The Musquash Estuary, on the coast of New Brunswick west of Saint John, is a tremendously productive marine ecosystem and an unusually beautiful place. And thanks to Canada’s Oceans Act, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and the efforts of countless volunteers and donors, it will stay that way.
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| The Musquash Estuary, New Brunswick. |
Designation of the estuary as a Marine Protected Area in 2007 is one example of a new approach to marine management, something akin to the comprehensive planning framework we are familiar with on land.
Once we dealt with ocean problems in a reactive mode. Now, a forward-looking approach is allowing us to address conflicting uses and cumulative impacts from a systems perspective, with the goal of preventing problems from occurring in the first place. It is known as marine spatial planning and is defined by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration as “the planning process that identifies areas most suitable for types of human uses in order to sustain economic, ecological, and cultural resources for future generations.”
A promising endeavor with an uninspiring name, marine spatial planning has been taken up by jurisdictions all around the Gulf as a means to resolve conflicts, promote conservation and manage development. Many use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to facilitate marine spatial planning by tracking and comparing uses of marine waters as well as important oceanographic features and ocean habitats. Marine spatial planning can help us sort out what we know from what we don’t know, what matters from what doesn’t and what we want from what we can have. It is attracting lots of attention for its ability to help us articulate our plans for the marine realm.
In June, 2009, President Barack Obama created the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force to develop policies and programs for comprehensive marine planning in US waters. The Task Force released an interim report in October with recommendations for “a national policy for stewardship of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.” Marine spatial planning is identified as a priority objective for implementing the policy. The Task Force is currently at work on a framework for promoting, coordinating and applying marine spatial planning in all aspects of US oceans management.
Marine spatial planning helps us to cope with a major drawback in managing marine waters since it is difficult to see what’s happening under the surface. The Gulf of Maine, like most oceans, presents a uniform front to dwellers of dry land: We can’t see into the water and few of us venture below the surface. As a result, the great variety of ecosystem characteristics supported by these rich marine waters is invisible to us. Perhaps more important, changes in the health of the Gulf ecosystem are not obvious.
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| One of four draft demonstration sites for wind power in Maine’s marine waters, selected by the Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force. Used with permission of the Ocean Energy Task Force |
Oil spills grab our attention and raise our ire in part because we can see them. But the dramatic decline in fisheries, the accumulation of toxins in sediments, the spread of invasive species and many other forms of environmental degradation in the Gulf are largely invisible to the human eye.
The opacity of the Gulf contributes to a lack of consensus about what’s important about it, whether or not it is healthy, even what the Gulf is. The meaning of the Gulf of Maine as ‘ocean’ is largely a function of whom you ask. To tourists, the Gulf is both beautiful and exotic. The expanse of sparkling waters is a visual reprieve from the clutter of the built environment in which many of us spend our days.
Because we cannot see the impacts of human activities on its surface, in our imaginations the ocean is an untrammeled wilderness. It appears to be a place where nature is still in charge. This is especially true for boaters of every kind. A day on the water, where tides, currents, winds, waves and weather are a constant threat, reinforces the notion that the forces of nature have prevented humans from taming this seemingly untouched habitat. That Nova Scotia has dubbed itself “Canada’s Ocean Playground” reflects the draw that the ocean has for visitors and residents alike in the province and throughout the Gulf region.
Commercial fishermen see the Gulf very differently. For them, the Gulf is the source of their livelihood. While deeply respectful of the dangers posed by a hostile marine environment, many are as comfortable at sea as ashore. Certainly, the business of catching fish, even under the limitations posed by stocks well below their optimal levels, is much preferable to making a living in what fishermen see as the stifling, dog-eat-dog world of land-based jobs. Using your wits to catch fish is not just a livelihood but a way of life, many cannot imagine any other. But fishermen, unlike tourists, are keenly aware of the changes wrought by human activity, even their own, on the Gulf’s ecosystem.
Ted Ames, a noted fisherman from Stonington, Maine, is the first to admit that fishermen contributed to the decline of cod, haddock and other groundfish. In an interview published in the New Yorker in 2006, Ames said, “I saw the [fish] runs, and I’d target them and watch them disappear, and I did what everyone else did. I went to the nearest location where I suspected there would be fish. I ended up in the Grand Manan Channel, on the boundary to Canada, past which you can’t go.”
