Committing to Change
Gulf of Maine
Summit
October 2004, St. Andrews, New Brunswick
By Andi Rierden, Editor
On the eve of the Gulf of
Maine Summit held at the end of October, Jonathan Tourtellot, the director of
sustainable tourism at the National Geographic Society, took the stage and
presented his audience with several innovative challenges. One was to establish
the first international world heritage marine cultural landscape in
the Gulf of Maine. He suggested Passamaquoddy Bay. Another was to create map
guides and trails signposted from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia with the
emphasis on what Tourtellot has coined, geotourism, tourism that
sustains or enhances the geographical character of a placeits
environment, culture, aesthetics and heritage.
The Gulf of Maine needs your help, Tourtellot said. Its time to push the agenda.
The message reverberated
throughout the Summit. Whether the topic was tourism or toxins, the forum gave
participants from a broad range of fields and backgrounds an opportunity to
report on community forums and monitoring programs, share information on
environmental issues in their neighborhoods and devise future actions to reduce
or avoid dangers to the Gulf of Maine watershed.
And they rallied.
People have come here because they want to see changes, said Steve Perrin, president of the Friends of Taunton Bay in Maine. Theres a sense of urgency in the air.
The weeklong conference at the Fairmont Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews, New
Brunswick hosted by the Gulf of Maine Council (GOMC) and the Global Programme
of Action Coalition for the Gulf of Maine (GPAC) drew more than 250 scientists,
government and industry representatives, environmentalists and individual
citizens from the region and beyond.
Many of those that attended
had clear concerns. Im worried about water quality and how
development is forcing out people who have lived on the coast for
generations, said Suzanne Heddrick of Nobleboro, Maine. I just want
to make certain the Gulf of Maine is healthy for my grandchildren.
The centerpiece and guide for the Summit was an 81-page document, Tides of
Change Across The Gulf: An Environmental Report on the Gulf of Maine and Bay of
Fundy, [see Q & A, Page Eight]. The report was based on 12 forums and
related events held throughout the Gulf of Maine and organized by GPAC between
May 2002 and December 2003. While the forums, which attracted 1,000 people,
focused on local watershed issues, another workshop began linking and
coordinating data between the regions monitoring programs and devising
ways to improve reporting methods. In addition, scientists from throughout the
Gulf of Maine met earlier this year to establish ecosystem
indicators for the region.
Many of the issues from
each group overlapped. The paving over of rural landscapes for shopping malls,
it was noted, also affects water quality and aquatic or wildlife habitat.
The problems around land use are so generic and pervasive, said
John Terry, founder of the Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls, who has lived
in Maine and in Nova Scotia. The Gulf of Maine Council has opened up the
whole discussion and takes us up the river. Everything that goes into the
watershed goes downstream to the Gulf of Maine.
By the
end of the first day, participants like Dan Earle of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, who
worked in a contaminants group, called the session intense, and given the scope
of the task, overwhelming.The first couple of days here were relaxing,
but this is murder, he said.
Day two seemed to bring about a breakthrough, with participants continuing
discussions about next steps in groups and at meals and coffee
breaks. While some found the group sessions frustrating and the topics
difficult to nail down, others appreciated the interchange. Its
been a real education, said Howard Crosby, a volunteer in the University
of New Hampshire Marine Docents program.
Midway
through the discussions, David Keeley, a Summit coordinator, urged participants
to be patient. Nobody here has all the answers, he said. We
are clearly into the process.
On the last
day of the Summit, facilitators summarized the recommendations from each group.
Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant, who led a session on contaminants,
called the two-day process a tough gig. Recommendations included
coordinating data throughout the Gulf, developing goals and objectives for the
indicators, and publishing a State of the Gulf document as a report
card on the Gulf of Maines health. Others suggested that the Gulf of
Maine Council collaborate more with fisheries management and industry. In a
panel discussion to closeout the Summit, Robert Varney, regional administrator
of the New England office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said
that public access to the data and financial support for researchers and
non-government groups working on these issues is critical. He cautioned that
harmonizing the data would be difficult because scientist
often have no idea what other scientists are up to.
