Many of Punta Gorda’s local fishermen still work the shallow waters inside the Belize Barrier Reef from individual canoes using age-old methods to provide lobster, shellfish and reef fish for Belizeans, as well as a small but thriving export business. The Jamaican boats, with more sophisticated commercial gear, offered no such promise for the local economy or the continued sustainability of Belize’s fisheries.

A few unpermitted Jamaican fishing boats may seem like a local hurly-burly, and after an uproar the boats were turned away by Belizean authorities. But the fight to protect Belize’s waters from exploitation has just begun.

Other countries with larger fleets, namely Taiwan and Spain — Europe’s largest and most aggressive fishing nation — have already approached the government of Belize about moving into the deep waters beyond the Belize Barrier Reef.

One of the ecological jewels of the Western Hemisphere is now clearly at risk. Belize has no policy in place to protect itself from foreign nations coming in and fishing out its waters, which are currently so untouched that we don’t really even know what kinds of seafood — or exotic wildlife or rare habitats — might be there. The same situation unfolded in the last half of the 20th century off the coast of West Africa when Asian and European fleets won agreements from local governments that allowed them to decimate both wildlife and local fishing economies. What was once a hotspot of marine diversity and a source of food for Africans was irreversibly damaged.

You might not hear about the situation in Belize in the news because, for the most part, it hasn’t been made public. I know about it because my organization, Oceana, opened its Central American office in Belize City last year. I’ve been assured by Dean Barrow, the prime minister, that no Jamaican deal will move forward, and my Belizean colleagues are pushing for a comprehensive policy to protect the country’s waters from exploitation by foreign fleets.

Belize’s reef system is part of the great Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the largest after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and we must ensure a healthy future for the people and wildlife that depend on it.

In a disappointing move, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee gave its blessing for offshore drilling in Florida last week, potentially opening Florida’s coasts to oil and gas development.

This is a major reversal that reneges on the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, which offered the oil and gas industry rights to 8.2 million acres in the eastern Gulf in exchange for the protection of coastal eastern Gulf waters. It also precluded drilling in the remainder of the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle from 125 to 150 miles from shore.

This agreement was supposed to remain in place until 2022, but would be undone if this bill becomes law.

You should expect to hear the argument, again, that we need offshore drilling to keep gas prices down – that the state of the economy requires it. I wonder, then, how drilling hawks will respond if a spill devastates Florida’s beaches or reefs. According to a federal study, tourism contributes $40 billion to Florida’s economy each year and supports half a million jobs.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency has predicted that offshore drilling, even at peak production, will save consumers just pennies at the gas pump. And that’s assuming the gas even gets sold to Americans rather than China, India or any of the other increasingly energy-hungry countries in the world. Not to mention that it will take years for peak production to be realized and for any economic changes to be felt.

To open Florida’s shores to drilling sets us up to accept all the risks of oil and gas development without any of the promised benefits. Lower gas prices and energy security from offshore drilling are mirages at a time when fossil fuels are increasingly outdated – and with this news from Florida, your favorite beach could be the next one threatened by offshore drilling.

On Wednesday, the Mercury Pollution Reduction Act (HR 2190) passed a subcommittee vote that allows it to now be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce committee. The majority of bills die, unsung, in subcommittees. Now the act, which would phase out mercury pollution from chlorine plants within two years of its passage, has a very good fighting chance at becoming law.

In the process, two amendments that would have seriously crippled this important bill were defeated. Olin Corporation, which owns two mercury-polluting plants, fought to have the deadline for mercury phaseout pushed back to 2020. Another amendment would have allowed companies to continue exporting mercury until 2013, when a ban goes into effect, essentially creating a “fire sale” on mercury.

The bill’s progress represents an important milestone in the fight against mercury pollution, which eventually seeps into our seafood at levels dangerous to women of childbearing age and children.

In 2005 nine chlorine plants in the U.S. still used outdated technology that resulted in mercury emitted into our atmosphere and waterways. Five have switched to cleaner technology or shut down, and we’re working hard on the final “Foul Four.”

And there’s no time to waste. In March, a new federal report found that mercury levels in the Pacific had increased in the past 20 years due to human activity, and levels are expected to double by the middle of this century unless we can control mercury emissions. And just last month, Oceana reported that the public health costs of mercury poisoning have cost the U.S. $24 million in lost economic productivity.

I can sense that the tide is turning against needless mercury pollution. As a senator, President Obama was an early supporter of ending these toxic emissions, and he has already signaled that he’s ready to tackle mercury on an international level.

Recently, I read about a professor at Columbia who teaches a course about the signs of the apocalypse. With the financial collapse and threats of a swine flu pandemic in mind, he told the New Yorker he decided to create the class because “now seemed like a good time.”

I don’t know if Professor Taussig’s students have looked toward the oceans for signs of the apocalypse, but if they do, the students will find unsettling news coming from the marine world. Whether you believe in end times or not, the oceans are sending clear signals that they are in distress.

In Chile alone, a trio of strange occurrences has unsettled scientists and observers in recent weeks. More than a thousand dead penguins were found on a southern beach, followed by tons of dead sardines so smelly that schools were forced to close. Lastly, thousands of rare flamingos abandoned their nests, leaving 2,000 chicks to die.

Elsewhere on the planet, the ocean throws up another mystery. In California, hundreds of emaciated seabirds, mostly Brandt’s cormorants, littered beaches in a dozen locations early in May in perhaps another example of Hungry Oceans.

