Notice2023-24839
Request for Information: National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
November 9, 2023
Issuing agencies
National Science Foundation
Abstract
The National Science Foundation, on behalf of the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology (SOST), requests input from all interested parties to inform the development of a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy (Strategy), covering the genetic lineages, species, habitats, and ecosystems of United States (U.S.) ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters. The Strategy will strengthen the knowledge foundation and coordination on which federal agencies and other parties can align priorities and investments toward more cost-effective and successful solutions to the increasing challenges that require information on biodiversity and living resources. The Strategy will align research and monitoring on ocean life for safe and sustainable management, conservation, development, and climate solutions; and improve delivery of biodiversity information to support wise management and the growing ocean economy. Through this request for information (RFI), SOST seeks input on the foundational elements of a Strategy for delivering needed knowledge and implementing effective stewardship of ocean life. Those elements will include actions federal agencies should take to collect, coordinate, and deliver information for policy, investment, development, and management, to better align ocean biodiversity investments and policy with societal needs for both use and protection of living resources, ensuring benefits to society across sectors and from local to international levels.
Full Text
<html>
<head>
<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 216 (Thursday, November 9, 2023)</title>
</head>
<body><pre>
[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 216 (Thursday, November 9, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 77369-77371]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-24839]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Request for Information: National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy
AGENCY: National Science Foundation.
ACTION: Notice of request for information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The National Science Foundation, on behalf of the National
Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Ocean Science and
Technology (SOST), requests input from all interested parties to inform
the development of a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy (Strategy),
covering the genetic lineages, species, habitats, and ecosystems of
United States (U.S.) ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters. The
Strategy will strengthen the knowledge foundation and coordination on
which federal agencies and other parties can align priorities and
investments toward more cost-effective and successful solutions to the
increasing challenges that require information on biodiversity and
living resources. The Strategy will align research and monitoring on
ocean life for safe and sustainable management, conservation,
development, and climate solutions; and improve delivery of
biodiversity information to support wise
[[Page 77370]]
management and the growing ocean economy. Through this request for
information (RFI), SOST seeks input on the foundational elements of a
Strategy for delivering needed knowledge and implementing effective
stewardship of ocean life. Those elements will include actions federal
agencies should take to collect, coordinate, and deliver information
for policy, investment, development, and management, to better align
ocean biodiversity investments and policy with societal needs for both
use and protection of living resources, ensuring benefits to society
across sectors and from local to international levels.
DATES: Responses are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on February 28,
2024. Responses received after this deadline may not be taken into
consideration.
ADDRESSES: Interested individuals and organizations should submit
comments electronically to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a5d7c3cc88c8c4d7cccbc0c7cccac1ccd3c0d7d6ccd1dce5cbd6c38bc2cad3"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="82f0e4ebafefe3f0ebece7e0ebede6ebf4e7f0f1ebf6fbc2ecf1e4ace5edf4">[email protected]</span></a> and include
``RFI: Public Comment on the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy'' in
the subject line of the message. Submissions should be machine readable
in PDF or Word format and should not be locked or password protected.
All submissions must be in English.
Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each individual or
organization is requested to submit only one response. Commenters can
respond to one or many of the questions described below. Submissions
are suggested to not exceed the equivalent of five (5) pages in 12
point or larger font. Submissions should clearly indicate which
questions are being addressed. Responses should include the name of the
person(s) or organization(s) filing the response. Responses containing
references, studies, research, and other empirical data that are not
widely published should include copies of or electronic links to the
referenced materials. Responses containing profanity, vulgarity,
threats, or other inappropriate language or content will not be
considered.
SOST agencies may post responses to the RFI, without change, on
their websites and may use the information received as they see fit.