Ames is now committed to working with several of his fellow fishermen to restore the once prodigious inshore stocks of groundfish in Downeast Maine by limiting big draggers to the deeper waters of the Gulf. Ames interviewed older fishermen who remember when spawning fish could be found nearshore and has documented, using GIS, the locations of spawning sites; he hopes many can be restored.
See accompanying story: “Once and Future Fisheries?” in this issue.
Environmentalists are a third group with yet a different perspective on the Gulf. Rachel Carson published her wonderful books on the ocean, based in part on her explorations of the Gulf of Maine in the 1940s and 1950s–but it wasn’t until much later that the environmental movement turned its attention to the Gulf of Maine. In 1978, the Conservation Law Foundation intervened to prevent drilling for oil on George’s Bank and soon discovered that oil production was only one threat to the Gulf’s productive ecosystem.
Beginning in the 1980s, a slew of bad news about the ocean, from mounting trash on beaches and toxic compounds in coastal sediments to reports of stock collapse and loss of wildlife habitat, brought the health of the Gulf of Maine to the attention of the public. Unlike tourists and fishermen, environmentalists are motivated as much by their goals for the Gulf as by any direct benefit they might receive. Many have had little experience in or on the Gulf. What concerns them is something you can’t easily see: the integrity of the marine ecosystem.
To environmentalists, beaches are dynamic sand environments, not playgrounds; fish are wildlife, not commodities. They rely on natural history, environmental assessments, scientific data and anecdotal information to know the state of the Gulf.
Whatever the group, its perceptions are likely in flux. Just as the ocean is a dynamic environment, so, too, are opinions about the Gulf shifting with changing circumstances and information. In the 1800s, the ocean was a source of food and trade, and maritime travel was the primary means of transportation. In the 1900s, technology allowed for the rapid expansion of fishing activities, transportation shifted to the railroads and highways, and the ocean became a dumping ground for all manner of waste products.
Innovation in the private sector has generated a host of ideas to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Gulf’s many resources. For example, the need to supplant fossil fuels with renewable energy has created demand for yet another of the Gulf’s attributes: abundant wind. Angus King, former governor of Maine, is an ardent supporter of harnessing the wind energy of the Gulf of Maine.
“In the past, whenever I thought about the ocean, I thought about what’s under it,” King said. “Now I think about what’s over it. But I always thought the Gulf was a vastly underappreciated and underutilized asset.”
The state of Maine is using marine spatial planning to guide development of wind energy within state waters. The process marks a departure from the state’s earlier role in planning for ocean-related energy development when the first wave of proposals to site liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals hit the state five years ago. At that time, potential terminal sites were selected by LNG companies; the role of the state (along with the towns where sites were proposed) was limited to reviewing permit applications for sites that had already been selected.
The state has taken a more proactive role in the development of wind energy recently. This is due, in part, to the pressing need for energy sources that can supplant expensive and greenhouse gas—producing fossil fuels. But it is also in recognition of the increasing demands put upon our marine waters by a burgeoning panoply of public and private sector interests: commercial and recreational fishermen, sailors, cruise lines, shipping interests, tug boat operators, environmentalists, and aquaculturists—among others.
Orderly development of ocean wind energy, a priority for Maine, requires that the state establish a mechanism for identifying potential offshore wind energy sites. Utilizing marine spatial planning, the process provides a pre-assessment of the benefits and disadvantages of development at any given site. It shortens the regulatory process and eliminates much of the conflict that can accompany proposed development. Four demonstration sites have been identified for testing new offshore wind energy technologies.
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| This map identifies the area that is addressed by Massachusett’s marine planning initiative. A final report is expected in the several weeks. Printed with permission of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. |
“We were well aware before we even started that Maine’s coastal waters are a heavily used resource, by fishermen, birds, marine mammals, sailors, you name it, the list goes on,” said Kathleen Leyden, director of the Maine Coastal Program and a member of the Ocean Energy Task Force. “The legislature unanimously passed the law that requires us to identify the sites, and we will satisfy that requirement having worked very hard to minimize disruption and inconvenience to existing users.”
Massachusetts has been working on comprehensive marine management for more than five years. When Governor Deval Patrick signed the Oceans Act into law in 2008, he set in motion an ambitious timetable for completion of a plan to manage development in marine waters off Massachusetts. A process is on track to make Massachusetts the first state in the United States to have a comprehensive plan in place by the end of 2009.
