NOAA photo archives

Gulf Log Commission supports ecosystem management The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy released a preliminary report in April calling for major changes in the way Americans manage their ocean resources. The 16-member panel, which conducted the first comprehensive review of U.S. ocean policy since 1969, is advising better governance through an “ecosystem-based management” approach as well as a greater investment in ocean science and education. Since the last major policy review 35 years ago, many of the nation’s coastal and marine areas have become increasingly stressed by development, higher populations along the coasts, fishing, offshore oil and gas operations, marine transportation and other activities. These pressures have led to habitat loss, exhausted resources, pollution and an influx of invasive species. “If we don’t reverse that degradation, we’re in serious trouble,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a member of the Commission and a professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space.

To protect ocean resources, the Commission is recommending that the United States move toward a system of ecosystem-based management in which decision makers take into account the interrelationships between all the elements that make up an ecosystem. Under the current management scheme, resources are largely managed based on political—rather than ecological—boundaries.

Following this guiding principle will require an overhaul of the U.S. ocean policy framework from the current fragmented system—with its lack of coordination among federal, state and local agencies responsible for managing ocean resources—to one that offers improved federal leadership and coordination among agencies and enables resource managers to address issues that extend beyond traditional jurisdictional boundaries.

First steps toward revamping governing structures would include strengthening and reconfiguring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and creating two new councils that would improve interactions between regional interests and federal agencies.

The Commission is also in favor of a greater investment in ocean science and education efforts that foster a public ethic of stewardship. The report calls for a doubling of federal funds earmarked for ocean research over the next five years. Funding for ocean research fell over the last 25 years from 7 percent of the total federal research budget to just 3.5 percent today. A key feature of a boosted science program would be a national Integrated Ocean Observing System that would monitor and forecast ocean conditions.

Implementing the report’s recommendations will cost an estimated $1.3 billion in the first year, eventually rising to $3.2 billion annually. The Commission proposed that funding come from oil and gas bonuses and royalties initially, and later, from other revenues from uses of offshore waters now under development, such as bioprospecting, aquaculture, alternative energy and desalinization projects.

Given that half of the U.S. population lives near the coast and a significant portion of the nation’s economic activity centers around coastal areas, “the investment isn’t that large,” Rosenberg said.

He believes that New Englanders have a good chance of making ecosystem-based management work in the Gulf of Maine region.

“We probably have the greatest concentration of research and educational institutions in the country, if not the world,” he said, highlighting a key strength the region can bring to ocean policy reform and research and education efforts.

After a public comment period this spring, the Commission will begin preparing its final report for the President and Congress. The preliminary report can be found at http://oceancommission.gov/.

–Maureen Kelly

New information portal to the Gulf of Maine

Also in April, researchers from the United States and Canada laid the groundwork for an Internet-based portal that will provide access to oceanographic data from multiple institutions with tools to combine, view and analyze the data in ways that have not been possible before.

Sixteen organizations formed the Gulf of Maine Ocean Data Partnership at its first meeting in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The Gulf of Maine Census of Marine Life, a regional program based at the University of Southern Maine that contributes to a large global effort to better understand the abundance and diversity of life in the seas, convened the meeting.

For decades, a vast and growing storehouse of knowledge about the Gulf of Maine has been out of reach for many researchers, managers, educators and the general public. Although research capacity has grown dramatically as a result of computer and sensor technology, valuable collections of oceanographic data from academic, public and private institutions have, in large part, remained isolated from each other. The Gulf of Maine Ocean Data Partnership provides a way to collect, organize, combine and make data available online.

Participants include the federal fisheries science agencies and geologic survey organizations of the United States and Canada, several state agencies and academic and nonprofit organizations in the U.S., the Atlantic Ecology Division of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Gulf of Maine Council and the regional Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System1 (GoMOOS), which is hosting the partnership.

“For the first time, these data collections will be shared, on an ongoing basis, so that anyone–scientist, teacher or fisherman–can better see the Gulf of Maine in its fullness, as a complete ecosystem,” said Evan Richert, program director for the Gulf of Maine Census of Marine Life.

The new portal will make it possible, for example, to combine data on trends in the ground fisheries with information about ocean temperature, currents, the sea floor and prey; thus allowing for a more complete picture about the behavior of different species to determine how they might be managed. Data on currents might be combined with data on the early life stages of lobster to gain better understanding of likely lobster populations several years in the future. Or data on ocean chemistry might be combined with data on currents, ocean temperature and algal blooms to create a method to predict harmful algal blooms.

“When the system is up and running, we will have a truly integrated ocean observing system, and that means better capacity to analyze and predict the future of the Gulf of Maine,” Richert added.

No shortage of shipwrecks

The tugboat Mars sank off Plymouth, Massachusetts in the early 1940s, presumably after being struck at sea by a freighter. According to folklore, however, the freighter arrived in port with no marks to indicate she was in a collision. Could a German U-boat have been to blame?

The Gulf of Maine is littered with shipwrecks that, like the Mars, are steeped in mystery. For archaeologists who investigate them, the ocean doesn’t reveal her secrets easily. Getting to the bottom of these mysteries is a painstaking process that starts with literature searches to identify possible wreck locations, and then may involve using sonar to look for anomalies on the seafloor. Once found, the archeologists do a detailed grid search before excavating.

“In ocean archaeology, we do everything in inches and feet,” said Victor Mastone at a lecture sponsored by the Peabody Essex Museum and Salem Sound Coastwatch in March. Mastone is director of the Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

After the fieldwork, the lab work can take even longer as recovered objects are x-rayed and chiseled out of sediments.

There is no shortage of wrecks to explore. At least 3,000 archaeological sites are under Massachusetts waters alone. There many be as many as 15,000 in the Gulf of Maine.
Many of the wrecks are 19th Century schooners—the “eighteen wheelers” of the day—that moved freight—from lumber to coal—up and down the coasts. The Jenny M. Carter, which sank in the 1890s while carrying a cargo of brick and granite from Maine, is one. Old newspaper accounts tell of sailors who were seen in the ship’s rigging before the vessel wrecked unmanned off Massachusetts’ Salisbury Beach. Today the ship’s remains are visible at dead low tide, but a century later, the fate of her crew remains unknown.

Sport divers who want to explore wrecks off Massachusetts are free to visit a number of sites listed on the Web site www.massgov/czm/buar.htm. Other sites require a permit from the state.

–Maureen Kelly

Children’s environmental conference

The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2004 Tunza International Children's Conference will be held at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut from July 19 to 23. Organized by the International Coalition for Children and the Environment (ICCE), the conference is the largest U.N. event dedicated to bringing children from around the world together to discuss the environment and learn about their rights and responsibilities as stewards. Dr. Jane Goodall, an internationally renowned environmentalist who is widely known for her pioneering research of chimpanzee behavior in the wild, is serving as an honorary chairperson.
The conference is open to children who will be between 10 and 13 years old by the opening day, July 19. In addition to the age requirements, delegates must be nominated by a school or community group and be involved in an environmental project or interested in environmental issues. Complete details can be found on the conference Web site: www.icc04.org.
Further information may be obtained via postal mail by writing: ICCE, 305 State Street, New London, CT 06320.

© 2004 The Gulf of Maine Times