NSF therefore requests that no business proprietary information,
copyrighted information, or personally identifiable information be
submitted in response to the RFI. The U.S. Government will not pay for
the responsible preparation or for the use of any information contained
in the response.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information, please
contact Gabrielle Canonico, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a9cec8cbdbc0ccc5c5cc87cac8c7c6c7c0cac6e9c7c6c8c887cec6df"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="d4b3b5b6a6bdb1b8b8b1fab7b5babbbabdb7bb94babbb5b5fab3bba2">[email protected]</span></a>, telephone: (240) 533-9452,
and/or Emmett Duffy, Smithsonian Institution, <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#2b6f5e4d4d526e6b5842054e4f5e"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="1a5e6f7c7c635f5a6973347f7e6f">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
People are an integral part of nature and vice versa. Even in the
continental heartland, our lives, livelihoods, health, and identities
depend on the ocean's biodiversity, meaning the variety of life in all
its aspects--species, genetic lineages, habitats, and associated
ecosystems and interactions--from the sea surface to the deep ocean,
the coasts, and the Great Lakes, and from microbes to whales. These
living resources provide our food, clean air and water, a favorable
climate, recreational and cultural benefits, and critical resources and
economic opportunities. Indeed the U.S. ocean economy supports 2.4
million jobs across multiple sectors including fishing, tourism,
shipping, and energy generation, which contributed $397 billion to the
U.S. gross domestic product in 2019. Much of that economic engine is
driven by living organisms.
Our natural heritage, and the ways of life that it supports, are in
crisis. A comprehensive analysis reports that around 1 million species
worldwide face extinction, many within decades, unless aggressive
action is taken to reduce drivers of biodiversity loss in the near
future. The biodiversity crisis is closely intertwined with the ongoing
crises of climate change and inequity among people, and it is
increasingly clear that these challenges must be approached together to
reach lasting, just solutions that support human health, economies,
national security, and other domestic and global challenges. To address
them we need biological intelligence: trusted, accessible, and
scientifically rigorous inventories and knowledge of ocean species and
habitats, their interactions, and the ecosystem functions and services
to people that they support.
That knowledge will come from long-term monitoring of biodiversity
and associated environmental drivers and conditions, strategically
located across the nation's expansive marine territory. These
activities are critical to the ability of managers, rights holders, and
resource users to make decisions that effectively steward uses of the
ocean, track change in its vital signs, design effective climate
solutions, and grow the ocean economy. But we are far from that goal.
Information on ocean life and ecosystems is currently collected by many
parties using a wide range of methods; the data are heterogeneous,
generally not coordinated, and often not shared. Resulting information
products are routinely created without engaging users `on the ground'
and with poor understanding of their needs for actionable information.
This lack of coordination and interoperability wastes limited resources
and harms our ability to effectively sustain multiple uses of a healthy
ocean. As a result, relevant information about many aspects of ocean
life and ecosystem services is unavailable or inaccessible.
The Strategy will address these challenges by facilitating,
streamlining, and coordinating the delivery of knowledge on ocean life
and ecosystems to develop ocean spaces sustainably, including advancing
conservation plans and decision processes jointly by co-design with
resource users and rights-holders. It will advance capacity to forecast
changes in ocean life and the ecosystem services it provides by
ensuring that data are comparable and shared across sectors
(government, non-governmental organizations, private, academic) and
regions (subnational, national, international), much as weather data
are shared across international meteorological organizations to enable
nowcasts and accurate forecasts that are widely used on a daily basis.
Scoping and Developing a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy
The SOST is developing this Strategy because the linked climate,
biodiversity, and equity crises have created an urgent need for
biological information that can enable coordinated responses and
solutions. Equally important, leveraging the exponentially growing
quantity and variety of ocean biodiversity information for human well-
being requires integration with biogeochemistry, physics, geology, and
social and economic data to locate both people and the rest of nature
in integrated knowledge systems that support effective, just, and
sustainable development and conservation.
The U.S. has one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the
world, with a comparable wealth of biodiversity and living resources.
Collecting and delivering the necessary biodiversity knowledge at this
national scale is an ambitious goal that requires rapid, large-scale,
cross-sectoral advances in facilitating integration of communities,
sectors, and information types. It must engage all Americans, including
Tribal Nations, Indigenous communities, and local communities. Delivery
of information needs to be in
[[Page 77371]]
forms tailored to decision contexts, informed by and readily
understandable by those interested in using the information.
