NMC SIDNEY

6.0 A Choice of Futures:

6.1 Futures:

The New Marine Centre at Sidney should aim to take on the role of "feeling the pulse" of the public and becoming a source of data on the preferences expressed by visitors . Clearly presented alternatives on a choice of their marine futures on many issues could be a major contribution to marine policy decisions.

Integrated management of marine systems—that is, coordinated management of all alternative uses of the ocean is probably the only way we are going to have any chance of securing a sustainable fishery. Here the decisions are political. Viewers must be encouraged to bring the issues up at all levels of government and if necessary to get involved to help make changes. A major display should be devoted to various scenarios demonstrating the serious nature of this aspect. See 3.2 Integration
- From Marine Fisheries Systems
  http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.287.aspx.pdf
  Although the emphasis in recent years has been on unsustainable fishing practices, fisheries represent only one of many human
  influences on marine ecosystems. In coastal marine systems in par- ticular, coastal development—with concomitant problems of local pollution and habitat destruction—is very important. (See Chap- ter 19.) Non-fisheries human influences such as marine debris and oil slicks are also important on the high seas. As a result, as de- scribed earlier, several nations are attempting to develop legislation and policies to facilitate integrated management of marine systems—that is, coordinated management of all alternative uses of the ocean. Such uses include harvesting marine species for food and other purposes, aquaculture, research, oil and gas exploration, ocean mining, dredging, ocean dumping, energy generation, eco-tourism, marine transportation, and defense. To date, it has proved difficult to integrate the management of all these activities because the authorities regulating these activities are usually inde- pendent of one another (Sissenwine and Mace 2003).
Scenarios could be presented on the choice of options for human sewage and industrial effluent disposal in coastal waters.
Agricultural runoff should be dealt with head on. The facts could be presented and then have people make a choice which could be publicized in local media.
A provision in the displays should present people with the senarios involving population growth. The implications for uncontrolled growth making the marine systems unsustainable have to be presented and people should be asked to make a choice on their preferred scenario.
The pros and cons of sustainable and non-sustainable aquaculture practises should be another area where the public is asked to make a commitment.
The regulation of harvesting and the decision to create reserves and marine protected areas are other aspects that when people are presented with the facts, they should be asked to commit to one alternative or the other.
Our goal should be to make an educated and aware public who can participate in solving the problems of humans living sustainably in the marine area.
The Climate change choice of futures. Implications mentioned in this reference:

. 6.2 The obligations we have to Act Now.

This could be developed further based on the other segments of section 5.0

6.3 Threshholds in Systems.

Index