F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

It Should Be



The proposed National Ocean Policy calls for considering all the current ocean users and interested parties who come forward. The need for a National Ocean Policy, however, did not grow out of the needs of all these current users of a common resource. The motivation was more ocean energy based and all that means and could mean. Developing an ocean energy plan requires the consideration of the other users to avoid conflicts that could bog down the progress of any particular project.

The big players in no particular order, after energy, are commercial marine transportation, commercial fishing, aquaculture and recreational fishing. The approach used by states with some form of ocean plan in place is zoning areas for specific uses. This works for controlling people, but sea animals will not be very aware of boundary lines.

The need to get off foreign oil and develop alternative energy sources are economic and national security issues. That gives energy muscle in the zoning debate. The Gulf of Maine is a unique marine environment whose historic fisheries are testament to its importance to the region and the nation. Meanwhile World Bank research claims 48% of the worlds fish for consumers will come from aquaculture by 2030.

Canadian fishermen and communities on both coasts are engaged in a battle with industrial scale open pen fin fish operations over fish waste, pesticides, antibiotics and disease flowing from pens. Canada has a coastal plan in place, but the Canadian and Norwegian corporations that own the feedlots have political clout and they are trumping the plan’s rules.

User boundary lines laid out on the bottom by ocean planning will not retain the spill of the inevitable oil rig disaster nor the waste streams flowing from what may be countless fin fish pens. The results of wreckless gold rush industrialization of existing renewable resources should by now be recognized as for what it is. Having government give it teeth by fast tracking it brings it to the heights of folly given what’s going on in the oceans and climate.

Fishing interests and environmental considerations are on the table at ocean planning body meetings. But the call for the preservation of the rights of traditional users like fisheries and coastal harvesters is not the most evident in the room. It should be.