by Erin Loury, Science Communication Intern

Some good news for the oceans! On July 19th, President Obama signed an Executive Order that establishes a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes. The Executive Order adopts the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (pdf), also released on July 19th after a year of research and deliberation. The Order and Recommendations highlight the importance of ecosystem health and biological diversity to human well-being, acknowledge the threats of climate change and ocean acidification, and call for the implementation of comprehensive coastal and marine spatial planning.

Both the Order and the Final Recommendations invoke the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico as “a stark reminder of how vulnerable our marine environments are, and how much communities and the Nation rely on healthy and resilient ocean and coastal ecosystems.”

“Until now, there has been no cohesive, strategic vision for where the country is going with respect to ocean health and ocean resource management,” said Matthew Armsby of the Center for Ocean Solution’s (COS) marine spatial planning team on the significance of this Order.  “We’ve had many different laws and policies, but the nation’s resource managers lacked a meaningful prioritization of ecosystem health and sustainability. 

The Executive Order creates a National Ocean Council (NOC) to strengthen ocean governance and coordinate the maze of laws and regulations that currently comprise our ocean resource management system. The NOC will include the NOAA Administrator, the Secretaries of cabinet-level federal agencies, and a number of senior advisors to the President on issues such as national security, energy, and climate change. A major priority for the NOC will be the coordination and implementation of coastal and marine spatial planning. This comprehensive, ecosystem-based, and adaptive planning process will chart a course for the conservation and sustainable use of our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes.

Armsby said that COS has been working to inform the development of the National Ocean Policy by contributing to the dialogue about ocean governance and marine spatial planning at both state and national levels. COS has contributed by submitting a number of comment letters on the federal process; participating in workshops and working groups around the country; and giving presentations and organizing panels at major conferences such as AAAS, Capitol Hill Oceans Week, and the Coastal Zone ’09 conference. COS Executive Director Meg Caldwell also gave testimony before Congress in the Fall of 2009 on the importance of a national ocean policy.  Julie Packard, executive director of COS partner the Monterey Bay Aquarium, served on the Pew Oceans Commission, which in 2003 issued its recommendations for a comprehensive overhaul of national ocean policy, and has continued to advance those issues as a member of the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative.

Armsby said that the COS marine spatial planning team is pleased about many aspects of the Executive Order, particularly its focus on COS priority issues such as maintaining and restoring ocean ecosystem health; promoting the use of the best available science for planning and management decisions; and calling for increased scientific understanding of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems within an ecosystem-based management framework.