A new university-level discussion guide, developed by the National Sea Grant Law Center, is now available for the documentary film, Ocean Frontiers: The Dawn of a New Era in Ocean Stewardship.
The film features a profile of Port Orford, Oregon, where commercial fishermen and other community members are teaming with scientists to understand and protect the region’s marine fisheries.
The Sea Grant Law Center describes Ocean Frontiers as “an ideal communication tool to help audiences understand key principles of ecosystem-based management and coastal and marine spatial planning. These complex topics come to life and are easy to grasp through the stories and people featured in Ocean Frontiers.”
This discussion guide was produced for Green Fire Productions by the National Sea Grant Law Center with the assistance of the Ocean and Coastal Law Committee of Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Society to help professors incorporate Ocean Frontiers into the classroom. The guide is available for download here: http://bit.ly/OFdiscussionguide
One of the first public wave energy testing systems in the United States began operation this week off the Oregon coast near Newport, and will allow private industry or academic researchers to test new technology that may help advance this promising form of sustainable energy.
Ocean Sentinel is a $1.5 million device developed by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, or NNMREC, at Oregon State University. The device was towed to the Center’s designated testing site 2 miles offshore from Yaquina Head on Sunday by OSU’s R/V Pacific Storm, and attached to a battery of mooring anchors that will keep it in place.
It’s a major step forward for the future of wave energy, and should do its first testing within days, when the “WetNZ” device developed by private industry joins it at the testing site.
The creation of this mobile wave energy test facility has been needed for years, experts say, and it will be used by many companies and academic researchers in the quest to develop wave energy technology, measure and understand the wave resource, and study the energy output and other important issues.
“The Ocean Sentinel will provide a standardized, accurate system to compare various wave energy technologies, including systems that may be better for one type of wave situation or another,” said Sean Moran, ocean test facilities manager with NNMREC.
“We have to find out more about which technologies work best, in what conditions, and what environmental impacts there may be,” Moran said. “We’re not assuming anything. We’re first trying to answer the question, ‘Is this a good idea or not?’ And if some technology doesn’t work as well, we want to find that out quickly, and cheaply, and the Ocean Sentinel will help us do that.”
Registration is open now for the 2012 National Land Grant and Sea Grant Water Conference, coming to Portland May 20-24.
The conference brings together water scientists, engineers, educators, and managers to share knowledge and ideas, to identify and update emerging issues, and to network with leading researchers, educators, and innovators from academia, government and the private sector. Along with presentations and workshops, the 2012 conference will feature tours highlighting water resource issues on the Northwest Pacific coast.
The conference is hosted by a team of educators from Land Grant and Sea Grant Institutions around the nation in cooperation with national program leaders from USDA and NOAA. Oregon Sea Grant’s Extension program leader, David Hansen, serves on the 2102 conference hosting team.
The annual conference is sponsored by the National Water Program – a partnership of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Land Grant colleges across the country. The program aims to help create and protect safe, reliable water sources for food and fiber production, human health, use and economic growth, and the maintenance and protection of natural environmental systems.
Applications due April 17, 2012 for the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar program for undergraduates. The program will place students in a natural resource management agency and is designed to help prepare undergraduate students for graduate school and careers in marine science, policy, management, and outreach.
PORT ORFORD – Ocean Frontiers, a new feature-length film about ocean management and conservation, will launch its national tour in Port Orford, which stars in the film as an example of how science and fishing can work together to manage marine resources.
The debut screening starts at 5 pm Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Savoy Theatre in downtown Port Orford. followed by a reception in the nearby Community Building, with Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, First Lady Cylvia Hayes, representatives of state and local government and members of the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) expected to attend. A second screening is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday.
The film will also be shown at the Performing Arts Center in Newport at 7 pm Feb. 22.
Port Orford is one of several US coastal communities featured in the 80-minute film, which tracks the evolution of marine resource management from a “maximum allowable catch” approach to a growing recognition that resources are finite, and need to be managed for the future as well as the present. The film explores the shift toward ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning tools that rely on science, and an informed and engaged public. Communities from the Pacific Northwest to Boston Harbor, the Florida Keys, the Gulf of Mexico and even the cornfields of Iowa are featured.
POORT figures prominently in the film as an example of how resource users, scientists, conservationists and others can work together to help understand, protect and manage ocean areas for the benefit of the resource – and the people who depend on it. Ongoing collaboration between fishermen and scientists in the south coast community was a strong factor in the state’s decision to establish one of Oregon’s first marine reserves at Redfish Rocks, just off Port Orford.
