Analysis: USCOP oceans report lukewarm

BOULDER, Colo., April 20 (UPI) -- The oceans are in trouble, and a major revision of federal policy is needed to address the many issues involved, according to a preliminary report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy.

The Commission's report, issued at a news conference on Tuesday, paints a grim picture of the condition of the ocean environment -- overfished, polluted and overpopulated on the coastal margins.

Though the evidence for these conditions is overwhelming, the report's recommendations for dealing with the problems rely largely on voluntary measures, rather than offering enforceable regulations to change the way oceans are managed and exploited.

The USCOP report draws inevitable comparison with the Pew Oceans Commission report, "America's Living Oceans," which came out last year and identified many of the same problems. But that document recommended a tougher regulatory approach.

The 16-member U.S. commission was convened under the authority of the Oceans Act of 2000 to develop recommendations for a comprehensive new ocean policy.

"The message was clear," the USCOP report states. "Major changes are urgently needed," and number one among those needed changes, according to the commission, is ecosystem-based management of ocean resources.

"U.S. ocean and coastal resources should be managed to reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, including human and nonhuman species and the environments in which they live," the report states, adding that the existing framework for management cannot achieve this goal.

So the report recommends:

--creating a new, national ocean policy framework to improve decision-making;

--strengthening science and generating high-quality, accessible information to inform decision-makers, and

--enhancing ocean education to instill future leaders and informed citizens with a stewardship ethic.

"The oceans and coasts are in serious trouble," said Admiral James Watkins, the commission's chairman. "We believe that a new strategy is needed to handle these problems. We are calling on Congress to establish a new ocean policy that balances use with sustainability."

The oceans are enormously important to the country. The United States has jurisdiction over 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean territory in its exclusive economic zone -- an area larger than all 50 states combined. The commission estimates ocean areas provide 2.25 million jobs and contribute $120 billion annually to the nation's gross domestic product.

Which makes it all the more puzzling that the commission is unwilling to address the problems it has identified with a strong federal regulatory presence. This unwillingness can be found in several sections of the report.

For instance, the report identifies water pollution as a critical problem. Nearly all of it originates from non-point sources, such as agricultural and stormwater runoff.

"I think the good news is they clearly articulate the impacts on the ocean of pollution, destructive fishing and other issues," said Jackie Savitz, pollution program director for Oceana, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "Unfortunately, they stop short of recommending actions that are likely to result in measurable improvements," Savitz told United Press International.

"They are relying on cooperative and participatory programs and incentives -- asking people to do the right thing -- instead of using the existing laws and regulations that are already out there to drive measurable progress," she continued. "These voluntary programs simply haven't worked."

Case in point: stormwater runoff, which the report names as a major pollution problem for the oceans. Although the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year declined to regulate that runoff, the commission report does not urge reversal -- or even reconsideration -- of that decision.

Likewise, a Chesapeake Bay program to reduce nutrient pollution by 40 percent has yet to be achieved, despite a voluntary agreement that has been in place for several years.

Last year's Pew Commission report called for more direct action, saying states should "enforce water quality standards for nutrients, thus providing an enforceable benchmark against which progress can be measured. The Clean Water Act and state water laws should be amended to require action to reduce nonpoint source pollution."

In fisheries, the Pew report continued, to achieve ecosystem management "it will be necessary to alter the way that allowable catches are determined." At present, the overall fishing quota is set by assessing sustainable yield of each species. Using a single-species basis is not a wise policy, the report said, because it does not determine the effect of that catch on other species.

Despite its rhetoric about "ecosystem management," USCOP did not suggest changing this system.

"Allowable maximum yield allows harvest of the most valuable species without looking at the interaction with the other animals in the ecosystem," Phil Kline, senior fisheries advisor to Oceana, told UPI.

The commission did urge that scientific assessment of fisheries take on a more important role in setting the fishing quotas.

The Pew Commission had suggested zoning the oceans to deal with many of these issues, another step the USCOP report avoided.

"The report does not recommend ocean zoning. We think a more a more flexible system" is preferable, commission member Paul Kelly, a senior vice president of Rowan Companies, an oil company in Houston, told reporters at the news briefing.

USCOP apparently did not accept another important suggestion of the Pew commission: establishment of a national system of marine reserves. They talked about it, Watkins said, but decided to leave it up to the local and regional authorities -- another apparent contradiction to the expressed priority of management-based on ecosystem boundaries, rather than political ones.

The issue of protecting the oceans is complex. If one of the major thrusts of the report could come about -- the coordination of offshore management -- it would represent a major change in the current fragmentary system of ocean management.

"The commission calls for the creation of a coordinated offshore management regime that can encompass existing and emerging uses and address the impacts of multiple activities on a particular location, or on each other," the report said.

Watkins said he thinks if the executive branch adopts the priorities established in the report, Congress will follow with appropriate legislation.

USCOP also found, perhaps to its chagrin, that what the American public does not know about oceans would fill at least one of them. For example, 60 percent of Americans think -- incorrectly -- that more animal species live on land than in oceans, and 75 percent think forests provide more oxygen to the atmosphere than oceans.

As a result, the report recommends programs to educate a new generation of leaders on ocean policy.

--

Dan Whipple covers the environment for UPI Science News. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com