“Now more than ever our ocean is facing a tidal wave of proposed uses and Massachusetts has responded with an ambitious effort to balance commercial and recreational activities with conservation needs,” said Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of Ocean Conservancy. “This comprehensive approach to ocean management is the first of its kind in the nation and is urgently needed for all U.S. waters. The rest of the country will be looking to follow the roadmap that Massachusetts is providing.”
An important focus of the Massachusetts planning process is the development of a network that will allow decision makers to access scientific information regarding the management area. This effort will bring together current and historical data on habitats, currents, water quality, temperature, salinity, sediments, and abundance and distribution of flora and fauna, as well as information on human uses, including fishing areas, shipping lanes, archeological sites, and much more. The goal is to build a tool that can gather data from multiple sources and convert it to an easy-to-use format that can help managers make decisions about ocean uses.
Henry Bigelow, one of the first scientists to comprehensively study the Gulf of Maine, referred to it as a mare incognitum—an unknown sea. Working in the early 20th century, Bigelow spent several decades sailing the Gulf, collecting samples and making measurements of as many oceanographic and biological phenomena as he could. He laid the foundation for our understanding of the currents of the Gulf, significant because currents are a major driver of the Gulf’s ecological properties.
Tremendous strides have been made in our understanding of the Gulf’s flora and fauna. Decades of dedicated research have revealed much about the structure and functioning of the Gulf ecosystem. Advances in monitoring technology, from satellite-based sensors that can measure sea surface temperature in real time to monitoring devices that continually record temperature, salinity and current speed at various locations and depths in the Gulf, have answered some questions about the Gulf, and raised many more. Sophisticated computer models now accurately replicate the currents and other physical features in the Gulf and can be used to test theories regarding the Gulf’s response to climate change and other factors. Output from researchers is often available in GIS format and can be incorporated in marine spatial planning.
“The concept of marine spatial planning is not new,” said Josie Quintrell, executive director of the National Federation of Regional Associations for Coastal and Ocean Observing. “But now we have tools that make it much easier and more accurate. Ocean observing, the use of satellites and monitoring stations to collect oceanographic data, is providing information that will make maps more accurate and useful. Maps can also be designed to be updated in near real time.”
Biological oceanographers have begun to realize that many of their assumptions about the ecological workings of the Gulf are overly simplistic. The notion that the Gulf ecosystem has a steady state that can be deduced by sampling flora and fauna has given way to an awareness that biological phenomena are highly complex and changeable.
The nearly infinite number of interconnections, feedback loops and cause-and-effect interactions among the Gulf’s living parts are too numerous and fleeting to identify, count and track. They allow for such a wide range of possible ecological outcomes that it is impossible to know which is likely. The complexity of the marine ecosystem puts a very real limit on the degree to which we will ever be able to predict future ecological responses.
Oceanographers are fond of saying that we know more about the moon than we do about our oceans. Even with tremendous advances in marine research, the comment is apt. Bigelow’s mare incognitum in some ways is with us to stay. While oceanographers can map information on what the Gulf ecosystem looks like today, or at any point in the past for which they have data, these maps are not foolproof indicators of what is to come. Marine spatial planning can complement but not replace adaptive management.
Marine spatial planning represents an opportunity to get all available information on the decision-making table. Maps include corollaries of many of the parameters we associate with terrestrial maps: sediment types, bathymetry, ecological characteristics, shipping channels, shellfish harvesting areas, water quality classification zones, etc.
Maps built using GIS have the enormous advantage for marine planning of being dynamic. Maps can be updated as new information becomes available, and may also reflect phenomena that move or are seasonal. Seasonal groundfish closures march up the coast of New England each spring, designed to follow stocks of spawning fish. Lobstermen in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia share work in four different zones, each with its own open season or seasons.
Perhaps more important, marine spatial planning allows the information and interests of stakeholders, be they tourists, fishermen, environmentalists or wind energy developers, to be incorporated in the planning process and assessed in the context of oceanographic and ecological data.
Online Resources:
NOAA’s Marine spatial planning webpage
Marine Spatial Planning: A step-by-step approach towards ecosystem-based management
Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force
Northeast Fisheries Science Center Reference Document 09-11 Ecosystem Status Report
For the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem
