NATIONAL POLICY FOR THE OCEANS, OUR COASTS, AND THE GREAT LAKES

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

The oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes provide jobs, food, energy resources, ecological services, recreation, and tourism opportunities, and play critical roles in our Nation's transportation, economy, and trade, as well as the global mobility of our Armed Forces and the maintenance of international peace and security. We have a stewardship responsibility to maintain healthy, resilient, and sustainable oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of this and future generations.

Yet, the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are subject to substantial pressures and face significant environmental challenges. Challenges include water pollution and degraded coastal water quality caused by industrial and commercial activities both onshore and offshore, habitat loss, fishing impacts, invasive species, disease, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification. Oceans both influence and are affected by climate change. They not only affect climate processes but they are also under stress from the impacts of climate change. Renewable energy, shipping, and aquaculture are also expected to place growing demands on ocean and Great Lakes resources. These resources therefore require protection through the numerous Federal, State, and local authorities with responsibility and jurisdiction over the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes.

To succeed in protecting the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes, the United States needs to act within a unifying framework under a clear national policy, including a comprehensive, ecosystem-based framework for the longterm conservation and use of our resources.

In order to better meet our Nation's stewardship responsibilities for the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes, there is established an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (Task Force), to be led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. The Task Force shall be composed of senior policy-level officials from the executive departments, agencies, and offices represented on the Committee on Ocean Policy established by section 3 of Executive Order 13366 of December 17, 2004. This Task Force is not meant to duplicate that structure, but rather is intended to be a temporary entity with the following responsibilities:

1. Within 90 days from the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop recommendations that include:

1. A national policy that ensures the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources, enhances the sustainability of ocean and coastal economies, preserves our maritime heritage, provides for adaptive management to enhance our understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change, and is coordinated with our national security and foreign policy interests. The recommendations should prioritize upholding our stewardship responsibilities and ensuring accountability for all of our actions affecting ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources, and be consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
2. A United States framework for policy coordination of efforts to improve stewardship of the oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. The Task Force should review the Federal Government's existing policy coordination framework to ensure integration and collaboration across jurisdictional lines in meeting the objectives of a national policy for the oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. This will include coordination with the work of the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council as they formulate and coordinate policy involving national and homeland security, including maritime security. The framework should also address specific recommendations to improve coordination and collaboration among Federal, State, tribal, and local authorities, including regional governance structures.
3. An implementation strategy that identifies and prioritizes a set of objectives the United States should pursue to meet the objectives of a national policy for the oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes.

2. Within 180 days from the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop, with appropriate public input, a recommended framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning. This framework should be a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach that addresses conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

3. The Task Force shall terminate upon the completion of its duties.

The Task Force's recommendations and frameworks should be cost effective and improve coordination across Federal agencies.

This memorandum covers matters involving the oceans, the Great Lakes, the coasts of the United States (including its territories and possessions), and related seabed, subsoil, and living and non-living resources.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, regulatory, and legislative proposals.

The Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

Barack Obama Proclaims June National Oceans Month

NATIONAL OCEANS MONTH, 2009
- - - - - - -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Oceans are the Earth's dominant feature. They cover more than 70 percent of the planet's surface and affect our lives in a variety of ways. This month we celebrate the wonder of the oceans, and we commit to protecting and sustaining them for current and future generations.

The oceans are critical to supporting life. From the abyssal plains of the Pacific to the shallow coral reefs and seagrass beds of the Florida Keys, oceans support an incredible diversity of marine life and ecosystems. The base of the oceanic ecosystem provides most of the oxygen we breathe, so oceans are critical to our survival. These bodies of water also drive weather patterns and affect climate.

Our Nation's economy relies heavily on the oceans. Goods and services are transported across them constantly. They support countless jobs in an array of industries, including fishing, tourism, and energy. The economies of entire regions depend on the oceans.

The United States has been a leader in exploring and protecting this critical resource. We have gained new insights into the ocean ecosystems through research and monitoring. We have promoted innovative conservation efforts, such as setting aside special areas as national marine sanctuaries. We have also reduced overfishing, made great strides in reducing coastal pollution, and helped restore endangered species and degraded habitats.

