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Final U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy Report Released

An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century

The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy delivered its final report, “An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century” to the President and Congress on September 20. Citing a general decline in environmental quality, the commission calls for an overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, more investment in marine science and education, and a new stewardship ethic. The report is considerably more muted than that of the independent Pew Ocean Commission, which issued its findings and recommendations in June, but the overall message is the same: our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are being seriously exploited, resulting in “significant economic costs, risks to human health, and ecological consequences that we are only beginning to comprehend.” But the commission also concludes that all is not lost and that the nation is faced with an “unprecedented opportunity” to act responsibly.

To its credit the present commission seems less interested in rearranging the chairs within the federal household and more focused on setting new goals and priorities for ocean management. It calls for the adoption of such fundamental principles as sustainability, biodiversity, and the equitable administration of public trust resources. But the centerpiece of its blueprint for action is ecosystem-based management. Once a term only used among academicians and environmentalists, it now enjoys widespread use among resource managers. In the commission’s own words, “U.S. ocean and coastal resources should be managed to reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, including human and nonhuman species and the environments in which they live. Applying this principle will require defining relevant geographic management areas based on ecosystem, rather than political, boundaries.” The Pew Ocean Commission and the Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force have also endorsed the principle of ecosystem-based management.

The best illustration of what can happen when the public and private sector ignore the imperatives of nature are the coastal waters of Massachusetts where “User conflicts can and do arise when incompatible activities take place in the same area. A comprehensive offshore management regime is needed for the balanced coordination of all offshore uses.”[emphasis added] This is precisely what the Center for Coastal Studies concluded in its 2003 study of resource use and management of Nantucket Sound.

However, even as the recommendations of the U.S. Ocean Commission, Pew Ocean Commission, and Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force pile up, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plods on with its review of a proposed offshore wind energy development in federal waters in the middle of Nantucket Sound. The fact that the site is part of a larger ecosystem that has been twice recommended as a national marine sanctuary and is virtually surrounded by a state ocean sanctuary, a national estuarine research reserve, and a national wildlife refuge has yet to stop the federal agency.

Currently, the Center is following up on its own recommendations of 2003 and those of these various commissions, which have all more or less defined the same problems and offered the same solutions, and is in the process of making a first cut at a comprehensive management regime for the entire Nantucket Shelf area that extends south and east of the Sound as far as the Great South Channel. We hope to have it completed sometime this fall.

Hopefully, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the federal government will come to their senses in time to make our home waters a shining example of how best to manage the competing needs of society while protecting such fragile nearshore and offshore areas, rather than a case study of what not to do. During this political season you would think that all parties would be scrambling to embrace the recommendations of all three commissions.

For more information, check out the final report at www.oceancommission.gov .