Ocean Zone News Blog

Environmental News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, December 14, 2009 (ENS) – The Obama administration is trying a new approach to federal resource planning for oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes by establishing nine regional planning bodies that will work together and with the administration in an integrated manner.

A new framework document released for public comment today by President Barack Obama’s Ocean Policy Task Force outlines the process through which the federal government will work with states, tribes, local governments and communities to decrease conflicts among competing users.

Stevie Emilia , The Jakarta Post | Wed, 12/16/2009 11:17 AM | Headlines

Warming seas are melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, leading to sea level rise that will impact billions living in coastal areas. Extreme weather events and flooding will become more frequent. For the first time in history, a day has been committed to oceans alongside the UN climate negotiations. Lynne Zeitlin Hale, the director of global marine initiatives at The Nature Conservancy, was an afternoon panelist at Ocean’s Day on Monday. The expert in coastal ecosystem management with more than 25 years of experience, who played a leadership role in the design and implementation of integrated coastal management programs in the US, Latin America, Africa and Asia, including Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post’s Stevie Emilia how healthy oceans and coastlines help combat sea level rise and other climate change impacts.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 14, 2009

Ocean Policy Task Force Releases Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning

Comprehensive, Integrated Approach Helps to Determine how the Ocean, Coasts and Great Lakes are Used and Protected Now and in the Future

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s Ocean Policy Task Force released its Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (Interim Framework) today for a 60-day public review and comment period. With competing interests in the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes, the Interim Framework offers a comprehensive, integrated approach to planning and managing uses and activities. Under the Framework, coastal and marine spatial planning would be regional in scope, developed cooperatively among Federal, State, tribal, local authorities, and regional governance structures, with substantial stakeholder and public input.

Expanding endangered animal’s critical habitat could cut into training and operating areas along coastlines
Having defeated the Japanese fleet and faced down the Soviets, the U.S. Navy faces a new obstacle, one that hides behind a deceptively gentle, seagrass-munching façade.

Manatees may rank lower than such traditional menaces as torpedoes and air-to-sea missiles. But a proposal to protect additional habitat for them, the Navy says, could end up reducing habitat for destroyers, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service soon will make a decision on whether to expand what’s called critical habitat for the manatee in Florida and southern Georgia, in response to a petition from several environmental groups.

Ocean-zoning arguments often center on the biology of ocean species, the geography of fishing-use patterns, and the need for preventing use conflicts. Here we expand this discussion to the social and legal aspects of ocean zoning, focusing on comprehensive planning, segregation of activities into use-priority areas, and the allocation of user rights within each zone. The inclusion of all of these features within an ocean-zoning regime can be a catalyst for a variety of ancillary benefits, including opportunities for user groups to form informal or formal long-lived institutions and a reassessment of the focus and scope of the regulatory institutions involved in ocean management. Along with the ability of users to negotiate and trade within and between zones, both features will lead to improved conflict resolution, efficiency of use, and ecosystem stability – critical components for the production of ecosystem services and maintenance of biological and human economic benefits.