Today@Dal

From Friday's Chronicle Herald:

June is full of oceans-related events, and Nova Scotia is host to many important meetings that celebrate our past and future as a coastal province.

This week is Oceans Week, culminating on World Oceans Day, June 8. In mid-June (the 15th-19th), Halifax is hosting a major international conference on ocean management, entitled “Our Coasts — Legacies and Futures.” It is sponsored by the Coastal Zone Canada (CZC) Association and the Bay of Fundy Ecosystem Partnership.

As well, there is a workshop on coastal and estuarine science, an international history of oceanography conference in honour of Dr. Eric Mills, the eminent marine historian at Dalhousie University, a meeting of the Gulf of Maine Council, and many public events celebrating our oceans.

Twenty years ago, over 600 people from many countries gathered in Halifax for the first international CZC conference. This marked a commitment by government, academia and non-government organizations to share best practices and move ahead with a progressive agenda to properly manage our coasts and ocean spaces. Today Canada’s coasts, the oceans management framework and the science are in a much different place. Budgetary cuts, regulatory changes and shifting policy priorities have slowed the progressive agenda set out in 1994.

At the 2014 CZC conference, over 400 national and international delegates will convene to discuss new ocean information, technologies and policy frameworks. The primary goal for Canada is to map out the next few years of ocean resource and environmental management, building on the lessons of the past and new knowledge.

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