the federal goals of protection, restoration, and appropriate development of coastal zone resources. The states have broad latitude to adapt federal goals to state and local circumstances, needs, and legal traditions.

Washington became the first state to achieve a federally-approved state CZM Program in 1976. Washington’s CZM program is based primarily upon our Shoreline Management Act of 1971, as well as other state land use and resource management laws. Click to learn more about Washington’s program.

The national CZM Program is based on the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, which is implemented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. The Coastal Services Center is a program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration devoted to serving the nation's state and local

coastal resource management programs by linking people, information, and technology.

The thirty-four states and territories enrolled in the federal program have banded together to better represent their interests on federal, legislative, administrative, and policy issues relating to sound coastal, Great Lakes, and ocean management through the Coastal States Organization.

Coastal Zone Management is an international phenomenon, which sometimes goes by the name Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The most comprehensive source of international CZM information is coastalmanagement.com.

In recent years there has been a major initiative to reexamine the role and scope of coastal zone management in the United States, and link coastal management and policy more definitely with ocean management and policy. In the early 2000s, The Pew Charitable Trusts initiated just such a study through the Pew Oceans Commission which issued its final report, America’s Living Ocean, in June, 2003. In parallel with the Pew Oceans Commission, the Congressionally-mandate U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy also conducted a thorough study of ocean issues and issued their report, An Ocean Blueprint, in September, 2004.

The reports of both the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy are available on line and are recommended reading.

Washington state has responded to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy’s recommendations by contracting with the University of Washington’s School of Marine Affairs for a study (Project on Ocean Governance) on how those recommendations might best be implemented in our state. If you have an historical interest in this, you may also want to read Our Nation and the Sea, the 1969 Report of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources, which lead to the adoption of the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.