Ocean Planning Group Plans Stakeholder Use

by Mike Crowe

The lobby outside the Northeast Regional Planning Body meeting, Cambridge, MA, June 25, 2014. Federal & state appointees, scientists and economists met to discuss data for ocean resource baselines. The information is designed to help guide, but not direct, expected ocean development projects. Fishermen’s Voice photo

The Northeast Regional Planning Body (NRPB) met June 25-26 for a Natural Resources Workshop and goal-setting meeting in Cambridge, Mass. The workshop focused on how marine science could be included in NRPB goals. Setting baseline marine habitat conditions in the northeast has been listed as an important goal for the Planning Body and its role within a National Ocean Policy.

Attending the workshop were about 150 individuals – federal employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC) the Northeast Science Center (NSC), representatives of the five coastal New England states’ marine resources departments, environmental non-governmental organization interest groups, member university marine studies departments, governors’ appointees from the six New England states and two fishermen. The official membership of the Northeast Regional Planning Body is made up of 11 federal, 11 state and 7 Tribal representatives. There are two additional inactive Tribal representatives.

The White House Executive Order that called for the establishment of a National Ocean Policy did not come with funding. Congress, reportedly under pressure related to the budget, denied funding. Private funding of much of what the Northeast Regional Ocean Council and the Northeast Regional Planning Body have been doing comes from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (http://www.moore.org/programs/environmental-conservation/marine-conservation-initiative) and two grants NROC through NOAA. Gordon and Betty Moore were founders and owners of the Intel Corporation, best known for the development of microchip technology that fueled the rapid increase in the power of personal computers over the last several decades. NRPB and government employees are attending these meetings as a part of their regular workday, said NROC Director John Weber.

Weber said the meetings are a part of the work necessary to take the NRPB goals into action. “The charge given to any of the efforts is to work within the existing laws and regulations to make progress”, he said. Weber said, the NRPB is developing information on species for developers of projects or for those who want to comment on proposed projects. The planning Body has a self imposed deadline of the end of 2015 or early 2016.

The workshop format for the first day’s meeting enabled open discussion of topics. Topics ranged from sand and gravel mining, to dollar-value as a priority for determining stakeholder-use rights, to historic data on fisheries in the establishment of resource status baselines. Establishing baselines was a central goal for moving into what has been described as a new era of ocean use. Some said they believe it will be a dramatically different era, given the demands for high-value energy resources - wind, oil- and gas-drilling, and tidal power, industrialized fin fish aquaculture, much larger cargo ships, increased military uses, sand and gravel mining for concrete and coastal erosion mitigation, and as yet unseen additional demands on the ocean.

The second day’s meeting was opened with an 8:30 a.m. tribal blessing by Richard Getchell, tribal representative for Aroostook County and former chief of the Micmacs of northern Maine. Getchell noted on Wednesday that few plants were being considered in resource protection baselines. There are, he said, known medicinally valuable plants, and many undiscovered medicinal plants. Some of these plants in or near water, such as sweetgrass, are used medicinally and are an economic resource for the New England tribes. Tribal rights to marine resources extend from northern counties to the sea. These rights are based on ancient tribal uses of both areas, Getchell said. He said the tribal focus is on the health of the oceans.

The participants in the NRPB meetings are a mix of university scientists, NOAA and NESC scientists, NROC employees, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy, and the six state gubernatorial appointees. These individuals offered opinions, data and strategies for establishing resource and habitat baselines over the course of the day. University of Connecticut marine biologist Peter Auster said, “Noticeably absent today is information about what is living in the water column. Any invertebrate on the bottom or in the water column should be considered as forage for fish and people.” Auster’s work, centered around bottom habitat and the water column, is often conducted while diving.

It is this level of detail that is being considered for inclusion in the data that will form the baselines. A Duke University scientist said NOAA data in this area are insufficient for making accurate baseline decisions.

