Coastal & Marine Conservation

The necessity of a top-down National Ocean Policy is that it instructs managers to work in collaboration across managerial boundaries. The wonder of the National Ocean Policy was for leadership of the Interior (the National Park Service), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Coast Guard and the Navy to announce that they would work together across institutional boundaries, share resources, reduce redundancies, and develop more robust solutions for responsible ocean stewardship.

Come in closer. Turn your eyes from the sweeping beauty of the New England tidal flat, from its rushing grasses, wading heron, and stooping clammers. We’re looking deep into the muddy silt for a sticky mucus of microscopic particles that researchers believe is binding this precariously beautiful vista together.

We are pleased to let you know about a new report, Monitoring Climate Effects in Temperate Marine Ecosystems: A Test Case Using California’s MPAs, which outlines a new and innovative framework for measuring climate change effects and informing adaptive MPA management.

Coral reefs are one of the most threatened ecosystems world wide. This project collects critical data for the Kenya Wildlife Service to promote effective coral reef conservation and management of marine protected areas.

"For their corporate people to take this step is very encouraging," said hook fisherman Eric Hesse of West Barnstable. Hesse, who was among a group of five Cape Cod fishermen who sold their catch of cod to Whole Foods in the first quarter of last year, said fishermen and representatives of the chain will meet next week to look into a new agreement to buy locally landed fish. "We were able to establish a relationship with them," he said. "Now, we're in the planning stages again."

“Our climate is changing and so it is more important than ever that cities work together around this common cause,” said Dr. Nancy Steele, executive director of Council for Watershed Health (CWH), an agency that works closely with water conservation, ecology and watershed protection programs covering over 1500 square miles in Southern California (U.S.) . “By coming together, conference participants will share resources and knowledge across regional and national boundaries to build effective solutions.

Mariners along the U.S. east coast can now download a new iPad and iPhone application that warns them when they enter areas of high risk of collision with critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. The free Whale Alert app provides one source for information about right whale management measures and the latest data about right whale detections, all overlaid on NOAA digital charts.

It's been a busy week for Wareham's Dave Wiley, who flew to California for a movie premiere. Attending premieres is not something that Wiley, the research coordinator at Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is accustomed to doing — but he made an exception for 'Ocean Frontiers: The Dawn of a New Era in Ocean Stewardship' because his work features so prominently in it.