New guide to MSP for maritime professionals
The Nautical Institute and World Ocean Council have jointly released a guide, "The Shipping Industry and Marine Spatial Planning: A Professional Approach", to help maritime professions understand and engage in MSP. The guide identifies the steps in a typical MSP process and highlights how the shipping community can participate. It also helps others involved in MSP processes to understand the industry's requirements for ocean management. The document is available at www.nautinst.org/en/forums/msp
MSP film Ocean Frontiers II launches
A new film documents the creation of a marine spatial plan for the US state of Rhode Island. Produced by Green Fire Productions, Ocean Frontiers II features interviews with government officials, stakeholders, academics, and others who were involved in the planning process. It is the sequel to a film (Ocean Frontiers) that showed how US stakeholders are joining together to ensure sustainable ocean economies. To view a trailer of Ocean Frontiers II or to find or host a screening of it, go to www.ocean-frontiers.org
Proposal to initiate pan-Arctic MSP
Most Arctic governments have been slow to pursue comprehensive MSP. A new book, Arctic Marine Governance, proposes that networks and partnerships of non-governmental actors in the region could initiate MSP across the Arctic. The book's MSP content is contained in a chapter titled "Pan-Arctic Marine Spatial Planning: An Idea Whose Time Has Come", authored by Charles Ehler. The chapter and the full book are available for purchase separately or together at http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-38595-7_9
Canadian government purges fisheries libraries
Fisheries and Oceans Canada has closed seven of its eleven fisheries libraries in a move aimed at saving the government Cdn $430,000 (US $395,000) annually. The closures involved giving away or throwing out the libraries' publications, which had provided decades of baseline records of the nation's marine and freshwater resources, from long before the digitization of information. For more on this move, go to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/purge-of-canadas-fisheries-libraries-a-historic-loss-scientists-say/article16237051/