Looking for safe harbor in a crowded sea: Coastal space use conflict and marine renewable energy development

Technological advances in the marine renewable energy industry and increased clarity about the leasing and licensing process are fostering development proposals in both state and federal waters. The ocean is becoming more industrialized and competition among all marine space users is developing (Buck et al. 2004). More spatial competition can lead to conflict between ocean users themselves, and to tensions that spill over to include other stakeholders and the general public (McGrath 2004). Such conflict can wind up in litigation, which is costly and takes agency time and financial resources away from other priorities. As proposals for marine renewable energy developments are evaluated, too often decision-makers lack the tools and information to properly account for the cumulative effects and the tradeoffs associated with alternative human uses of the ocean. This paper highlights the nature of marine space conflicts associated with marine renewable energy literature highlights key issues for the growth of the marine renewable energy sector in the United States. (PDF contains 4 pages

Optimal Rebuilding of Fish Stocks in Different Nations: Bioeconomic Lessons for Regulators

Under the rubric of sustainable fisheries, nations are mandated to rebuild overfished stocks. Although rebuilding strategies are almost universally directed by the available biological information, approaches vary depending on fishery laws, management objectives, and technical guidelines. For example, rebuilding schedules in the United States are primarily designed to achieve rapid rebuilding of biomass and spawning stocks consistent with the biological characteristics of the resource. In contrast, New Zealand has greater flexibility in rebuilding stocks in order to consider economic, social, and cultural needs. In this paper we investigate potential economic costs to the fishery that result by limiting the US manager’s flexibility in choosing a recovery trajectory. Using numerical models for moderate- and long-lived stocks, the analysis reveals that depending on productivity of the stock and the discount rate, extending the rebuilding timeframe can substantially increase annual harvests and economic benefits. The results underscore the importance of economic analysis in crafting flexible rebuilding schedules that account for the unique characteristics of the fisheries, including economic and social needs.Fisheries economics, fisheries management, K-selective species, rebuilding., Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q22, C61,

Palaeontological site conservation and the law in Britain

The legal situation regarding palaeontological site conservation in Britain is unclear. There is no modern review of the law. Five main areas of concern are identified. Most exsisting laws do not specifically consider the needs of palaeontological conservation. Legislation empowers the Nature Conservancy Council upon policy decisions. The NCC is primarily concerned with nationally important sites, and responsibility for recording other sites therefore falls upon voluntary National Scheme for Geological Site Documentation. Local authorities have potentially useful powers. Site occupiers are disadvantaged by the damage caused by, and to some extent the liability due to visitiors, but they can forbid access to almost all sites on private land. The ownership of in situ fossils may be presumed to go with the mineral rights in the land, and collecting them without permission may involve criminal damage and theft. Loose fossils may in some cases be legally collected without express permission. If the landowner has not exerted rights of controil of access or ownership. This is potentially important for coastal exposures. The compulsary public ownership of fossils is not likely to be a successful strategy in geological conservation. Resources are on the whole better spent in education and popularization than on compulsion

Exploring the potential impact of relational coherence on persistent rule-following : the first study

Rule-governed behavior and derived relational responding have both been identified as important variables in human learning. Recent developments in the relational frame theory (RFT) have outlined a number of key variables of potential importance when analyzing the dynamics involved in derived relational responding. Recent research has explored the impact of one of these variables, level of derivation, on persistent rule-following and implicated another, coherence, as possibly important. However, no research to date has examined the impact of coherence on persistent rule-following directly. Across two experiments, coherence was manipulated through the systematic use of performance feedback, and its impact was examined on persistent rule-following. A training procedure based on the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) was used to establish novel combinatorially entailed relations that manipulated the feedback provided on the trained relations (A-B and B-C) in Experiment 1, and on the untrained, derived relations (A-C) in Experiment 2. One of these relations was then inserted into the rule for responding on a subsequent contingency-switching match-to-sample (MTS) task to assess rule persistence. While no significant differences were found in Experiment 1, the provision or non-provision of feedback had a significant differential impact on rule-persistence in Experiment 2. Specifically, participants in the Feedback group resurged back to the original rule for significantly more responses after demonstrating contingency-sensitive responding than did the No-Feedback group, after the contingency reversal. The results highlight the subtle complexities that appear to be involved in persistent rule-following in the face of reversed reinforcement contingencies

Collaborative Research: Innovations and Challenges for Fisheries Management in New Zealand

Collaborative research initiatives between New Zealand’s fisheries management agencies and commercial fisher organisations are commonplace. This can be attributed to a combination of fisheries management institutions and processes that on the one hand create incentives for commercial fishers to take increasing responsibility for fisheries research and on the other hand provide for governance structures that ensure the transparency and integrity of industry-led research. Nevertheless the full potential of collaborative research initiatives has yet to be realised. Collaborative research has been an indirect outcome of New Zealand’s rights-based fisheries management framework and until recently there has been little effort to explicitly provide for it in Government policy. The financial and management capacity of commercial fisher organisations must also be developed if collaborative research is to become a core function of these organisations. High expectations have been created for collaborative research and failure to address key issues will undermine the potential and hence legitimacy of collaborative research involving commercial fishers and other fisheries stakeholders.Key Words: Collaborative research, commercial fisher organisations, management capacity