Ocean Zone News Blog

(DigitalJournal.com}
By Gar Swaffar.

Is there a move afoot from President Obama’s administration to create enforcement zones in the Great Lakes, Oceans and coastal areas?
In what may be a controversial move to regulate even more closely both the coastal areas, Great Lakes region, and oceans surrounding the United States and its territories and possessions the White House has caused to issued a memorandum.

The memorandum details the creation of a task force to consider how best to deal with the issues including the degradation of the waterways and shorelines.

On June 18, 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested public comment on draft revised marine mammal stock assessment reports for the Pacific walrus stock and for each of the two polar bear stocks in Alaska: the southern Beaufort Sea polar bear stock and the Chukchi/Bering seas polar bear stock. FWS publishes these Stock assessments under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Status of the bill: In Progress

Main purpose of the bill: “To introduce a new planning system for the marine area, improve and simplify arrangements for managing marine development and ensure greater protection for the marine environment and biodiversity, and provide greater recreational access to the English coast.”

Main points of the bill:

Establishes a Marine Management Organisation (MMO) under which many of the existing, diverse areas of marine regulation would be centralised

Streamlines the law on licensing marine development so that, as far as possible, developers have a one-stop shop for each development.

OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology, Committee on Environment and Natural
Resources, National Science and Technology Council

Update of Charting the Course for Ocean Science in the United States for the Next Decade: An Ocean Research Priorities Plan and Implementation Strategy (aka “Charting the Course”):

Request for Public Input

ACTION: Request for Public Input to an update of the January 2007 Charting the Course

A new NOAA report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary’s marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources.

“Global issues of concern such as marine debris, ocean acidification and invasive species have the potential to degrade fragile sanctuary resources and habitats,” said Dan Howard, sanctuary superintendent. “This report provides a baseline for monitoring changes to sanctuary resources and will help us to better understand and respond to these emerging threats.”