The topics ranged from climate monitoring, to the health and vitality of marine ecosystems, to the burgeoning aquaculture industry, to next-generation undersea military technologies, and the 220 people in the audience came from an even wider range of sectors.
What brought everyone together at Roger Williams University on Monday was a desire for a broad-based dialogue on the marine economy, viewed as critical to New England’s vitality.
“We brought people together that have not met together in a room, ever, and we think there is a lot of room for collaboration there,” said James Brett, president and CEO of The New England Council, which sponsored the conference with Roger Williams.
“For many years I think the ocean has been unappreciated and underutilized throughout New England,” Brett said, “and we’ve been able to bring people together to talk about ways of growing the marine economy. There were boat-makers, people from the shellfish and fishing industries, developers and individuals from think tanks. No one said that voices were missing – I think we covered it.”
The title of the day-long event was “Promoting New England’s Marine Economy: Challenges and Opportunities,” and while it was primarily geared to people from the region, it also offered a national perspective, and it drew guests from Washington, D.C., and Canada.
One keynote speaker was former White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta, who chaired a national commission that examined the health of the oceans. Panetta said there’s an urgent need for a coherent national policy on the oceans and clear rules and regulations.
“Conflicting federal, state and local ocean laws harm us” environmentally and economically, he said. “We must establish a national ocean policy to commit our country to protecting our oceans, as Congress has done with clean air and water.”
Another keynote speaker was James R. Luyten, president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who spoke about the need for new technology to monitor the oceans.
“A regional Ocean Observation System will have both societal and economic benefits,” he said. “It will provide products and services to drive the marine economy and speed technology development that will drive New England’s marine technology sector and help retain and create jobs.”
Timothy Scott, director of the Center for Economic and Environmental Development at Roger Williams, said one of the event’s strengths was its broad scope. “There was a lot of information about ocean observing systems and aquaculture, both of which are areas of economic growth, but there were also other marine-related topics such as boat building, marinas and recreational boating,” he said.
And based on the attendance, Brett said, “I really think we hit on something.”
The conference is only the beginning of this collaboration, he added.
“There was so much information given out, so we said we would analyze it and put together a working group of people who are interested in serving on a committee to come up with recommendations,” Brett said. “I think we can demonstrate that this is an important part of the New England economy. It may not be an issue that jumps out at first, but it is a New England issue.”
Brett said that within the next couple of months, the council will start calling those who attended the conference and invite them to join the committee, which he said he hopes will pick “one or two issues” to study, then set an agenda and “have measured results.”
Brett said he would want to wait and see what others are interested in before picking topics. For him personally, however, one of the most interesting issues right now is aquaculture.
“That is a growing industry that could provide jobs,” he said. “And it’s a very unique industry that we think Rhode Island is on the [brink] of tapping into.”
