Final Recommendations oF the inteRagency ocean Policy task FoRce
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III. Why Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning?
The Nation’s interests in the ocean, our coasts,
and the Great Lakes support a growing number
of significant and often competing uses and
activities, including commercial, recreational,
cultural, energy, scientific, conservation, and
homeland and national security activities.
Combined, these activities profoundly influence
and benefit coastal, regional, and national
economies and cultures. However, human uses
of our ocean, coasts, and the Great Lakes are
expanding at a rate that challenges our ability
to plan and manage them under the current
sector-by-sector approach. While many existing
permitting processes include aspects of cross-
sectoral planning (through, for example, the
process governed by the National Environmental
Policy Act), most focus solely on a limited range
of management tools and outcomes (e.g., oil and
gas leases, fishery management plans, and marine
protected areas). Missing from this picture is
a more integrated, comprehensive, ecosystem-
based, flexible, and proactive approach to
planning and managing these uses and activities.
This new approach would be national in scope to
address national interests, but also scalable and
specific to regional and local needs. Without such
an improved approach, we risk an increase in
user conflicts, continued planning and regulatory
inefficiencies with their associated costs and
delays, and the potential loss of critical economic,
ecosystem, social, and cultural services for
present and future generations.
Recent scientific and ocean policy assessments
have demonstrated that a fundamental change in
our current management system is required to
achieve the long-term health of our ocean, coasts,
and Great Lakes in order to sustain the services and benefits they provide to society. The present way we
Traditional, New, and Expanding Ocean,
Coastal, And Great Lakes Uses
The ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes are
home to and support myriad important human
uses. CMSP provides an effective process to better
manage a range of social, economic, and cultural
uses, including:
• Aquaculture (fish, shellfish, and seaweed
farming)
• Commerce and Transportation (e.g., cargo
and cruise ships, tankers, and ferries)
• Commercial Fishing
• Environmental/Conservation (e.g., marine
sanctuaries, reserves, national parks, and
wildlife refuges)
• Maritime Heritage and Archeology
• Mining (e.g., sand and gravel)
• Oil and Gas Exploration and Development
• Ports and Harbors
• Recreational Fishing
• Renewable Energy (e.g., wind, wave, tidal,
current, and thermal)
• Other Recreation (e.g., boating, beach
access, swimming, surfing, nature and whale
watching, and diving)
• Scientific Research and Exploration
• Security, Emergency Response, and Military
Readiness Activities
• Subsistence Uses
• Tourism
• Traditional Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering
• Working Waterfronts