harmful and beneficial consequences of man's activities on the environment. 

 From this comprehension, we can employ better engineering and technology 

 to maintain water quality, control beach erosion, and create modern ports 

 and harbors. With such information, we can generate criteria to define 

 options and make choices among alternative regulatory actions, public 

 and private uses of the seas and coastal lands, and costs. This information 

 is fundamental to the political decisions needed to manage the environment. 



We still lack much of the knowledge needed to provide the understanding 

 required to assess and predict the effects of man-induced and natural modi- 

 fications of the marine environment. In the absence of this information about 

 the ocean's ability to absorb stresses and remain healthy, human activities 

 may generate transformations that destroy, perhaps irreversibly, desirable 

 properties of the marine environment. 



The scientific information required includes establishing baselines or 

 standards from which we can detect and measure environmental changes 

 which may occur over the next 10, 20, or 50 years. We need to know what 

 pollutants and in what quantities are entering the ocean; how much pollu- 

 tion the marine environment can absorb without substantially harming 

 other uses; how marine pollutants circulate and disperse, degrade, and con- 

 vert to other chemical and physical forms; and what effect man's physical 

 modifications of the coastline have on water dynamics, marine life and 

 sedimentation. Much remains to be learned about how pollutants enter the 

 life cycle of marine organisms and what effect they have on them; and 

 about how to treat ocean pollutants. An adequate pollution monitoring sys- 

 tem could furnish information which would provide the scientific basis for 

 assessing and predicting man-made changes, identifying and controlling 

 pollutant buildup, managing waste disposal and safeguarding the physical 

 and biological quality of the oceans.^ 



The planned approach to preserving and enhancing the ocean environ- 

 ment underlies the President's five-point marine science program of Octo- 

 ber 19, 1969, which calls for deliberate action to encourage States to plan 

 for and manage the land and water resources of their coastal zones; to 

 provide assistance in research required for sound management of their 

 coastal zones; to begin a lake restoration program directed toward under- 

 standing the actions that would be required to reverse unfavorable trends 

 in the quality of our Nation's lakes; and accelerate ocean-related research on 

 the interaction of man with the Arctic environment. Recognizing the need 

 to initiate international action, the program proposes a world-wide environ- 

 mental quality program as part of the International Decade of Ocean 

 Exploration. 



This approach recognizes that the ocean and its resources are limited 

 and vulnerable and that through careless use of technology we can gravely 

 damage them. It also recognizes that by acting wisely now we can still 

 preserve the ocean, its air, water and life for future generations. 



® A useful discussion of the needs of a worldwide system of ocean pollution 

 monitoring is contained in "Global Ocean Research," a report prepared by the Joint 

 Working Party on the Scientific Aspects of International Ocean Research nominated 

 by the Advisory Committee on Marine Resources Research of the FAO, the Scientific 

 Committee of Oceanic Research of the International Council of Scientific Unions and 

 the WMO Advisory Group on Ocean Research, Ponza, Rome, and La Jolla, Calif., 

 1969. 



29 