Rapidly advancing technology is one road to reaching that ambition.
Emerging technologies now enable biomolecular classification of
organisms, tracking of animal migration and behavior through tagging,
acoustics, imaging, and remote sensing across previously impossible
scales of geography and time. The resulting timely, accessible, and
accurate information on ocean life is fundamental for our social and
economic security at all levels of governance. It is also fundamental
to maintain international leadership as needs for food, water, and
other resources continue to grow.
Achieving these goals requires better coordinating data and
information sharing and resulting actions among federal agencies,
states, tribal communities, academic, and private sector initiatives.
The Strategy aims to provide the critical science, data, and knowledge
essential to guide long-term conservation based on best evidence, and
to make it more accessible to support a collaborative and inclusive
approach. The Strategy will identify information users and engage with
them to understand what information they find useful, and in what
forms. The Strategy will support consistent and reliable assembly and
management of ocean biodiversity data that is necessary, but currently
lacking, for ongoing federal activities, such as the first National
Nature Assessment, Natural Capital Accounting efforts, the National
Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, advancing Nature-Based
Solutions, development of a National eDNA Strategy, and the Ocean
Climate Action Plan, consistent with FAIR and CARE principles.
Developing and implementing the National Ocean Biodiversity
Strategy will advance more cost-effective, strategic, nimble, and
equitable management of the nation's living marine resources and
cultural heritage. Importantly, the Strategy will support solutions to
the intertwined equity crisis by engaging and supporting Indigenous
Knowledge and prioritizing cross-sector user needs from local to
national levels.
The Strategy also seeks to strengthen and increase visibility of
U.S. leadership in global initiatives focused on solutions to the
climate and biodiversity crises. Specifically, the High Level Panel for
a Sustainable Ocean Economy acknowledged the pressing need for national
contributions to a globally coordinated effort to collect information
on ocean biodiversity and on extinction risk, and highlighted the need
to support long-term biodiversity monitoring. Similarly, U.S.
leadership of a number of programs and activities within the UN Decade
of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development supports emerging
communities of practice and the development of harmonized, standards-
based approaches to address this need directly.
Themes and Questions To Inform the Development of the Strategy
Respondents may provide information for one or as many topics below
as they choose. Submissions should clearly indicate which questions are
being addressed. The Strategy will be developed by an interagency
working group under SOST that is co-led by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in
partnership with the Smithsonian Institution and other federal
agencies. The working group seeks input from Tribal Nations, local,
State, federal and Territorial governments, the private sector,
academia, non-governmental organizations, a wide range of stakeholders,
and the public on high-level goals and how to achieve them in the
following areas:
Coordination and Priority Setting
<bullet> What are the most pressing topics and considerations for
the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy to address?
<bullet> What actions can federal agencies take to facilitate the
harmonization of ocean biodiversity investments and policy to ensure
benefits across all sectors?
Science, Technology, and Information
<bullet> What are the priority needs and most promising approaches
in science and technology to provide useful information on ocean
biodiversity (species, genetic lineages, habitats, ecosystems) and the
ecosystem processes and services they support?
<bullet> How can we best align the efforts of knowledge holders
with the needs of knowledge users?
<bullet> How can ocean biodiversity data be made more usable and
available? Which existing mechanisms or repositories could be
leveraged?
Capacity Building and Community Engagement
<bullet> How could public and private partnerships be developed or
enhanced to explore and characterize ocean life, which existing
partnerships could be leveraged, and how might opportunities for
participation by diverse parties in such partnerships be maximized?
<bullet> What are the key needs for training and education to
improve broad knowledge and stewardship of ocean life?
<bullet> How could the public be engaged in developing and
implementing improved understanding and stewardship of ocean life?
<bullet> Is there anything else you would like to be considered in
the development of the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy?
Dated: November 6, 2023.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2023-24839 Filed 11-8-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P
</pre><script data-cfasync="false" src="/cdn-cgi/scripts/5c5dd728/cloudflare-static/email-decode.min.js"></script></body>
</html>Indexed from Federal Register on November 9, 2023.
This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.