Planning Body Moves Ocean
Ecosystem Management Forward

The Northeast Regional Planning Body met to review a draft of the Regional Ocean Policy for the Northeast in Durham, NH, October 20, 2015. It is likely the last workshop meeting before a larger semi-annual meeting November 16 & 17 in Portland, Maine. (nrpb.org) The last meeting will be in the spring of 2016. Fishermen’s Voice photo

The Northeast Regional Planning Body met in Durham, N.H., October 20, to present the outline of a report on the work done since their last meeting in June. The planning body consists of NOAA facilitators, appointees of the six New England States and representatives of various groups.

Ecosystem based management is one of the group’s central considerations.

Workshop meetings like this one are held periodically to develop a regional plan which will ultimately be submitted as part of a proposed National Ocean Policy. New England, one of nine regions, is the furthest along in creating a plan. It has been suggested that New England’s work on the plan may become a model for the other regions. An Executive Order to develop a National Ocean Policy was in response to the expected higher demand for the industrial exploitation of the world’s oceans in the near future.

Gloucester resident, policy analyst and planning body observer Valerie Nelson said recognition of the importance of ecosystem based management has evolved in the planning body. She said there appears to be a willingness to see the plan be a guide for ocean health in a broad way, rather than a framework for zoning the ocean for development.

Nelson has attended the planning body meetings since they began in 2012. She said the focus at early meetings on monetary evaluation of various resources, trade-off analysis and maximization of profits has given way to consideration of the underlying importance of ocean health and ecosystem based management. That’s a direct result of public input, she said.

Nelson said she was encouraged by what she described as a coming together of the many and varied interests represented at the NRPB meetings. She thought the group was more unified on what the final plan could and might be. While the plan creates no new regulations and carries no legal authority, the inclusion of comprehensive ecosystem based management guidelines could give it the substance the public has said they want it to have. This could become the model for the other regional plans, she said.

Richard Nelson (No relation to Valerie), a lobster fisherman from Maine, said, “The report, on the draft plan that was presented, was less defined than I thought it would be.” Richard Nelson has also been at all the planning meetings. He said some progress was made on ecosystem based management. He would have liked to see the body use more fishermen’s knowledge of the ocean in developing the plan. He said he was optimistic about the evolution of his role in the planning body and the non-member citizens who have contributed comments to the process.

There will be a semi-annual full Regional Planning Body meeting on November 16 & 17, 2015 in Portland, Maine at the Westin Portland Harborview. There is one additional meeting not yet scheduled, but expected to be held in the spring of 2016. The deadline for submitting a final Ocean Policy plan for the Northeast is in early 2016.