In 1988 the International Maritime Organization - IMO, a UN specialized agency with its Headquarters in London, England, where I had the privilege to work for many years until 1989, foresaw the need to launch a worldwide strategy to protect the marine environment and the coastal areas throughout the globe.

Thus was created the Global Programme for the Protection of the Marine Environment - GPPME which has as its philosophy and main objective the approach of: anticipate and prevent.

Meanwhile in Brazil, the "Comissao Interministerial para os Recursos do Mar - CIRM" (Interministerial Commission for Sea Resources - ICSR), at its 107th Ordinary Session on the 26th of September 1990, having considered the Article 4th, #1, of the Law No. 7661 dated 16th of May 1988, decided to quote approve the "Plano Nacional de Gerenciamento Costeiro - PNGC" (National Plan for Coastal Management - NPCM), developed by a Coordinating Group formed in accordance to the Decree No. 99.213 dated 18th of April 1990, submitted to the "Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente - CONAMA" (National Council for the Environment - NCE), at its 25th Ordinary Session unquote.

Considering its complexity, extension and peculiarities, the Brazilian coastal area constitutes a geographical system with an enormous number of special characteristics; amongst many others, the occurrence of the converging environmental factors and characteristics of a land, maritime and atmospheric nature. In it, or in its vicinities, one may find the most important oil deposits of the Country.

The 6 Basic Principles of the "PNGC"/NPCM also know as "Gerenciamento Costeiro - GERCO" (Coastal Management - COMA), the following two are rather particular:
- The protection and recovery of remaining and reminiscent areas which are representative of the coastal region's natural ecosystem.
- The control and recovery of the coastal region's degraded areas.

One of the instruments and/or tools to accomplish what the very Law No. 7661/88 (above mentioned) dictates, is the Ecological and Economics Separation Scheme which object is, amongst others, to establish the interdependency relationship between the physical-biological and social-economic sub-systems. This Separation Scheme is a dynamic process which requires a great deal of precise detailed and successive updating carried out by multidisciplinary studies to be conducted by teams of experts adjusted to interdisciplinary principles. These studies' objective is the scientific exchange of information which will subsidize the establishment of strategic priority areas for international level research work thus generating a potential tool of world marketing.

Even though extensive work has already been developed and done, for example the "Macrodiagnostico da Zona Costeira do Brasil, na Escala da Uniao, Ministerio do Meio Ambiente, Brasilia, 1996" (Macro Diagnosis of the Brazilian Coastal Region, Union's Scale, Ministry for the Environment, Brasilia, 1996), considering the size and extensive magnitude of the Brazilian's coastal area, we are still far from the ideal…

The II UNCED's - United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - Chapter 17 - Protection of the Oceans, of all types of Seas, including Closed and Semi-Closed Seas, and of the Coastal Areas and the Protection, Rational Use and Development of its Living Resources recommends and proposes that all Member Countries should implement integrated coastal areas management programmes.

Any and every contribution which will add up to geographical, geological, archeological and/or environmental studies and research works are of vital importance. The very fact that in the "Reserva de Taua" (Taua's Environmental Reserve) paleolagoon, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, evidence was found of the sea's "geological withdrawal" makes the said Reserve unique, special and of vital importance (Nationally and Internationally) for the Quaternary Period's study of the region.

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