E2 members – Be sure to tune in for the monthly National TeleSalon on February 3, for more on this issue.
Imagine running a multi-billion dollar corporation without a mission statement, a board of directors, or even a CEO. That’s the challenge facing our ocean management that we need to fix.

Our oceans are not just places of wonder and beauty – they are economic engines providing valuable jobs, food, energy resources, and recreation and tourism opportunities. The ocean economy provided 1½ times as many jobs as the agricultural sector and generated 2½ times the economic output of the farm sector in 2000. In 2004, U.S. ocean sector industries contributed more than $230 billion, including multipliers, to the nation’s GDP with the largest single ocean sector industry contributing to GDP – over half of the total ocean sector industries’ contribution – being tourism and recreation. The tourism and recreational sector was also responsible for more than 2 million jobs. A separate analysis by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2006 found that expenditures by recreational fishermen contributed $82 billion in sales to the U.S. economy and supported over 500,000 jobs. In brief, there’s a lot of money and jobs riding on ocean health.

And that’s before accounting for the fact that Americans, even those far from the coasts, depend on our oceans to regulate climate and sustain life. Oceans absorb heat from the air, redistributing it through currents and slowly releasing it back into the atmosphere to prevent abrupt changes in temperature. Our oceans represent the earth’s largest long-term carbon sink, storing and cycling 93% of the earth’s carbon dioxide and helping us ward off the worst effects of climate change. Ocean resources also help protect the shore against storms and floods – coastal wetlands alone provide the United States with $23.2 billion in storm protection services annually.

But our oceans are under enormous strain as a result of overexploitation, habitat degradation, coastal pollution, and climate change, which in turn jeopardizes the jobs and recreation we rely on them to provide. For example, in 2007, municipal beach closures, initiated largely as a result of stormwater runoff, cost Long Island more than $60 million.

With healthier systems, we’d see a higher GDP. For example, a 2005 analysis determined that rebuilding 17 overfished stocks would deliver approximately three times the net economic value associated with allowing those same stocks to remain at current levels. (See Fish Economics on the benefits of rebuilding fish stocks). With the current backdrop of high unemployment, the U.S. should prioritize the well-being of its oceans.

One major obstacle to protecting our oceans is the fact that these resources are currently governed by a mix of more than 140 laws and 20 different agencies, each with different goals and with no single unifying conservation mandate. For example, issues of offshore energy production are overseen by the Department of Interior, while fisheries management is the purview of regional fishery councils and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And without better coordination between these and other agencies and consideration of what we want our oceans to looks like, we’re evaluating development plans “first come, first served.” The result is ocean sprawl, with little thought given to selecting the best places for particular uses.

The Obama administration is working to change this. Through a June 12, 2009 Memorandum, President Obama called on an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force to develop a national policy to protect, maintain and restore the health of our oceans, a national council to oversee implementation of that policy, and a framework for coordinated coastal and ocean planning. Like a Clean Air Act for our air or a Clean Water Act for our water, a national ocean policy will help protect our seas from all of the threats they face. This concept is not new – it was the decline in ocean health and the lack of a policy to ensure the overall health of ocean ecosystems that led two national commissions in 2003 and 2004 to recommend adoption of a national ocean policy. From declining fish populations and pollution, to warming temperatures and acidification – a national ocean policy strengthens the country’s ability to address each and every one of these challenges.

The Task Force also identified a number of key areas for special emphasis in calling for a strong national ocean policy – including the need for better adaptation planning to address climate change impacts and ocean acidification. As explored in “Acid Test,” scientists are ringing alarm bells over the increasing acidification of waters, which poses the risk of wiping out species, disrupting food chains, and hitting fishing and tourism sectors especially hard. This is a serious issue that demands, and should receive, immediate response.

Another main part of the Task Force’s effort involves developing a framework for coastal and marine spatial planning. Coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) is the process of planning ahead by allocating separate spaces in the ocean for various uses, identifying places where industrial uses make sense and areas that should be set off limits. It allows sustainable human uses of the oceans, while protecting marine life and ocean ecosystems. Other countries, such as Australia and the Netherlands, are using CMSP to improve their ocean management. States like Massachusetts and Rhode Island are also leaders in CMSP. See an E2 article on MSP from 2009.

Coastal and marine spatial planning will help prevent situations like the one recently described by the U.S. Coast Guard commandant at a hearing on the Task Force. Admiral Thad Allen described how the Coast Guard worked with NOAA and other agencies to reroute shipping lanes near Cape Cod to help prevent ship strikes of endangered North Atlantic right whales, only to discover that the proposal for the new lanes ran into a site for proposed liquefied natural gas development. We need a better way to address and manage ocean uses. A coastal and marine spatial planning process can help ensure that all levels of government, business interests, fisheries managers, and conservation groups have input into decision-making and reach a common understanding of the goals of managing areas so that they can work together to achieve them. It’s like the underwater equivalent of “smart growth.”

The President’s commitment to coastal and marine spatial planning is especially key as our country moves forward in developing the clean, renewable energy off our coasts. CMSP can help us develop offshore renewable energy the right way the first time. By creating a roadmap for our oceans, we can minimize conflicts between new and existing ocean uses from the get-go, and get clean energy like offshore wind – and the new, green tech jobs it creates – up and running faster.

We’ve been encouraged by the Task Force’s ambitious and comprehensive drafts of their deliverables and, together with members of E2, have shared our thoughts and recommendations to them for further strengthening this work. The final versions of the Task Force’s documents are to be delivered to the President in early 2010, and we must ensure that the Task Force’s important work – and that of the thousands of citizens that provided input to these documents – is not in vain.

The President needs to formalize the Task Force’s work by issuing an executive order that establishes:

1.a national policy to protect, maintain and restore the health of our oceans,

2.a national council to oversee implementation of that policy, and

3.a framework for effective coastal and ocean planning that advances the policy.
The President’s effort opens the door for improved ocean management that, if properly designed, could substantially increase the economic and ecological productivity and sustainability of the country’s coasts and oceans, for ourselves and future generations. As E2 has long trumpeted the call for smarter ocean management – that these blue economic heavyweights need and deserve – and will be actively weighing in with the message that proper stewardship of the seas is good for the nation’s bottom line and is the right thing to do.

For more information, visit E2’s campaign page on oceans and coasts