Uncoordinated sector by sector ocean management threatens coastal economies and the health of our ocean. Our country’s new national ocean policy provides a path for reversing the status quo, giving coastal states the framework for comprehensive ocean planning. This will create jobs by speeding up economic development while protecting the health of our ocean.
Month: November 2011
Ocean Frontiers: Port Orford Fishermen Protect Ocean & Way of Life
Port Orford is a small fishing community on the southern Oregon coast that relies on a rich ocean ecosystem for their livelihoods. To put them on a path toward sustainability, they have recently designated the Port Orford Community Stewardship Area to both protect the ocean and their economy. The Stewardship Area encompasses 1,300 square miles, which includes their traditional fishing grounds and the upland watersheds that feed into them.
The Port Orford Ocean Resource Team, or POORT, is run by commercial fishermen who are dedicated to maintaining access to natural resources by people who are fishing selectively, while promoting sustainable fisheries and protecting marine biological diversity. They operate on the triple bottom line: ecology, equity and economics. Partners include the City of Port Orford, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Surfrider Foundation, South Coast Watersheds Council, Redfish Rocks Community Team and Friends of Elk River among others.
Port Orford has developed a communal vision to sustain their fisheries and their ecosystem as one. In order to have a sustainable fishery and economy, they have initiated local science research to inform their fishery management, established a marine reserve and marine protected area, and have protected upstream forests to save their salmon—a farsighted perspective that considers both their links to the land, and the future of their children.
Learn More from the People in Ocean Frontiers
Links
- Port Orford Ocean Resource Team – Learn how they’ve accomplished so much
- Port Orford Sustainable Seafood – Support the Port Orford fishermen
- Fishtracker – Learn about this collaborative acoustic telemetry research project to learn about the movement behavior of fish at Redfish Rocks.
- Friends of Elk River – They led the charge for designating Grassy Knob and Copper Salmon Wilderness, the headwaters that sustain Port Orford’s Elk River and the marine ecosystem.
Video Clips
- Meet the fishermen of the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team – See the beautiful place where they live and hear their story in their own words.
Ocean Frontiers: Iowa Farmers & Gulf of Mexico
What does Iowa have to do with the Gulf of Mexico or the ocean anyway?
Well, about 200 million gallons every minute. Iowa is one of thirty-one states whose waters flow into the Gulf of Mexico, via the Mississippi River. These waters carry rain and soil, as well as the many effluents of humanity, from chemical plants in Baton Rouge, to fertilized lawns in suburban Memphis, to pig farms and cornfields in the Upper Midwest. Once these nutrients reach the Gulf, they create immense blooms of algae, whose decaying masses deplete the ocean water of oxygen—every year creating a dead zone the size of Massachusetts—a Hypoxic Zone that suffocates nearly everything in its path.
And after decades of such burden, the once fertile Gulf has begun to falter, its wetlands vanishing by the minute, its waters rendered dead from too many contaminants flowing from upstream. Realizing that one state alone cannot solve all of the Gulfs’ problems, the Governors of the five Gulf States formed the Gulf of Mexico Alliance – a partnership that now extends into the Mississippi River basin.
A cadre of Iowa farmers are now changing their agricultural practices to reduce their impact on the Gulf of Mexico. Their efforts include reducing the amount of fertilizer they use, constructing wetlands to filter water before it heads downstream, and planting strips of native tallgrass prairie to prevent runoff. Iowa’s goal is to reduce their nitrogen runoff by 45%.
Fewer tons of fertilizer, more acres of wetlands and prairies– all are lightening Iowa’s agricultural burden on the Gulf of Mexico without burdening the returns of Iowa’s farmers.
Learn More from People in Ocean Frontiers
- National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium Dubuque, Iowa
- Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Water Resources Department
- Gulf of Mexico Alliance
- Mississippi River, Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force
- Prairie Strips at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge
- Fishers & Farmers Partnership for the Upper Mississippi River Basin
- Fishers & Farmers Partnership works with landowners to improve fish habitat and farms throughout the Upper Mississippi River basin.
