Massachusetts’ marine and coastal waters provide a rich variety of services that citizens value and rely on. These include food, energy, recreation, transportation, jobs, climate regulation, storm damage protection, scientific research, and scenic, cultural and historic resources. Two national ocean commissions and the Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force recently concluded that marine and coastal ecosystems are severely stressed and that the current resource management framework is not adequate to address these critical problems. Consistent with the national commissions, the MA Task Force urged a fundamental shift to a more comprehensive and proactive approach to marine resource management to ensure the ocean’s continued capacity to serve the socioeconomic and ecological needs of the Commonwealth.

Statement of Purpose

MOP is a broadly representative public-private partnership created to support and advance ecosystem-based integrated multi-use management of the Commonwealth’s coastal ocean resources.

The partnership will work to improve the management, understanding and health of MA coastal ocean waters to ensure thriving ocean ecosystems and their continued capacity to serve vital ecological, economic, recreational and other needs.  MOP’s primary near-term goal is to support the development and implementation of an integrated multi-use ocean management plan for MA waters.  Responsible state, local and federal agencies will develop, implement and enforce the integrated multi-use ocean management plan; MOP will provide support and coordination for this complex undertaking.  An effective ocean management plan will:

• integrate management across sectors, resources and agencies;
• be based on scientific principles of ecosystem-based management and effectively integrate science with management decision-making;
• reflect input from and gain support of stakeholders; 
• be adaptive to respond to changing conditions; and
• support sustainable marine industries and ecosystem stewardship leading to resilient and productive ocean ecosystems in MA state waters.

MOP’s Role
As an independent, broad based public-private partnership, MOP will advance integrated ocean management by:

• Engaging partners in collaborative problem solving on important ocean management issues
• Advancing the integration of natural and social science with management decision making, including development of:

• a common framework for integrated ocean management
• a statewide ocean data network
• ecosystem and economic modeling and other decision support tools
• indicators of the ocean’s capacity to provide ecosystem services

• Leveraging financial and information resources

Implementing MOP’s Five Year Strategic Plan

In December 2007, MOP was awarded a three-year grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support the partnership’s work on integrated ocean management, particularly on the collaborative problem solving and science-management integration objectives.

• Download a copy of MOP's five year strategic plan