In the end, Dana Morse of Maine Sea Grant, summarized the overall sentiments of
participants. Its important for this process to continue if for no
other reason than to honor the hard work that was done at this
Summit.
Notes from all the
sessions are online at www.gulfofmaine.org. Participants have been asked to
review their contributions and add comments. A Gulf of Maine Summit report
incorporating those comments will be available early next year.
A proclamation and new
reports
Other highlights of the
Summit included the commitment by the governors and premiers in the region to
sign a proclamation supporting the Gulf of Maine Councils work in habitat
restoration and protection, information distribution and promoting sustainable
maritime activities. In addition, Rolland A. Schmitten, director of the Office
of Habitat Conservation for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service,
presented the Gulf of Maine Habitat Restoration Strategy: Restoring Coastal
Habitat in the Gulf of Maine, compiled by the Gulf of Maine Councils
Restoration Subcommittee. The report calls for a regional approach to habitat
restoration as many fish, birds and mammal species use the Gulf of Maine as
part of their annual migration route. Profiles of riverine, intertidal,
subtidal and deep water marine areas, and beach dune and island habitats are
included. Also included is an overview of the 33 projects completed through a
Gulf of Maine Council and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
habitat restoration partnership. Potential restoration or research-related
projects include the Petticodiac River in New Brunswick and the Ipswich River
in Massachusetts.
Susan Snow-Cotter, acting director of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone
Management, presented Gulf of Maine Mapping Initiative: A Framework for
Ocean Management. The report details an ambitious project to map the
entire Gulf of Maine. Ten percent of the area has already been mapped,
Snow-Cotter said. We have a full set of tools to map the offshore and
increasingly coastal areas, where were really seeing the changes.
The University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping has
recently committed $1 million in ship time toward the project and the
Geological Survey of Canada is interested in collaborating, she added. Both
reports are available in PDF form at www.gulfofmaine.org. High resolution
images of the ocean maps for educational or media purposes are also available
online.
Other presenters at the Summit included Susan D. Shaw, founder and executive director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine, Art McKay, the executive director of St. Croix Estuary Project in St. Stephen, New Brunswick and Jamey Smith of the New Brunswick Salmon Growers Association.
Gulf of Maine
Council at 15 years
I
recall being called naive thinking that something like this could happen,
says David Keeley, one of the seven founders of the Gulf of Maine Council. The
idea that three New England states and two Canadian provinces, because of their
economic and cultural ties to the Gulf, could best serve as its stewards, was
hatched in a basement classroom on the campus of the University of Southern
Maine in the mid-1980s. Keeley, who at the time was the head of the Maine
Coastal Program, called the meeting and invited six like-minded individuals who
also worked as resource managers at the state or provincial level: Peter
Underwood and Art Longard (Nova Scotia), Richard Delaney (Massa-chusetts), Bill
Ayer and Barry Jones (New Brunswick) and Dave Hartman (New
Hampshire).
We sat
there for hours, shooting the breeze and just getting to know each other,
Keeley says. We knew from the beginning that it would take years to build
a solid foundation. We also knew that there would be times when wed have
less than complete engagement from states and provinces.
As
for devising a blueprint for a transboundary council, Keeley says, We
just made it up. As for funding? Nobody gave us a bag of cash and
said get to it.
Instead, each member from that initial meeting was charged with returning to
his agency to sell the idea and ask for resources to launch it. Eventually, the
commitments were sealed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
also provided seed money.
In
December, 1989 the governors and premiers of Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia signed an agreement creating the Gulf of
Maine Council on the Marine Environment.
This
falls Gulf of Maine Summit marked another milestone in the Councils
15 year history, attracting more than 250 people from throughout the region. It
followed on the announcement of three major ocean reports from Fisheries and
Oceans Canada, the Pew Ocean Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean
Governance. Whats intriguing is this confluence of national effort
that suggests were on a new track in regard to our oceans, Keeley
says.
And
thats good news.
While
the Council is not a regulatory body, nor given its limited resources,
can it be all things to all people, these recent developments,
Keeley adds, puts us in a good position to explore a whole range of
options.
Andi Rierden
© 2004 The Gulf of Maine Times