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NEOAN Works to Keep New England’s Ocean Plan on Track

Jennifer Felt — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:01:24 +0000

NEOAN member Richard Nelson gives his comments at the Regional Planning Body meeting. Photo by Karen Meyer of Green Fire Productions.

New England Ocean Action Network (NEOAN) was founded on the belief that improved management of our ocean and coasts will provide substantial benefits to all ocean users. This is why our membership is so diverse. We have fishermen, surfers, environmental groups, aquariums, and renewable energy industry representatives, all working together to promote regional ocean planning.

NEOAN members know that an important part of ocean planning is a robust public participation process, in which New England’s ocean and coastal users are fully engaged. This was the message delivered loud and clear by NEOAN members at New England’s second Regional Planning Body (RPB) meeting in Narragansett, Rhode Island April 11 and 12^th. NEOAN was founded to promote public participation in this process – and NEOAN is participating. Seven members of NEOAN provided official comments to the RPB, emphasizing the importance of effective and meaningful stakeholder engagement.

NEOAN will continue our work to advocate for stakeholder participation as ocean planning activities in New England ramp up. The RPB will be hitting the road with a series of public meetings in late May/early June in each of the New England states. (Stay tuned here for more on that.) NEOAN will work to ensure that a diverse group of interests are present and have the opportunity to participate in these meetings. And NEOAN will advocate for more opportunities for meaningful participation, involvement, and information sharing by everyone who has a stake in how our oceans are managed.

Auspiciously, just a few days after New England’s RPB meeting, the National Ocean Council released the long-anticipated National Ocean Policy’s Implementation Plan. The White House press release announcing the release of the implementation plan quoted three NEOAN members:

“We who work on the water daily see the direct effects of changes caused by ocean acidification or increases in ocean temperatures. As a lobsterman I’ve come to think of the Gulf of Maine as being unique and precious, and deserving of all our efforts at stewardship and protection that the National Ocean Policy and Ocean Planning will enable.”
Richard Nelson, Lobsterman from Friendship, Maine

“We’re excited to see a final plan from the National Ocean Council that has real actions to protect our coasts and oceans. By providing support for ocean planning, the plan will help ensure that new industries like offshore wind power do not unnecessarily impact the marine ecosystem and human uses like recreation and fishing.”
Pete Stauffer, surfer and Ocean Program Manager with Surfrider Foundation,

“Full implementation of the National Ocean Policy is what we need to protect, maintain and restore New England’s ocean and coasts. Conservationists, fishermen, scientists, boaters, surfers, clean energy advocates and community leaders are all working together because we understand the value of stewardship and getting out ahead of ocean use conflicts by doing smart planning for our oceans.”
Priscilla Brooks, VP and Director of Ocean Conservation, Conservation Law Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts

NEOAN was created to support a better way of planning for the future of New England’s ocean. We are working hard to let our decision makers know that we care about keeping all stakeholders involved in the process. It’s good to know that we are being heard.

The post NEOAN Works to Keep New England’s Ocean Plan on Track appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Ocean Planning in New England Gets Interesting

Robin Just — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:33:30 +0000

Watson and the Shark. a 1778 oil painting by John Singleton Copley. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Shark! OK – not until the third paragraph, but I want you to stay with me[i]. The second meeting of our first-in-the-nation coastal and ocean Regional Planning Body is happening in a couple of weeks, and the goal is to set some goals for regional ocean planning. This may sound like a wonky, best-left-to-professionals sort of affair, but we beg to differ. Bear with me, and maybe I can convince you that this is worth paying attention to.

As established by the National Ocean Policy, the Regional Planning Body (RPB) consists of representatives from federal and state agencies, regional tribes, the New England Fishery Management Council, and an ex officio member from Canada. The RPB was brought together to design the process for the first regional ocean plan to be developed in the United States. The kickoff meeting was last November, and was cause for some optimism.

You might not be convinced so far, that this is excellent and interesting – but when you think about the practical implications of this, the story becomes compelling. We New Englanders use our coastal and ocean resources in so many ways: commercial and recreational fishing, boating, surfing, shipping, and offshore renewable energy development are just a few. As these uses grow, we have to think about how to take advantages of all the ocean has to offer by way of food, recreation, transportation and energy, while also protecting the bounty of ocean wildlife and habitat in our waters. Special places like Cashes Ledge, home to everything from pteropods to endangered North Atlantic right whales and great white sharks, or the charmingly toothy Atlantic wolffish and our iconic Maine lobsters. We have to plan for a rapidly changing ocean – as ocean temperatures increase, sea level rises and powerful storms become the new normal, and our ocean water becomes more and more acidic with each year that passes. There is a lot at stake.

Currently, we manage all this through more than 20 federal agencies, administered through a web of more than 140 different and often conflicting laws and regulations. We have complicated challenges already, management issues with seals, sharks, and fishing, vessel strike problems with whales and ships, land-based pollution closing our beaches, fish being blocked from spawning by inland dams, and houses falling into the ocean after winter storms.

These are complicated problems without easy answers, and they need to be addressed in a way that everyone involved – every person or group who has a stake in the outcome – has a meaningful role in the planning process, every step of the way.

This is why CLF is so heavily involved in our regional ocean planning, and why we will keep showing up at meetings (like the one in two weeks in Rhode Island), making public comments, talking to regulators, ocean users, other environmental advocates, and industry representatives, to help keep us on track towards a science-based, open and transparent process that is driven by the participants. As our new Ocean Planning Outreach Manager, Jennifer Felt, says, “It’s not enough to just have stakeholders involved, but their involvement needs to mean something.”

We want nothing less. We also want a planning process that:

Identifies and protects important ecological areas and ocean wildlife
Reduces user conflict, and, ideally, addresses it before it happens
Advances sustainable development of clean renewable energy
Gives us a better framework for decision making, one that is science-based and data-driven

We have confidence that we can get there, but we have a lot of work to do. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

I hope I’ve convinced you that ocean planning is not only important, but worth supporting and paying attention to. If I didn’t, then I’ll have to up my shark game next time. Don’t think I can’t do it.

[i] Some of my colleagues have discovered that if they randomly insert “shark” in emails to me I pay way more attention to what they’re saying. I’m hoping that strategy might work here.

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This Week on TalkingFish.org – May 7-11

Samantha Caravello — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:37:19 +0000

May 9: “Why fishermen should care about the National Ocean Policy” – Maine lobsterman Richard Nelson writes about the need for fishermen and coastal communities to get involved with regional ocean planning efforts. (Reprinted from the Bangor Daily News.)

May 11: “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 11” – This week’s interesting fish stories: how much fish is safe to eat without danger from contaminants; a new seafood purchasing opportunity in NH lets consumers buy fish directly off the boat; interviews with one of New England’s last remaining weir fishermen; and a video from a fishing village in Thailand.

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