My Administration continues to build upon this progress, and we are taking a more integrated and comprehensive approach to developing a national ocean policy that will guide us well into the future. This policy will incorporate ecosystem-based science and management and emphasize our public stewardship responsibilities. My Administration also is working to develop a systematic marine spatial planning framework for the conservation and sustainable use of ocean resources. I am committed to protecting these resources and ensuring accountability for actions that affect them.

During National Oceans Month, we celebrate these vast spaces and the myriad ways they sustain life. We also pledge to preserve them and commend all those who are engaged in efforts to meet this end.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as National Oceans Month. I call upon all Americans to learn more about the oceans and what can be done to conserve them.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

BARACK OBAMA

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-National-Oceans-Month-and-Memorandum-regarding-national-policy-for-the-oceans/

Net injury 'disables' minke whale

An injured minke whale has provided a unique insight into the dangers posed to marine animals by fishing gear.

The minke whale was spotted off the coast of Quebec, Canada, with a huge scar around its throat thought to be caused by floating rope.

What's more, it fed in a way never before recorded for minke whales, probably in response to its injury. (See video here)

The sighting is one of the first to detail the handicaps that can be caused to animals that become entangled.

Earth News reports the development as part of a series of articles highlighting the dangers fishing nets pose to marine animals.

Previously, we described how fishing nets are strangling dolphins to death in the Adriatic.

Now marine biologist Brian Kot of the University of California and colleagues working for the Mingan Island Cetacean Study non-profit research organisation have published details in Marine Mammal Science of a minke whale that has been badly scarred by fishing gear.

Spotted of the coast of Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, Quebec, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, the minke whale had a deep laceration running the circumference of its feeding pouch, from near its throat up both sides of its head close to each eye.

The cut ran through the whale's skin and into its blubber, in parts exposing the muscle underneath.

"The width of the laceration was very similar to the ropes from crab pots that are set by fishermen in my study area," says Kot.
Injured minke whale seen off the coast of Quebec, Canada


Crab pots set on the seafloor are baited and held by a rope leading up to the surface, which is attached to a buoy. Often a series of cages are connected by floating ropes that are thought to entangle whales.

Kot and his team observed and videoed the injured minke feeding on schools of capelin for over 80 minutes.

An analysis of the video showed that the minke, which lunged into the fish schools 50 times, had no problem accelerating into each lunge.

But the whale often breached in a way never before recorded among minkes.

On 18 of the 50 lunges, the whale breached at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees to the surface, feeding on its right side only, as can be seen in the picture above.

It would then rotate in the air to land upright on its chin. The researchers never saw the whale breach from its left side, or spin in mid air to land on its left. The whale was also unable to distend its feeding pouch as far as other healthy whales.

"The injury seemed to affect the expansion of the ventral pouch and I noticed a unique lunge-feeding behaviour that has not been previously described in the scientific literature," says Kot.

Despite often seeing the same whales repeatedly in his study area in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Kot has not seen the injured minke whale again, so he doesn't know what long-term impact the wounds had.
Injured minke whale seen off the coast of Quebec, Canada
The whale lunges for capelin

"We really don't know what happened to it. Perhaps the injured animal left the area and survived or perished some time in the future."

However, the sighting of the minke whale is valuable as it's "one of the first to show the effect of an entanglement-like injury in a live animal," says Kot.

By some estimates, fishing gear poses the greatest threat to whales.

Yet little is actually known about the impact fishing that gear has on the survival of these ocean giants.

In particular, almost nothing is known about the non-lethal impact caused by entanglement injuries.

"Cetacean entanglements involving various kinds of fishing gear have been a global concern for many years," says Kot.

"However, with the steadily increasing demand for food, fishing pressure in the world's oceans has increased the amount of gear that whales can potentially encounter."

And many coastal fisheries operate exactly where the smaller and more vulnerable species of whale and dolphin range.

"Some of the largest whales, such as blue or fin, can sometimes free themselves from entanglements due to their size and strength," Kot explains. "Smaller whales like minke likely don't have this ability."

And most small whales that do get trapped probably drown and sink, never to be found by anyone, including the fishermen who own the net, he says.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8093000/8093592.stm