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New Fund Will Speed Technology Transfer of Marine Conservation Tools

Nicholas School pilot program, supported by the Packard Foundation, will aid resource managers, decision makers and conservation groups

The Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University has been chosen to spearhead a national pilot program designed to get emerging technologies for marine and coastal management into the field more quickly.

 

 

"Right now, there is a huge amount of data being collected on marine and coastal species and ecosystems worldwide," said Patrick N. Halpin, director of the two-year pilot program. "To make the best use of this information, scientists, resource managers and decision makers need access to better tools for processing, analyzing and sharing it.

 

 

"Getting these tools into their hands as rapidly as possible is what this pilot program is all about," said Halpin, who is Gabel Associate Professor of the Practice of Marine Geospatial Analysis and director of the Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory at the Nicholas School.

 

 

The program, called the Marine Ecosystem-Based Management Tool Innovation Fund, is supported through a $1.24 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation of Los Altos, Calif.

 

 

The fund will award five to eight grants a year, totaling $500,000 annually, to organizations, laboratories and individuals who have developed new technologies for marine and coastal management but who lack the resources to make the tools practical for broad use, Halpin said.

 

 

"We will provide the funding and technical assistance they need to develop software and distribute the tools freely over the Internet," Halpin said. "Our goal isn't to underwrite new research, but to leverage great innovations that already are out there and help bring them to market faster."

 

 

Ultimately, the goal is to assemble a searchable online "toolbox" that resource managers, decision makers and conservation groups can draw on, customizing the software to their own particular needs, he said.

 

 

Fisheries managers in Maine, for instance, would be able to download and adapt software that would enable them to integrate data from many different studies and sources into a holistic, ecosystem-based management strategy that takes into account the complex interplay of species, natural processes, economic factors and social systems that affect or are affected by their local fishery, Halpin said.

 

 

The managers also could draw on software tools for monitoring and assessing the outcome of their management decisions -- providing critical feedback for future decisions.

 

 

"There is a critical need to make it easier for managers and planners to apply ecosystem-based management practices," Halpin said. "Most coastal and marine ecosystems are now managed for a single species or single purpose, such as fishing, wildlife conservation or offshore drilling. But this type of approach is rarely successful in the long run, because it doesn't factor in all of the ecological and economic variables, including the role of humans, that are part of a dynamic marine environment."

 

 

It also creates a bureaucratic nightmare, he said. In the United States, 20 federal agencies implement more than 140 federal ocean laws. Managers in one agency often care for their issues and constituents without reference to conflicts with the actions of other agencies.

 

 

Ecosystem-based management would enable managers to integrate ecological, social and economic variables and goals into one unified approach, so that an ecosystem can be managed successfully for a range of species and a variety of purposes, Halpin said. In recent years, both the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission have called for increased use of ecosystem-based management practices, he added.

 

 

"There now is widespread consensus that we need to make a fundamental shift in our approach to marine resource and conservation management," he said. "The Marine Ecosystem-Based Management Tool Innovation Fund is a step in that direction."

 

 

The fund will award grants on a competitive basis, based on the recommendations of an external review committee, Halpin said.

 

 

Halpin's staff at the Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory will host annual workshops to assist software developers with tool production, in compliance with standards and protocols that the lab will establish and publish in early 2007.

 

 

The pilot program will leverage the resources of many partners, including the Ecosystem-Based Management Tools Network, a consortium of universities, research institutions, conservation groups and foundations, Halpin said. Members of the consortium include Duke, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Nature Conservancy, NatureServe, the Orton Family Foundation, the Packard Foundation and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

 

 

NatureServe, a nonprofit conservation group, is organizing the network and manages a related website.