There’s recently been some positive news about oceans (though climate change, acidification, overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution runoff still threaten to make the oceans a primordial stew). The Obama Administration has won wide praise from ocean advocates for its call, last week, for a new interagency oceans task force to address the multi-faceted threats to the oceans. In the past, U.S. oceans, coasts and Great Lakes are governed by more than 140 laws and 20 federal agencies, each agency with different goals and missions.
"Runoff of fertilizer is really an issue for the Department of Agriculture, transportation runoff from highways and roads is the Department of Transportation … municipal discharges from sewer systems is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, which has actively advocated for a more robust ocean conservation policy. "So when you’re proposing trying to manage an area of the ocean, you’re trying to take into account all of these variables in a very complicated process."
Oceana, an oceans advocacy group, said the Obama plan has "vision." That wasn’t the only recent news affecting the health of the oceans, however, and not all the news has been good.
Here’s a look at five trends and facts to watch (by the Daily Green).