Environmental problem solving in coastal ecosystems: A paradigm shift to sustainability

The human ecological footprint now extends to the entire globe, and human impacts are the dominant feature of many ecosystems, resulting in our current era being coined the ‘anthropocene’. This is particularly apparent in coastal ecosystems as human populations are increasing rapidly in coastal cities and the ecosystem services in these areas are rapidly being compromised. Science has historically progressed as a series of paradigm shifts and this paper reviews this history of paradigm shifts and makes the case that the next major paradigm shift will be directed at sustainability, resulting in a shift in scientific focus on solving rather than just studying our current environmental problems. Traditionally, science has been extremely effective at data acquisition and then successively less effective at translating this into information, knowledge and finally environmental problem solving. The currently required paradigm shift is to focus on environmental problem solving, filling gaps in knowledge, information and data only as required to solve a particular problem. A key element in turning this process around is better science communication between scientists, key stakeholders and the community. This will require more ‘science communicators’ who can use credibility, tenacity, creativity and virtue to effect solutions.