Blue Vision Summit: National Ocean Policy and More!

Day two of the Blue Vision Summit was filled with lively conversations surrounding the National Ocean Policy, Spatial Planning, the role of the media and art in conservation and sustainability initiatives.  As a biased and previously informed observer, I was still largely impressed with the first panel addressing the National Ocean Policy.  While implementing this new policy is an extensive, complex, and long-term effort, the participants succinctly distilled the prominent goals and misconceptions about this long-anticipated policy and its most notorious objective: coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP).  Senator Whitehouse defined the effort as simply “planning with all stakeholders present in order to align existing regulations that will minimize resource use conflicts.”  We learned about the early successes in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and California, and of industry firms that have cut costs by consulting integrated maps that depict preexisting overlapping uses.  One message that I walked away with was the importance of communicating that healthy oceans are integral to maintaining economically robust coastal communities. 

Photo by Brian Skerry

With this conversation setting the stage for the rest of the morning, we then appropriately heard from the community of people conveying our marine issues to the public: the media.  They helped us think about how in the world’s oceans we’re going to garner support for such an abstract idea as CMSP.  There is barely enough resources and concern to cover the most tangible and charismatic of creatures, leaving the rest of our environmental problems scraping up the crumbs of public and congressional interest.  Despite this handicap, our panelists were hopeful.  An NBC reporter, the curator of Google Earth/Ocean, and the producer of The Cove all said that the best thing we (as scientists, managers, and advocates) can do for the oceans is simply to learn how to tell a good story.  

Photo by Brian Skerry

As if taking this recommendation to heart, panelists told us their stories throughout the afternoon.  We heard from one young woman with the Plastic Pollution Coalition who began creating artwork from plastic shopping bags and took this medium into inner city schools where she now teaches children about the ocean while they create sea creatures from garbage.  Brian Skerry, notable National Geographic Society photojournalist, told us about his underwater adventures that result in beautiful images of schooling fish that can be contrasted with his disturbing portrayal of marine injustices such as fishing entanglements and pollution.  Finally, chef Barton Seaver impressed everyone in the room with his charisma, ease, and most of all his extensive knowledge of regional fisheries management problems and the challenge of sustainable seafood sourcing.  All of these stories made me realize that I still have a long way to go in honing my own ability to tell meaningful stories about the ocean.  It’s in that spirit that I ask - what’s your ocean story?