For Immediate Release: June 24, 2009

ELI Handbook Supports Obama’s and Rockefeller’s Call for Developing a Federal Marine Spatial Planning Framework

(Washington, DC) — Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is a key strategy for comprehensively managing the nation’s ocean and coastal environment. The Environmental Law Institute’s new Ocean and Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management: Implementation Handbook summarizes central concepts and suggests options for overcoming implementation challenges. The Handbook provides examples of existing and potential approaches to “comprehensive, integrated, and ecosystem-based” management of ocean and coastal resources including marine spatial planning.

On June 12th, President Obama released a memorandum highlighting the importance of America’s oceans and establishing an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, to provide recommendations for a national policy that will ensure the protection and sustainable use of U.S. oceans. Within 180 days, the Task Force shall “develop, with appropriate public input, a recommended framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning,” which “should be a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach.”

Earlier in the week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation met to discuss the “Blue Economy,” in which the committee’s Chairman Senator Jay Rockefeller linked the economic health of America to the riches of its oceans and called for a federal framework for marine spatial planning.

According to Dr. Kathryn Mengerink, Director of ELI’s Ocean Program, “The recent call to action by Senator Rockefeller and President Obama’s creation of a marine spatial planning task force demonstrate the growing support for a federal framework that can bolster implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to managing our nation’s ocean resources. We hope that our EBM Implementation Handbook and related ELI law and policy resources will help inform these important efforts.”

The Handbook was made possible with the generous support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and input from many ocean and coastal management experts.

A two-page summary of the Handbook is also available.

The Environmental Law Institute® is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization based in Washington, DC. The Institute serves the environmental profession in business, government, the private bar, public interest organizations, academia, and the press. For further information from the Environmental Law Institute, please contact Brett Kitchen at 202-939-3833 or pressrequest@eli.org.
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