Chapter III 



DEVELOPING AND MANAGING 

 MARINE RESOURCES 



The resource potential of the marine world attracts increasing attention 

 here and abroad as human needs look seaward for food and feed and for 

 critical mineral resources. With this preoccupation with natural wealth, 

 incompletely tapped, has also come a growing consciousness that past mis- 

 takes in using these rich resources must be corrected and avoided in the 

 future. 



There is much evidence of this evolving trend in the Federal Ocean Pro- 

 gram. For example, resource management has come to mean more than 

 just the efficient use of a self-renewing stock of fishes; it also means the con- 

 servation of endangered forms of life for their own sake. Similar emphasis 

 appears in reports of progress from nonliving resource programs. Marine 

 minerals, for example, must not be mined if they cannot be recovered by 

 ecologically tolerable techniques. 



Wise resource management in the marine environment has become a press- 

 ing matter, and, as conflicting uses, jurisdictions, and laws spring up around 

 this issue, it becomes an increasingly complex, elusive goal. In the coastal 

 zone, the Federal Government shares resource management responsibilities 

 with State and local governments. Beyond territorial limits of the individual 

 States, the Federal Government has sole responsibility for encouraging, sup- 

 porting, and managing resource development. Here it must coordinate di- 

 verse industry, guide our national and international interests, resolve poten- 

 tial conflicts of use, and provide information and services that assure safety 

 and protect industry operations and investments. 



Within this framework, the Federal Ocean Program has been moving 

 to develop the comprehensive knowledge of living and nonliving resources 

 that is a condition for any successful resource management scheme. Through 

 its ties with the States and other nations, the Federal Government is apply- 

 ing new knowledge and technology to the problems of protecting and allocat- 

 ing living resources, assisting our fishing industry and its consumers, con- 

 serving endangered species, and discovering and tapping the nonliving re- 

 sources of the sea. 



A recently developed shrimp trawl, used in waters of the Pacific Northwest, brings up 

 a 1 , 500-pound catch of clean shrimp. Unlike the standard trawl which nettled, along 

 with the shrimp, other forms of bottom life, this new method separates out a clean, 

 high-quality shrimp catch with less crew effort. 



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