- Living Lands and Waters
- Get involved in river cleanups, workshops, tree plantings and other key conservation efforts.
Ocean Frontiers: An Ocean Blueprint for Florida Keys
In the Florida Keys, divers and fishermen have turned controversy over marine resources into a blueprint for industry and conservation collaboration.
The coral reefs of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary are America’s most popular marine destination—bringing in 1.2 billion dollars every year via tourism. They are also America’s showcase of marine conservation zoning. With a dizzying array of people making a living and playing in the Keys, the marine zones provide an effective way to reduce conflicts between ocean users and protect the reefs, the fisheries and ocean dependent jobs.
The management of the Sanctuary is overseen by a Sanctuary Advisory Council, which is made up of more than 30 organizations and industries including sport and commercial fishing, tourism, diving, research, restoration and conservation. The Sanctuary provides refuge, recreation, and livelihoods through a collaborative plan developed by all concerned.
However, the road to the Keys management success has not been a smooth ride. Initially there was strong opposition to marine zoning, marine protected areas and marine reserves, but strong leadership and intensive stakeholder collaboration turned the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary into a world-renowned model of how to protect our coastal and ocean economies through ocean planning.
Learn More from the People Featured in Ocean Frontiers
Links
- Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
- Florida Keys Sanctuary Advisory Council
- Testimony from Jack Curlett, recreational angler who is featured in Ocean Frontiers, to the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands regarding establishing a marine reserve in Biscayne Bay National Park.
Ocean Frontiers: Saving Whales at Stellwagen Bank
Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is a rich stretch of ocean at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay. It is home to several species of endangered whales including humpback whales and North Atlantic right whales. There are only an estimated 350-550 right whales remaining in the world.
The shipping lanes of Boston Harbor traverse through the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, bringing large ships through whale feeding grounds, resulting in deadly collisions.
Taking cues from the great whales’ travel ways, their sounds and whale song, shipping executives, marine biologists, the Port of Boston and an energy company came together and found a solution that worked for both commerce and whales. In 2007, the collaborative work of these ‘unlikely allies’ resulted in the first port in the nation, the Port of Boston, to move the shipping lanes to protect marine mammals—reducing the risk of ship strikes to endangered right whales and other large whale species by more than 80%.
In their on-going efforts, the collaborators recently released an exciting, new iPhone/iPad application called WhaleALERT. WhaleALERT is designed to augment existing ship navigation tools informing mariners of the safest and most current information to reduce the risk of ship and right whale collisions along the Eastern seaboard.
Learn more from the people featured in Ocean Frontiers
Video Clips
- 2012 Summer Whale-Tagging in Stellwagen Bank – Article in The New York Times and short video clip highlighting Dr. Wiley and his colleagues’ quest to collect data to help protect the whales.
- Industry & science applaud Ocean Frontiers – After the Boston Premiere we caught up with several people who were featured in Ocean Frontiers to hear what they had to say.
- WhaleALERT iPad/iPhone app demonstration – Dave Wiley, Research Coordinator for Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, demonstrates how the worlds first iPhone/iPad application for saving whales works.
- Industry hails first app to save whales: WhaleALERT – First testimonials for WhaleALERT from Excelerate Energy, Massport, Cornell University and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Links
- Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
- Right Whale Listening Network – The Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Christopher Clark is the Program Director.
- Turn Down the Volume in the Ocean – Opinion editorial by Dr. Christopher Clark
- Excelerate Energy
- Massport
- Boston Harbor Pilots
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Ocean Frontiers: 10-minutes
Ocean Frontiers introduction and one minute excerpts from each of the four segments: Massachusetts Bay, Florida Keys, Iowa and the Gulf of Mexico and Port Orford, Oregon.
