Strengths

• Cost effective
• Provides an excellent hands-on learning experience for volunteers
• Provides a direct link between recreational participants and relevant authorities
• Improves end user appreciation for the marine environment
• Provides practical conservation measures for the protection of the environment e.g. litter cleanups and beach cleaning exercises
• Provides an excellent source of information regarding the state of the local environment

Weaknesses

• Time consuming for site managers and relevant authorities in the initial development period
• Quality of information, research or any undertaking has to be closely monitored

Opportunities

• Local clubs or networks can be used to provide a basis for volunteers

Threats

• Poor targeting problem users or people who have little interest in the environment
• Requires effective organisation to be successful
• Momentum easy to lose if not driven forward by site managers or group leaders

Strengths

• Improves local community involvement
• Provides good indication of local community attitudes
• Good method for reaching consensus
• Extends the decision making process to the local community
• Provides a link to local community resources

Weaknesses

• Provides a stage for airing personal grievances
• Time consuming to reach decisions
• Skewed by one or two particularly strong or vocal parties
• Unmanageable if the group is too large

Opportunities

• Group could be developed from other existing networks or club groups to save time

Threats

• The people who you most want to involve may not be interested in participating

Strong parties could use it for their own agenda

Strengths

• Acceptability - usually written by, or with input from, user groups
• Provides good educational support for site level voluntary initiatives
• Cheap and easy to produce
• Targeting - can be specific recreational groups or sites
• Provides information for nature conservation, amenity and safety issues
• Straight forward - easily understood by the end user
• Flexibility - can be amended to take account of new recreational trends or locations

Weaknesses

• Difficult to distribute directly to the end user
• Difficult to determine effectiveness
• Difficult to ensure end users read it or act upon it
• Over-use -the number of codes now available may reduce impact
• Targeting non-affiliated independent users is extremely difficult

Opportunities

• Club networks - used to effectively distribute material
• Monitoring - to determine the usefulness and effectiveness of current codes of practice
• A centrally held database of recreational codes could provide a useful resource for participants and other interested parties
• Improve end user appreciation for the environment

Threats

• Usefulness difficult to monitor - problem to justify expenditure as the benefits of the programme are not obvious
• Educational based initiatives are often not given consideration in budgetary allocation and are therefore not easy to fund

Interpretative Maps

Strengths

• Easily and quickly understood by end users
• Contain large amounts of varied data

Weaknesses

• Expensive to produce, particularly if producing many copies
• Landward and seaward data may not be comparable
• Justifications for management decisions not offered

Opportunities

• Useful information can be placed on the back of the map
• Effectively used on signs at access points

Threats

• Obtaining permission for use from the appropriate authorities can be difficult to achieve

Zoning

Strengths

• Flexibility - able to cater for lots of different recreational activities
• Site specific - therefore fully reflect the needs of the site
• Amenity and safety advantages in addition to nature conservation
• Easy to understand and participate in
• Involvement of many organisations in the consultation process
• Levels of protection - depending on particular sensitivities of features
• Voluntary approach - can be applied in association with recreation clubs

Weaknesses

• Consensus difficult to achieve
• Strategies will not work without the support of educational and interpretative campaigns
• Difficult to alter or change once established
• Associated with amenity or safety - usefulness for nature conservation may be overlooked
• Difficult to distinguish specific zones while out on the water
• Enforcement difficult

Opportunities

• Complementary with amenity and safety objectives
• Zoning is becoming a more widely recognised tool of management and is therefore becoming easier to promote

Threats

• The complex nature of human uses of the coast can make it difficult to successfully implement zoning strategies
• New zoning in an area for other purposes may confuse participants and adversely effect safety

Strengths

• Can work as a last choice option for management in areas where voluntary measures are not effective
• Can help to support voluntary led management systems that are ignored by a minority

Weaknesses

• Can be difficult to enforce
• Can by expensive to develop and promote
• Can alienate local communities and reduce the levels of trust and partnership between site managers and users of the site

Opportunities

• Gives power to the relevant authorities to enforce management measures if they have the resources

Threats

• Can sour relations between users and managers