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SeaWeb Assists EBM Outreach Efforts in Oregon

The dock in Port Orford, Oregon, is one of only two dolly docks operating in the United States, where large cranes lower the vessels into the water in the morning and lift them out at the end of the day. Briana Goodwin, POORT

SeaWeb's Ecosystem-based Management Communications Project team traveled to Port Orford, Oregon, in October 2009 to co-host two interactive workshops that brought together local officials, fishermen and the resident community to talk about marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management (EBM), as well as the challenges and on-the-ground successes of implementing EBM in their community.

Port Orford, a small coastal town in southern Oregon, has gained recognition and support from policymakers, management agencies and non-governmental organizations as a model for how community-based ocean management can and should work. Working with the local fishing community, the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) has spearheaded the resource management efforts adopting an EBM approach. POORT is an environmental nongovernmental organization guided by a board of five commercial fishermen who support an ecosystem-based approach to conserving their local environment and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Port Orford coastal ecological system and the social system dependent on it.

Port Orford is home to Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve, one of the first two marine reserves that Oregon State created this past July. Daria Siciliano

POORT planned and implemented a Community Stewardship Area, which encompasses the historic fishing grounds of the Port Orford fleet as well as the adjacent watershed. As part of the Stewardship area, POORT, with the support of the Port Orford community and its fishermen, established the boundaries of Redfish Rocks Research Reserve, one of the first two reserves that Oregon State officials adopted this past July after reviewing proposals for 20 locations.

"Port Orford is a leading example of a place that's taking a bottom-up, community approach to EBM—where commercial fishermen are partnering with resource managers and a nongovernmental organization to promote sustainable fishing opportunities and protect the marine environment," said Daria Siciliano, SeaWeb's Director of Science.

SeaWeb's visit to this coastal community was part of a collaboration with POORT that launched in May 2009 to support the implementation of the local coastal ecosystem-based management initiative. The workshops were designed to assist POORT in presenting the concepts and benefits of ecosystem-based management to the larger Port Orford community so as to facilitate the organization's efforts moving forward.

Port Orford Mayor Jim Auborn and commercial fisherman Mike Ashdown play Trade-Off!, a marine spatial planning board game co-developed by SeaWeb and the University of Maryland. Briana Goodwin, POORT

As part of their first workshop, titled: "Marine Spatial Planning: Finding Space For All in Our Crowded Seas," SeaWeb and POORT invited commercial fishermen, elected officials, agency representatives and various other local stakeholders for a discussion on marine spatial planning, ecosystem services and tradeoffs. About 20 participants attended the presentation, interacted with one another, and played Trade-Off!, a board game co-developed by SeaWeb and the University of Maryland. This game allows players to take on the roles of different coastal stakeholders who, through the process of negotiating uses and activities of different areas within a coastal community, learn to better understand the principles of a marine spatial planning process and how to navigate its challenges.

The second workshop, titled "Managing the Port Orford Community Stewardship Area," used Garrison Lake, a local brackish water lake that serves as the community's secondary drinking water source and that has a number of environmental and management issues, as an ecosystem-based management case study so participants could discuss this local issue through this management approach to solving its issues. Members of the Port Orford community interacted with a diverse range of stakeholders and shared their perspectives on how to reconcile human and environmental needs in managing their local natural resources.

Local stakeholders in Port Orford play the marine spatial planning game Trade-Off!. Briana Goodwin, POORT

"The workshops brought together a diverse range of stakeholders who might not normally sit at the table together and exchange ideas," Siciliano said. "Those are the kind of constructive conversations and stakeholder engagement needed for a successful EBM outcome."

As part of the ongoing collaboration, SeaWeb and POORT consulted with survey experts Sowmya Anand at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Amanda Scott from The Strategy Team and Neil Malhotra at Stanford University to develop a survey to gauge Port Orford's citizen's thoughts and concerns on the health and management of their local coast, ocean and natural resources. The survey was received positively by community members, who filled out the questionnaire in large numbers. In the future, SeaWeb and POORT will use the survey's results to better address the needs of the community and guide some of POORT's outreach efforts on the management of Port Orford's coast, ocean and natural resources within an EBM framework.

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