oceanpolicy.com

Following the UN Intergovernmental Conference’s (Conference) summer release of draft agreement text for an international legally binding instrument under the Law of the Sea Convention regarding the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, the Conference last Wednesday issued revised draft agreement text.  At the conclusion of the third conference in August, the President of the [...]

The Ocean Policy Committee — created by the June 2018 Executive Order establishing a new ocean policy — today issued a summary of the Nov. 14 White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology. The Summit, hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality, brought representatives from the federal government, [...]

The Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC) recently announced the release of a draft agenda for its Fall 2019 meeting in Portsmouth, NH on Monday, Dec. 16. Agenda items include updates from the Ocean Planning, Coastal Hazards Resilience, and Ocean and Coastal Ecosystem Health Committees, updates and discussion on offshore wind planning and implementation in the Northeast, updates on NROC’s [...]

In a Memorandum issued today, President Trump declared it U.S. policy to “act boldly to safeguard our future prosperity, health, and national security through ocean mapping, exploration, and characterization” and to “support the conservation, management, and balanced used of America’s oceans by exploring, mapping, and characterizing the U.S. [Exclusive Economic Zone], including mapping the Arctic and Sub-Arctic [...]

NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries recently announced its clarification of procedures for how it treats national marine sanctuary nominations that have been accepted to the inventory of sites for potential designation and have been on the inventory for 5 years.  The clarified procedures are effective immediately. Under the procedures established in 2014, nominations expire after 5 [...]

The West Coast Ocean Alliance recently announced the release of the final agenda for its Dec. 4 annual meeting in Tacoma, WA. Specific agenda items for the public meeting include updates on the Alliance, West Coast Ocean Data Portal, member perspectives on the benefits of regional coordination, state, federal, and tribal updates, an update on a West Coast ocean [...]

Representatives of governments, the private sector, civil society, and academic institutions last month gathered in Norway at the Our Ocean 2019 conference to address actions designed to support a clean, healthy, and productive ocean. The conference generated 370 commitments valued at more than $63 billion to address climate change (~$51.1 billion and 76 commitments), a sustainable blue [...]

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat today announced that it has accepted Chile’s proposal to hold the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid from Dec. 2-13 following Spain’s offer to host the event.  Chile recently canceled plans to host the conference in Santiago, citing unrest in the country. The Conference serves as a forum to [...]