"Lessons from Regional Marine Planning by Federal Agencies - The National Estuary Program."

Presented by Suzanne Schwartz

It is my pleasure to transmit a background paper that was submitted by Suzanne Schwartz for the Workshop on Improving Regional Ocean Governance in the United States. The Workshop, held on December 9, 2002, at the Hotel Washington in Washington D.C., was organized by a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary steering committee. The workshop provided a forum to discuss ocean governance issues at the regional level in the U.S. and to evaluate opportunities for improving current regional ocean governance efforts, with the ultimate intent of sharing these options with the U.S. Ocean Commission on Ocean Policy and with other relevant entities at the federal and state levels.

The paper highlights how the National Estuary Program is a model for regional marine planning, implementation, and governance. Unfortunately, due to a seven-page limit and an extremely tight deadline, we were unable to include all of the great things you are doing or provide you an opportunity for comment. However, selected examples that we hope illustrate the depth and breadth of the NEP and provide the important lessons we have learned that can help other coastal and marine management efforts.

The proceedings of the Workshop can be downloaded at: http://www.udel.edu/CMS/csmp/pdf/RegionalProceedings.pdf (PDF Format, 1.1MB)

Please let me know if you have any thoughts regarding the paper.

Regional Ocean Governance Workshop
Regional Ocean Governance Workshop (PDF format, 82KB)