Many of the discussions were framed in scientific language between marine scientists. Maine fisherman Richard Nelson has attended all the meetings over the last two years. Nelson said, “You’ve confused me regarding the talk of decisions. What decisions are being made?” Other terms familiar to professional bureaucrats left others at the meeting wondering as well.

NROC Project manager Nick Napoli responded, “We are developing a process that will lead to a plan.” Matt Nixon, from the State of Maine’s Maine Coastal Program, cautioned against overloading people at the meeting with arcane data and concepts. Paul Williamson, from Maine Ocean and Wind, a group facilitating the development of renewable energy projects, said he would like to see the tables turned to where the stakeholders were talking to the bureaucrats. “They are having us sit here and listen to them tell us about a resource stakeholders know and use first-hand, while they are trying to quantify it in the abstract. They should be sitting here listening to us, the stakeholders, tell them what is important to us in this plan for great change in the resource.”

Few disagreed with the importance of historic data in setting baselines. Boston University marine biologist Les Kaufman mentioned a 200-year record of alewife harvests in Maine compiled by biology historian Bill Leavenworth. Kaufman referred to this as “a priceless body of information.” He said it “is essential that it be brought onboard for an effective understanding of the resource.” Other scientists referred to the demands of data collection required in the limited time available.

An NSC scientist said they need to biologically consider everything, from stream headwaters out to the 200-mile edge of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Scientists and government employees discussed and weighed the importance of various data.

By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, Valerie Nelson, of Gloucester, Mass., (no relation to Richard Nelson) challenged Kaufman’s presentation of information in a document he published, which addressed the comparative valuation of various stakeholder uses. This valuation method, called “tradeoff analysis,” is an economics tool used to determine what tradeoffs might be made in the restructuring of, among others, natural resource allocation and use.

Nelson accused Kaufman of editing out of his NRPB meeting comments his references to higher profits being a means of determining who gets what. Kaufman later said he was interested in accounting for all the values of what is taken out of the ocean, and in trying to understand how people interact with the ecosystem. Kaufman denied using financial values in his assessment. Nelson, however, said she documented the use of profits in Kaufman’s research.

Tradeoff analysis was the topic of the most heated discussions. It is at the foundation of fishing industry fears that $1.29-per-pound of cod will carry no weight against $129-per-barrel oil. Fishermen in the northeast had said catch shares would drive them out of business; in fact, they said, many have been. Beyond the habitat baselines and ocean planning discussions, some in the fishing industry said they were fearful their interests and concerns are low-priority for well-funded corporate interests, whose bureaucratic proxies, fishermen said, are too willing to deliver the desired outcome.

Massachusetts lobster fisher Beth Casoni said she opposed having data used to regulate fishing. Fisherman Richard Nelson said the group was not considering the potential impacts on humans. He said it would be wrong to value industrial use more highly than community needs. Nelson said he was concerned about communities in Maine that are solely dependent on fishing. “It is hard to put a dollar value on the value of communities. There is a danger that the information gathered here could be used in a way that harms fishermen, and it could later be said they had their chance to speak but didn’t,” said Nelson.

During the public comment period, Valerie Nelson said, “Never have such important decisions been made, about a radical takeover of an enormous public resource, by so few people with such simple-minded ideas and so little understanding of the issues involved.”

Valerie Nelson later referred to comprehensive funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “The foundation seeks to ‘align economic incentives with conservation goals’.’ They also funded the Environmental Defense Fund and others with the idea that you can get private ‘markets’ to structure conservation work and goals,” she said. “The problem is, it’s at the expense of communities and people and doesn’t seem to work out so well in the end, even for marine ecosystems. This was what ‘catch shares’ was supposed to do - maximize profits and minimize costs with a consolidated fleet that would go along with reduced catch.”

John Weber said NROC plans to have more accessible local meetings in New England in October.

For further reading and links to the science and funding of the NRPB process and some of the individuals involved in regional plans for a National Ocean Policy click here for a list of links.