Ocean Zoning

A growing human population of six and a half billion wanting more and more from the sea is causing profound impacts from the shores of Puget Sound to the remotest Southern Ocean seamounts.  Our oceans are in deep trouble, and how we govern (or don’t govern) human activities is the root cause of the problem.  Past approaches — letting anybody do whatever they want no matter how it harms our oceans, managing species one-by-one or having different agencies issue blanket regulations one user group at a time — have failed to maintain the sea’s biodiversity.  But there is a promising new approach that focuses on protecting, recovering and sustainably using the living sea called ecosystem-based management.

Oceans are complex systems with interacting parts.  Moreover, their topography, oceanography, biology and human uses differ markedly from one place to the next.   Ecosystem-based management addresses this complexity by managing different places in ways that are tailored to each place, while maintaining the processes that connect them with other places.

MCBI is examining comprehensive spatial management or ocean zoning as an ecosystem-based management framework in US waters.  Ocean zoning would fundamentally change the way we govern the sea, from the current activity- or species-based approach to a place-based approach.  It would use peoples’ understanding of the differences among ecosystems and human interests to reduce harm to the sea while reducing conflicts.  Fishes and fishermen, sea turtles and coastal property owners would all benefit.  Nations as diverse as Australia, Belgium and China are already using comprehensive spatial planning their Exclusive Economic Zones to improve ocean management. 

MCBI President Elliott Norse is a co-leader of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis Working Group on Ecosystem-based Management for the Oceans: The Role of Zoning.  Its participants include Americans and people from other nations, scholars and ocean managers, with expertise in marine ecology, fisheries biology, anthropology, economics, political science and law.  They recently published “Resolving Mismatches in US Ocean Governance” in the journal Science (vol 313, pp 617-618).

Dr. Norse has also written “A Zoning Approach to Managing Marine Ecosystems” in the proceedings of Workshop on Improving Regional Ocean Governance in the United States, and a chapter on Ocean Zoning in Marine Conservation Biology, his book with MCBI Board Member Dr. Larry Crowder of Duke University’s Center for Marine Conservation. Dr. Norse and Dr. Crowder have also presented at the International Workshop on Marine Spatial Planning.

MCBI is also beginning to conduct a study on marine activities (e.g., various types of commercial and recreational fishing, boating, fixed facilities and linear features such as pipelines) that are and are not compatible within zones. Although a major purpose of ocean zoning is reducing conflict by separating incompatible activities, there has been no formal study of which activities and sets of impacts need to be separated in the USA. Is recreational fishing compatible with offshore aquaculture?  Are wind farms, whale-watching and bottom trawling compatible? Would the tourism and real estate industries accept offshore oil and gas production near coastal areas protected for scenic values?  The political process at state and federal levels often make decisions based on advocates’ assumptions that have not been verified.  MCBI will survey key groups (e.g., local government officials, coastal real estate agents, oil industry executives, fishermen, aquaculturists, boaters, conservationists) on their views about compatibility among such activities. This will provide us the first cut at defining the “assembly rules” for comprehensive ocean zoning in US waters.