Is Stakeholder Engagement in Coastal Management Too Much Like Hard Work?

Stakeholder engagement is widely acknowledged as a necessary component of strategy building processes for coastal management. However perceptions regarding the nature, processes and value of engagement vary considerably. Using London and the Thames Estuary as a case-study, this paper argues that coastal managers and scientists should expect engagement to be challenging. After all, engagement is embedded in the complexities of how individuals and communities perceive coastal `problems', as well as the reality of the complex physical and social environments within such problems emerge. However an important message is that whilst engagement may be difficult, it is a key vehicle for gaining new insights in to both the nature of complex coastal problems and options for increasing the sustainability of coastal management. "Conversation" is critical to learning and therefore to more successful integration of our understanding of coastal behaviour and subsequent policy approaches for coastal management.