Oregon Sea Grant has supported the community-based effort since its early days, helping bring fishermen and scientists together and providing information and assistance as the group grew and evolved. Sea Grant helped the community design and conduct surveys and interviews that let the town build its first long-form community profile to give resource managers greater insight into how fisheries reach deep into the community’s social and economic life. The format and interview has since been applied to other Oregon coastal towns, and is proving to be a model for communities elsewhere in the US.
NOAA Sea Grant has announced a funding opportunity for its Aquaculture Research Program 2012 to support the development of environmentally and economically sustainable ocean, coastal, or Great Lakes aquaculture.
Priorities for this FY 2012 competition include: Research to inform specific regulatory decisions; Research that supports multi-use spatial planning; and Socio-economic research targeted to understand aquaculture in a larger context. Proposals must be able to express how the proposed work will have a high probability of significantly advancing U.S. marine aquaculture development in the short-term (1-2 years) or medium-term (3-5 years).
To view the full announcement Go to www.grants.gov and perform a basic search using the Funding Opportunity Number: NOAA-OAR-SG-2012-2003249.
This is a two-stage competition, with preproposals and full proposals. Each stage has specific guidance and deadlines, stated in the announcement, with Preliminary Proposals due 2/7/2012, and Full Proposals due 4/17/2012. Applicants must submit a preproposal in order to be eligible to submit a full proposals. Preliminary Proposals are to be submitted directly to the National Office via e-mail.
Pay careful attention to the instructions and contact Sarah Kolesar, Research Coordinator for the Oregon Sea Grant Program (sarah.kolesar@oregonstate.edu, 541-737-8695) as soon as possible to discuss proposals.
The National Sea Grant Program has set Feb. 17, 2012 as the deadline for applying to the prestigious John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowships, designed to give graduate students a year’s experience working on ocean and coastal policy issues in the nation’s capital.
The program, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Sea Grant College Program (NSGO), matches highly qualified graduate students with hosts in the legislative and executive branches of government in the Washington, D.C. area, for a one year paid fellowship.
Applications must be made through state Sea Grant programs. Oregon Sea Grant, based at room 322 in Oregon State University’s Kerr Administration Building, will accept applications through 5 pm Pacific time on Feb. 17. Full information can be found on the National Sea Grant Website.
The fellowship, named in honor of former NOAA administrator John A. Knauss – one of the founders of the Sea Grant program – was established in 1979 to provide a unique educational experience to students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources.
Former Knauss fellows from Oregon have gone on to successful careers in federal and state government, fisheries management and marine science.
To learn more about how the Knauss Fellowship program shapes participants’ lives and careers, watch this video from Alaska Sea Grant:
Carmel Finley, an instructor in the OSU History Department, is receiving positive attention for her new book published by University of Chicago Press, All the Fish in the Sea – Maximum Sustainable Yield and the Failure of Fisheries Management. One reviewer commented that the book “explodes the myths around MSY” (maximum sustainable yield) — a significant consideration since MSY is at the heart of modern American fisheries management. Another reviewer noted that “fisheries science and management are ripe for study by professional historians” and praised Finley’s book.
Locally, public radio station KLCC interviewed her, which was a role reversal for Finley, who was the Oregonian’s coastal correspondent for years prior to graduate school and her doctorate at UC San Diego (where she received support from Sea Grant). Back in Oregon, OSG supported her to develop the Pacific Fishery History Project web site. She also contributed an article in OSG’s new salmon book, Pathways to Resilience, on “The Social Construction of Fishing, 1949.”
PORTLAND, OR – Members of the National Ocean Council will convene at Portland State University on July 1 for the last stop in their “regional listening sessions” tour of the US.
Experts from the Council’s 27 Federal agencies and offices have been busy drafting strategic action plans to achieve nine national priority objectives that address some of the most pressing challenges facing our ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes. Having already received solicited and received initial comments on the plans, the council is asking for citizen comments on the strategic action plan outlines they have developed.
The Portland stop is the last of a dozen public listening sessions designed to gather further comments on the plans while they are still in the draft stage. The session will take place at PSU’s University Place, 310 SW Lincoln Street.
The PSU meeting, which will be chaired by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, runs from 9-11 am on July 1; those interested in attending are asked to preregister online.
