SHARED REGIONAL PRIORITIES

Environmentally Responsible Marine Development

MARCO takes a regional approach to ensure environmentally responsible marine development in the coastal and ocean environment.

Overview

The ocean is often a place of interest for marine development activities like telecommunications cables, energy infrastructure, ports, and more. The five MARCO states share decision-making best practices, data, and stakeholder needs to help ensure that these projects are environmentally and economically responsible.

 

 

A map showing undersea cable locations.

Projects

Ocean Data – There’s a lot of data being collected offshore, and it’s important that it is usable, comparable, and accessible. MARCO is working with the Responsible Offshore Science Alliance and the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative to define data flows for fish and wildlife data, and implement improvements where needed to ensure that the data can be easily found by the public and by decision-makers.

MARCO’s Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal houses and displays thousands of data layers.
The data helps coastal managers, decision makers, and members of the public understand potential interactions between offshore wind development, marine life and various ocean uses and resources.

The Data Portal maintains a listing of informational resources for current and recent government agency actions related to ocean planning in the region. A Current Agency Actions and Public Comment Opportunities page was created offering a snapshot of ocean planning activities in the region and work likely to be of interest to MARCO and the Ocean Data Portal’s community of users.

Work Groups

MARCO enables collaboration between governmental agencies, Tribal nations and many other interested stakeholders through topic-specific work groups, voluntary intergovernmental committees, and data sharing. The following efforts are doing work in support of this priority: