Ocean Zone News Blog

Voices concerns that recreational boating and angling interests not being considered

ESPNOutdoors.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, along with its partners in the U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition, submitted formal comments Friday to the White House Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, voicing the concerns of recreational boating and angling interests.

The “Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning” is the second document released by the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force which was created by President Obama last June to develop a draft national policy and implementation strategy for conserving and managing the oceans, the Great Lakes, and the coasts of the United States.

John Driscoll/The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/09/2010 08:51:55 AM PST

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EUREKA — A 32-member group of people representing North Coast and state interests in the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative met for the first time Monday in front of video cameras and big screens connected to a dock of laptop computers.

The kickoff of three Regional Stakeholder Group meetings was meant to introduce the members to the process of developing marine reserves — or Marine Protected Areas — off the North Coast. Initiative staff told the group that they were chosen because they are believed to be good listeners committed to finding common ground.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2010) — Researchers from the Centre d’écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive (CNRS/Universités Montpellier 1, 2, 3/Montpellier SupAgro/CIRAD/EPHE) and the University of the Cape in South Africa (1) have shown that closing fishing zones in the ocean has a beneficial effect on Cape penguins, an endangered species endemic to Southern Africa, which feeds exclusively on fish. This result comes from a unique experiment carried out by the researchers on two penguin colonies, with the collaboration of government authorities and the South African fishing industries.

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http://www.powershow.com/view/911-MzZjZ/Measuring_Effectiveness_in_Marine_Protected_Areas

By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer

Well below the low-water line for news, the White House is moving to create a system for managing the space — surface and depth — of federal waters that amounts to ocean zoning and is known as “marine spatial planning.”

If adopted by Congress and imposed, the new approach would force radical alteration of the historic American understanding of the “open seas” — by purpose, they would no longer be open and instead zoned for pre- and proscribed uses.