IT IS time to save the oceans. While the call has been heard many times before, this time it comes from a US government panel. If panel members get their way, the US will completely overhaul the way it manages its 8 million square kilometres of water, in a move that could also influence international policy.
Many groups have warned that ocean ecosystems are on the brink of collapse, including the independent Pew Oceans Commission in June 2003. But the first government-sponsored investigation into America鈥檚 waters for 30 years, which the US Commission on Ocean Policy will submit to President Bush next month, could be a turning point.
The commission has found that disjointed management of the oceans is leading to disaster. Salmon fisheries off the north-west coast have collapsed, there is a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico caused by polluted run-off, and foreign species arriving in the ballast water of cargo ships are disrupting local ecosystems.
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All these problems occur within 200 miles of the US coast. Yet they have so far proved impossible to tackle because fisheries, coastal development, water pollution and conservation are managed separately, says Andrew Rosenberg, a member of the ocean policy commission and former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. 鈥淚f we manage the ocean in pieces, we cannot expect to halt the decline.鈥�
Rosenberg and his colleagues announced some of their recommendations to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Seattle last week. They want a Clean Oceans Act, including a new national council to coordinate all activities that affect the oceans. They are also calling for a dramatic shift in the way marine resources are managed so that instead of focusing on single species, entire ecosystems are considered.
This may sound like common sense, but it is not what happens. For example, fisheries are usually managed to maximise yield. The salmon industry along the Pacific north-west coast was managed this way in the 1950s and 1960s, reducing the complex mix of subspecies of wild salmon to just the few that grew and reproduced the fastest. While the industry at first boomed, it has now collapsed, because climate change created an environment in which those subspecies cannot cope. However, managers at Alaska鈥檚 Bristol Bay Fishery encouraged all the salmon species. When conditions changed, new subspecies became dominant and the waters still teem with salmon (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 100, p 6564).
Whether the US adopts the recommendations of the report will depend on President Bush, although members of both commissions say they are confident of political support. This is a chance for the US to join the world鈥檚 environmental leaders, they argue. The waters of Australia and Canada are already protected by ocean policies, and New Zealand is in the process of developing one. Advocates hope a policy for the vast US waters will provide the critical mass, moving the UN to adopt new policies for international waters.
Marine reserves
The Commission on Ocean Policy is expected to recommend the creation of marine reserves in US waters, a measure that will please conservationists.
Reaction to the idea is mixed, partly because it is difficult to pinpoint where such reserves should be. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 draw lines on a map to show us where to do it 鈥� that will be our job,鈥� says Steve Copps, senior policy analyst for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 鈥淚t is going to be time-consuming and controversial.鈥� People who depend on the sea for their livelihood tend to be against reserves. But smarter and more flexible reserves could help ease such conflicts.
Endangered leatherback and loggerhead turtles in the Pacific, for example, could be protected by a reserve that moves with them, suggests Larry Crowder from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Long-line fishing accidentally snares half of these turtles every year, Crowder told last week鈥檚 AAAS conference. His studies of turtles tagged with satellite transmitters show their movements are confined to ocean 鈥渃orridors鈥� defined by currents such as the Gulf Stream. This means whole populations could be protected by relatively small reserves linked to these corridors.
Information about the animals鈥� behaviour also suggests ways that turtles and fishermen can coexist. Crowder鈥檚 team has found that the turtles spend 90 per cent of their time in the top 40 metres of water, so they might be saved by the simple measure of fishermen setting their lines below 40 metres in protected areas.