Vol. 1, No. 3
Headline Back Issues
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Campobello, New Brunswick - Trudy Coxe, Secretary of Massachusetts' Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, took the gavel as chair of the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment following the group's biannual meeting here in June. The Gulf of Maine borders on five jurisdictions in the US and Canada: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The Council convenes government agencies, members of the private sector and research community, and others on behalf of efforts to protect and enhance the resources and ecological balance of the Gulf by supporting research and monitoring, reduction of marine debris, habitat protection, information management, and public education and outreach. "We can all benefit dramatically from a Gulf-wide emphasis on initiatives under way to protect and restore habitats in the Bay of Fundy and New England coastal waters as far south as Cape Cod," said Coxe, who will chair the Council through June 1998 while the Council Secretariat is located in Massachusetts. That jurisdiction also chaired the Council from 1992-93. During their June meeting, the Council discussed marine protected areas, offshore energy projects, increasing public awareness of marine issues, and other subjects relating to sustainability of the Gulf of Maine environment. They also visited a seafood processing plant and salmon aquaculture farm in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, owned by the Council's private-sector member from New Brunswick, Edward McLean. The Council next meets December 10-12 in Boston. For more information, contact Margot Mays, Gulf of Maine Council Secretariat, Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management, 100 Cambridge Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02202; call (617) 727-9800, extension 406; or E-mail margot.mays@state.ma.us. Report calls for integration of science and policy Sebago Lake, Maine - At a June workshop here, scientists and resource managers from the US and Canada agreed that they need to apply the region's expertise to current and emerging Gulf of Maine issues, improve regional information management and dissemination, and develop new tools to integrate science and policy. The Regional Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine (RARGOM) released a report containing those recommendations following the workshop, which was partly sponsored and organized by the Gulf of Maine Council as part of a program intended to foster improved stewardship of environmental resources through an informed partnership of scientists, managers, the public, and non-governmental organizations. The report makes 15 specific recommendations intended to prompt institutional leaders to articulate a broad, long-term vision for the Gulf of Maine ecosystem; improve information dissemination and utilization; and develop interactive tools that will take into account the uncertainty existing in experimental data, models, environmental standards, and decisions. For a copy of the report, E-mail margot.mays@state.ma.us; or call her at (617) 727-9800, extension 406, or visit the RARGOM web page at http://www-nml.dartmouth.edu/rargom/rargom.html. |
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Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine