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Instead, we compartmentalize our systems. For example, fisheries are dealt 

 with by organizations /goverrunental units such as the Departments of Interior and 

 Comm.erce, state agencies, local groups, educational communities, consumers, 

 marketers, and of course fishermen. Each of the constituencies has a say and each 

 wants to stake its role in the harvest of the fish. The "common resource," however, 

 can only support a finite fishery, but demand has become infirute, and profits are the 

 bottom-line. Each unit develops "solutions," usually with little or no consultation 

 with the other xinits. The result is the degradation of the resource (with a 

 corresponding loss of jobs, a decreased food supply, and a deteriorated ecosystem) 

 while no one watches over the whole. 



Your hearings must address aU the interactions, the whole picture. And what 

 is the whole? It is comprised of people and organisms living and participating 

 within a greater community and the physical world. We must begin to look at all 

 our activities and understand the connections between industry, the environment, 

 and people's lives. The quality of life is a prime concern for all Americans. If your 

 life is shortened by living in a city (as statistics show), if you cannot afford food, and 

 if you do not have a job, your belief in government and country diminishes. 

 In the long term to maintain a good quality of life and for our economic system to 

 flourish, we have to honor the biological and physical components of the 

 community we live in. In a healthy ecosystem there are many diverse 

 components; we too must be able to integrate our economics, environment, and 

 education to achieve our goals. 



As one who has been involved within the educational arena for many years, I 

 am quite concerned that our citizens are increasingly technologically illiterate. Be it 

 the use of computers or mathematics, perhaps a better paradigm would be to study a 

 few topics in depth and generate excitement to learn more. Within the 

 undergraduate marine biology program at Roger Williams University, my 

 colleagues and I provide a broad training to our students. By combining physics. 



