Ocean wealth vs. ocean health: with proper planning and collaboration, we can have both.

• Position: Cover story

It's another busy summer day in Massachusetts Bay. Twenty miles off the coast of Boston, commercial and recreational fishing boats are returning to shore to unload the day's catch. Whale-watching boats ferry thousands of tourists to see humpback and rare North Atlantic right whales visiting their favorite feeding grounds. Meanwhile, enormous tankers make their way through whale hotspots to and from the natural gas terminals just outside of state water lines and container ships steam down the shipping lanes on their way into the Port of Boston. Beneath the surface, trawling gear drags the ocean floor above a maze of fiber optic cables and gas pipelines that lie buried under the seafloor.

As developers clamor for a piece of New England's ocean waters to build businesses from aquaculture to sand and gravel mining to wind energy, the pressure on one of our most precious natural resources has never been greater. Complicating matters, our oceans are governed by dozens of agencies and more than one hundred laws, resulting in confusion and conflicts that threaten both ecosystem protection and economic development efforts.

"In the face of this unprecedented economic interest in our oceans, it has never been more crucial to protect important fishing grounds and unique marine habitats, particularly for endangered species Like the North Atlantic right whale," says Priscilla Brooks, Ph.D., CLF's director of ocean conservation.

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Fortunately, a movement is afoot to ensure that irreplaceable ocean resources are not sacrificed to unplanned development. Ocean use planning is a way to capitalize on all that the ocean can provide by way of jobs, food, recreation, transportation and clean, renewable energy without compromising the ecosystem that we all depend upon. Combining the latest science with extensive public and stakeholder input, ocean use planning helps to determine which areas of the ocean are most suitable for industrial development and which must be protected.

"Ocean use planning is just as vital as land use planning to ensure a sustainable future for our natural resources," says Brooks. "We need a cohesive, coordinated approach that both advances the ocean's economic potential, such as offshore wind development, and protects ocean life and habitat."

NEW ENGLAND AT THE FOREFRONT

CLF is at the vanguard of ocean use planning, innovating in New England what has become a national policy initiative intended to balance the protection...