Getting it right: Mass. draft ocean management plan
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On December 31, Massachusetts will become the first state with a management plan for its roughly 2,100 square miles of ocean and the often-competing interests of conservationists, the fishing industry, recreation and development.
Since June this plan has been circulating in draft form for the public’s consideration. The nearly two-volume tome is rich in data, but many fear it doesn’t go far enough to protect the Commonwealth’s more delicate marine assets—the so-called “special, sensitive or unique” (SSU) resources the plan identifies.
“The big problem with the plan—it is not really a plan,” said Mason Weinrich, executive director and chief scientist of the Whale Center of New England, based in Gloucester. “What they have done is gather a really valuable series of data sets to understand where these areas may be. But there isn’t really any more protection than what was already there.”
Read more (http://bit.ly/WFYIA).
Since June this plan has been circulating in draft form for the public’s consideration. The nearly two-volume tome is rich in data, but many fear it doesn’t go far enough to protect the Commonwealth’s more delicate marine assets—the so-called “special, sensitive or unique” (SSU) resources the plan identifies.
“The big problem with the plan—it is not really a plan,” said Mason Weinrich, executive director and chief scientist of the Whale Center of New England, based in Gloucester. “What they have done is gather a really valuable series of data sets to understand where these areas may be. But there isn’t really any more protection than what was already there.”
Read more (http://bit.ly/WFYIA).
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