The oceans need a hand
MOST OF US surf, swim and fish without concern for the health of our oceans. But as the Los Angeles Times series "Altered Oceans" made clear, all of that is at risk. The oceans are now afflicted with chronic problems caused by human activities. Like our own bodies, the seas suffer when we put too much into them and expect too much out of them.
Pollution and overfishing have stressed oceans; they can no longer resist disease and degradation. Two national commissions and a global assessment have agreed that the seas are in serious trouble. What can be done?
First, we must recognize that most of the oceans' problems are symptoms of an approach to governing the seas that no longer works. Currently, we manage one resource at a time, separately focusing on fishing or offshore oil drilling, without considering the effects of one activity on another. In the United States, 20 federal agencies implement more than 140 federal ocean laws. Managers in one agency often care for their issues and constituents without reference to conflicts with the actions of other agencies. For example, endangered Hawaiian monk seals are vigorously protected on the beach by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has failed to fully protect them in the water.
Managers also may fail because their authority doesn't match the scale of the problem. Pacific leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles are protected in U.S. waters, but they feed in other countries and in international waters where they receive little or no protection. The fertilizer and pesticides used by farmers in Iowa or Illinois end up in the Mississippi River and flow into the Gulf of Mexico, causing a "dead zone" and threatening fisheries in Louisiana. But downriver states have no say in farming practices upstream.
A lack of big-picture management also affects problems such as outbreaks of red tide, which can crop up too fast to allow various managers to respond. And problems also can develop too slowly to notice, such as the decline of large marine fishes by 90% over the last 50 years. Clearly we need to get the managers talking to each other.
