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Talk will be critical of U.S. policy on oceans

A marine scientist and member of a national commission on ocean policy says the Bush administration gets a poor grade on that issue.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published March 8, 2006

GULFPORT - If the state of the world's oceans is not foremost in your mind, it proves the point of a lecture on ocean policy Thursday by Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, director of the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. If, however, you do think about oceans in crisis, that may prove the point too.

Muller-Karger, a member of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, will be speaking at noon at Stetson University College of Law's Great Hall to inform people about the declines in the world's oceans and how U.S. policy is not helping.

A recent online discussion among some of Muller-Karger's USF colleagues also decries the doom-saying nature of the media's portrayal and public understanding of environmental issues. Scientists are partly at fault, some say, for being too insular and not making speeches aimed at educating the community.

"Scientists too often talk and publish to themselves," Muller-Karger said. "We're going to have to change that paradigm. It's the only way to get the public to support us."

The publication of an article in Mother Jones magazine sparked debate within the marine science community at USF because of a statement echoing Muller-Karger but also blaming the media and the public for being confused by issues of science and environment. This creates space for critics to undermine science in ways Muller-Karger said have occurred over decades of ocean policymaking.

Muller-Karger was appointed by President Bush to the ocean policy commission, which was supposed to freshen the field after a more than 30-year lapse, Muller-Karger said. Instead, he said, the Bush administration is ignoring the commission's findings and grossly under-funding ocean research that would provide jobs and economic growth along with better science.

"Ocean management structures are not responsive to pollution, overfishing and overdevelopment," Muller-Karger said, adding that about half the U.S population lives in coastal counties. "We are not managing our ocean resources properly."

When the Commission on Ocean Policy released its report in 2004, President Bush responded supportively.

"My administration is working with every level of government, the private sector, and other nongovernmental organizations to advance the next generation of ocean policy," he said in a White House statement. "In order to foster more effective management and conservation of our ocean and coastal resources, my administration has launched and supported numerous innovative science, management, and policy initiatives."

Muller-Karger, as part of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, said the administration has started some programs but has cut funding in other vital areas. In a bipartisan report card, the initiative gave the administration a collective D+

"The money exists. It's just being spent in ways that are not being accounted for," Muller-Karger said. "We spend $1-billion every week in Iraq."

Muller-Karger said additional spending would be a benefit to the nation as oceans affect half the jobs in the U.S. He said correcting problems of overfishing could help save that industry, new medicines can be found from marine life, and technology could be at the fore of the next economic wave.

As part of his "plea" for proper attention to such issues, Muller-Karger said it is a matter of educating everyone, from children to adults and the media, on the relevance of ocean policy issues, not just politics or crises. He said scientists must communicate broadly to get wide public support that will push government funding.

"All we can do is keep pressing the government to do the right thing," he said. "We need to tell this story over and over."

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.

[Last modified March 8, 2006, 01:42:19]