Ocean Planning
Thinking Regionally, Managing Locally
by Inka Milewski
Rockland Harbor, Maine, 2010. Increased use of the ocean is the topic of National Ocean Policy talks around the country. Represented here are some of the stakeholders. In the background the Scottish drillship Stena Forth on its way to one of the sites around the world where it drills for oil offshore. The schooner American Eagle on a sailing tour. Tourists on the seawall and a vessel participating in the Maine lobster boat races. © Photo by Sam Murfitt
The collapse of the Northern cod stock off Canada's northeast coast stripped thousands of fishermen and fish plant workers of their livelihood in 1992.
Despite the observations of inshore fishermen regarding changes in abundance, distribution, behaviour, and size of their catch and growing scientific evidence that the Northern cod stock was in fact comprised of a number of sub-populations, Northern cod was managed as a single stock. The largest source of data used in management assessments were from the offshore fishery even though the inshore fishery accounted for one-third to one-half of all landings.
As it turned out, managing for simplicity (a single stock) rather than complexity failed to detect and incorporate the disappearance of sub-populations of cod that had begun to occur as early as the 1960s. This failure highlights a simple concept in the study of geographic patterns and their relationship to ecological phenomena
Watch USCG Rescue of Fisherman 43 Miles Off Montauk, NY
Read New York Times Magazine story of the rescue
