Our Living Oceans (OLO)

Report on the Status of U.S. Living Marine Resources (6th Edition)

Our Living Oceans: Report on the Status of U.S. Living Marine Resources (OLO-Resources) serves as a series of National status reviews by NOAA Fisheries. The reports are neither mandated nor intended to fulfill any legal requirement. Instead, the purpose of OLO-Resources from the beginning has been to provide a report card to the American public on the biological health of U.S. living marine resources. Since 1991, these reports have presented an overview of the principal fishery resources, marine mammals, and sea turtles that are under the management jurisdiction of NOAA Fisheries. Living marine resources are discussed in terms of seven regional ecosystems around the United States: Northeast Shelf, Southeast Shelf, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, California Current, Alaska Ecosystem Complex, and Pacific Islands Ecosystem Complex, plus Highly Migratory Species. The information reported in OLO-Resources is drawn from stock assessment reports, field surveys, biological and physical studies, and independent monitoring of recreational, subsistence, and commercial fisheries. In addition to resource analyses, OLO-Resources also includes feature articles that highlight issues impacting the agency’s assessment, management, research, and conservation activities of particular interest. Feature articles in the current edition include a discussion of NOAA Fisheries’ efforts to end overfishing, improving fisheries science with advanced science technologies, deep sea coral communities of the United States, and NOAA Fisheries’ cooperative and proactive approaches to implementation of the Endangered Species Act.

The full set of OLO editions spans a period of tremendous change in the management of living marine resources in the United States. Since the first edition was published, there have been several profound legal and conceptual changes in the management landscape—notably, major revisions to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1994) and the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (1996 and 2007). In particular, the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act of 2006 (MSRA) has changed the landscape of fisheries management in the United States. The MSRA requires an end to overfishing by 2010 as well as expanded fishery management tools, a larger role for science in the fishery management process, and enhanced international cooperation. The current edition of OLO-Resources serves not only as a report card to the Nation on the status of our living marine resources but will also provide a baseline for measuring future progress under the new MSRA mandates.

To download the most recent edition of OLO-Resources, click here.