x_conclusion.Rmd

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# Conclusion

Integrated spatial decision support frameworks should maximize use of all available species data, utilize the best available environmental predictors, handle inherent uncertainty in model results, and transparently manage trade-offs between conservation and industry.

Military exercises require environmental impact assessment in relation to cetaceans [@dolman_comparative_2009]. More recently, facilities for offshore renewable energies, such as wind and wave, pose another potential impact on cetaceans [@dolman_best_2010]. All of these human activities, which continue to be on the rise, have been prioritized for systematic planning under the auspices of “ocean zoning” [@crowder_resolving_2006; @halpern_managing_2008] or “marine spatial planning” [@douvere_importance_2008] by the United States [@lubchenco_proposed_2010] and internationally [@ardron_marine_2008; @dahl_marine_2009]. In order to best plan for such activities, there will be a continuing need to improve our models.

I have data and much of the analysis already completed for all of the above with several collaborators. The conservation climate is ripe for application of these analysis to real world scenarios. The US Navy is responding to lawsuits by the Environmental Defense Fund over whale strandings from use of low-frequency sonar. In British Columbia, the largest oil pipeline in Canada is terminating at port Kittimat where heavy oil tankers will traffic waters rich in wildlife not too far in memory or geography from the Valdez disaster. Renewable energies are on the rise, with offshore development most recently highlighted by a Google investment of $5 billion for an offshore wind backbone in the US East coast. These marine developments are now part of a presidential mandate to address marine spatial planning in the US outlined by the Ocean Task Force. The Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative is now in process through United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to address pelagic conservation strategies. These projects further fit into actively funded and proposed projects in the Halpin Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab: 

1. NASA funded SDSS for Integrating Ocean Observing Data to Enhance Protected Species,

1. NASA proposed Forecasting of climate change and its effect on the abundance and distribution of cetaceans using downscaled output of IPCC class earth system models, and the

1. Census funded Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative.