Ocean Zone News Blog

SEATTLE — March 19, 2010 — The Nature Conservancy congratulates the Washington State Legislature and Gov. Christine Gregoire for enacting legislation that puts our state at the forefront of managing the ocean and coasts for people and nature.

SSB 6350, Marine Waters Planning and Management, introduced and championed by Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-San Juan, was signed into law today. The bill protects marine ecosystems in Puget Sound, Juan de Fuca Strait, the outer coast and the open ocean and reduces user conflicts by establishing a state interagency planning process.

Last week the blogosphere erupted with outrage, as conservatives declared that Barack Obama was going to ban recreational fishing, while liberals rolled their collective eyes in response and said that such claims were utterly absurd. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The Obama administration isn’t trying to ban sport fishing – at least not yet – but it is putting the mechanisms in place to restrict fishing in the future, as the slow bureaucratic wheels of “progress” inevitably grind forward.

FAIRBANKS — Members of Alaska’s congressional delegation met with two top Obama administration environmental officials Friday to discuss several issues that could have wide-ranging impacts on the state.

Of most concern to the delegation is the proposed listing of a critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale and petitions to list ice seals as threatened or endangered species. The delegation is worried that such decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could harm the state’s economy.

Atlanta – The Obama administration has proposed using United Nations-guided principles to expand a type of zoning to coastal and even some inland waters. That’s raising concerns among fishermen that their favorite fishing holes may soon be off-limits for bait-casting. In the battle of incremental change that epitomizes the American conservation movement, many weekend anglers fear that the Obama administration’s promise to “fundamentally change” water management in the US will erode what they call the public’s “right to fish,” in turn creating economic losses for the $82 billion recreational fishing industry and a further deterioration of the American outdoorsman’s legacy. Proponents say the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force established by President Obama last June will ultimately benefit the fishing public by managing ecosystems in their entirety rather than by individual uses such as fishing, shipping, or oil exploration. “It’s not an environmentalist manifesto,” says Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University in North Carolina. “It’s multiple-use planning for the environment, and making sure various uses … are sustainable.” (Amateur outdoorsmen have been fighting for their rights for years, as the Monitor reports here.)

Allen Consulting Group report shows benefits from marine sanctuaries
March 5, 2010 at 12:42 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment