Partnering Law and Biodiversity for Healthy Coastal Communities: Restorative Ocean Farming

• Main Author: Pierce, Tara A.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: UC Law SF Scholarship Repository 2023
• Subjects: Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_environmental_law_journal/vol29/iss2/2; https://repository.uclawsf.edu/context/hastings_environmental_law_journal/article/1631/viewcontent/2_Pierce.pdf

This article argues that states should take immediate, incremental steps toward supporting Restorative Ocean Farming (ROF). The health of our coastlines, for both the human and nonhuman communities, depends on high marine biodiversity, a goal which ROFs support. Presenting vast amounts of evidence that ROFs have an incredible amount of ecological and socio-economic benefits, ROFs also provide one step in the critical paradigm shift of improving ocean and coastal policy by taking a more holistic approach. This includes an emphasis on bioregional cooperation to ensure the highest ecological and social benefits. Waiting on federal legislation is waiting too long. However, states can look to previous attempts at federal legislation, like the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, to guide their own law and policies. Additionally, there are examples of successful bioregional cooperation, like the California Ocean Acidification Action Plan, to guide states in creating policy and plans, uniting communities and increasing coastal resilience. The author concludes that states can take meaningful action now that provides equitable benefits to coastal communities and the nation. Perhaps most importantly, the emergence of ROFs in the United States signals a perspective shift away from policies with an extractive approach toward those that create mutually beneficial relationships between humans and their habitat by basing our interaction with the world on questions like “how does the ecosystem want to support us?”