The Present Era:
1972-1996
As the Nation grew in environmental awareness, the holistic aspects of marine
research and ecology, pioneered in the 1870's by Spencer Baird, gained added
impetus. NMFS published large volumes on ocean variability and the
relationship of the ocean's physical and chemical processes to fish
distribution, abundance, and stock composition. In the middle 1970's the new
NMFS-wide Marine Resources Monitoring Assessment and Prediction (MARMAP)
program began to collect uniform data for fisheries management and this
information has been crucial to the ecosystems approaches later developed by
the Fishery Management Councils.
New laws were passed to protect endangered species and the marine environment
and its resources. These included the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the
National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and others.
Research advances also brought new concepts and better understanding of the
resources and better ways to protect and manage them.
And in 1976, Congress passed the landmark Magnuson Fishery Conservation and
Management Act the first real step toward comprehensive management of
marine fishes. The new law set up eight regional Fishery Management Councils
to manage the Nation's fisheries within the newly created 200-mile fishery
conservation zone (FCZ).
Another new marine environmental research initiative was the Ocean Pulse and
Northeast Monitoring Program which was later expanded nationwide as NOAA's
Status and Trends Program in 1984–85. Others were the Fisheries
Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI) program, the Southeast Area
Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP), etc.
In 1985, the NMFS Woods Hole Laboratory was rededicated, celebrating a full
century of marine fisheries and environmental research. And in 1991, NMFS
published a new report, "Our Living Oceans," the most thorough assessment ever
of the status and abundance of the fishes and marine mammals within the U.S.
200-mile EEZ.