And as summer approaches, we can expect more curiosities from the sea. Jellyfish swarms thrive in warm water, and vast glowing herds will most likely create a stir again this year, much as they did when a swarm killed 100,000 salmon in pens off Northern Ireland. Arctic ice will probably shrink as far or even further than recent record-breaking years.

A scientist may shrug her shoulders when you ask what is causing these strange phenomena to happen. She also may say it could have something to do with human intervention. After all, less than four percent of the oceans remains untouched by human activity. Overfishing, pollution and global warming have thrown the oceans out of whack, resulting in an increasing number of unsettling sights like the starved seabirds on our beaches.

I like to think positively, though. Fish populations have demonstrated the ability to rebound once fishing pressure backs off, and simple habitat protection can ensure that diverse marine ecosystems thrive. We have the ability to reduce our carbon footprint, if leaders and industry find the will.

So is this the apocalypse? Probably not. A wake-up call is more like it – and it’s one we should not ignore.

In the minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez poured 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The spill turned pristine spruce-lined waters into a sticky death trap for countless animals, including a quarter of a million birds.

Yet two decades later, the lessons of Exxon Valdez have not been learned. Our oceans and wildlife are no safer from catastrophic oil spills at a time when fossil fuel-based energy makes less sense than ever.

After Exxon Valdez, President George H.W. Bush enacted moratoria on new drilling on the outer continental shelf of the lower 48 states. An earlier Congressional moratorium on the outer continental shelf lapsed in 2008, and the second President Bush lifted the executive moratorium. This left the coasts of the Lower 48 unprotected from oil exploration.

In addition, previously inaccessible Arctic waters have proven irresistible to oil and gas speculators. Unprecedented summer ice loss due to global warming has opened the Chukchi and the neighboring Beaufort Sea to exploration and, inevitably, exploitation.

Coming from a coastal state, former Washington Governor Gary Locke should appreciate the importance of our oceans to the people of the United States and the health of our nation’s economy.

The port of Seattle is home to one of the largest and most profitable fishing fleets in the world, and the majority of Washingtonians live along the beautiful Puget Sound, where people enjoy scuba diving in kelp beds, fishing for salmon, and watching killer whales.

As governor, Locke supported ecosystem-based management of the oceans and the protection of sensitive ocean habitat areas; he emphasized the need for scientific information to form the foundation for management decisions.

He successfully dealt with complex ocean management decisions during his critical work on the Pacific Salmon Treaty with Canada, and was a champion for ocean funding for the protection of marine animals including killer whales and salmon.

With his background in dealing with complex ocean issues and commitment to putting science at the forefront of decisions, Locke should make an excellent Secretary of Commerce. Joined by the lauded scientist Dr. Jane Lubchenco — also from the Pacific Northwest — who is to become the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we could have two ocean champions at the helm of our nation’s most important ocean department.

Facing dramatic evidence of climate change in the Arctic, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted unanimously on Thursday to prevent the expansion of industrial fishing into all U.S. waters north of the Bering Strait. There are no large-scale commercial fisheries currently operating in the U.S. Arctic, and now there won’t be.

Nearly 200,000 square miles of pristine Arctic waters — an area bigger than California — will remain untouched by the extensive fishing nets, miles of hooked longlines, and destructive bottom trawls of industrial fishing. This means that the unknown but crucial fish species such as Arctic cod will stay put as the heart of the ecosystem.

The decision, which follows years of work by conservation groups including Oceana, Audubon Alaska, Ocean Conservancy, and the Pew Environment Group, is precedent-setting: It’s one of the largest precautionary measures in fisheries history.

As we’ve all heard by now, climate change is causing the Arctic to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to a dramatic reduction in Arctic sea ice cover. As previously ice-covered waters beckon to new industry, and fish populations expand northward in search of cooler waters, commercial fishing was inevitably headed for the Arctic’s watery frontier. Not anymore. The Council’s decision will prevent such expansion unless and until science shows that commercial fishing would not threaten the health of Arctic ecosystems or opportunities for the subsistence way of life critical to indigenous peoples.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to approve the Council’s decision and issue final regulations later this year. And once the Obama administration approves it, the United States will be — dare I say it? — a leader in Arctic conservation.

I’m celebrating today, but commercial fisheries aren’t the only industry threatening the survival of the Arctic. Will the drilling and shipping industries follow suit in freezing their Arctic footprints? Let’s hope so.

Fishermen in Hawaii who set longlines studded with thousands of hooks over dozens of miles often snag the whales — actually large dolphins — instead of their desired tuna or swordfish. Even the federal government, in the form of the National Marine Fisheries Service, acknowledges that the false killer whale is seriously threatened by longline fishing. NMFS has named the whale a top priority for protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

In 2004, NMFS determined the fishery was killing false killer whales at a level that mandated action under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, yet the agency has yet to attempt to solve the problem. The Hawaiian longline fishery continues killing false killer whales, unabatedly.

And this isn’t an isolated scenario. In a scathing new report [PDF], the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that NMFS has failed to follow through on the directives of the Marine Mammal Protection Act on numerous levels, primarily thanks to a lack of funding and inadequate data.

The GAO found 30 marine mammal stocks that met the requirements for protection under the MMPA, starting with a team of scientists, fishermen, and others to develop a plan. As of 2009, the fisheries agency has established teams for only 16 of these 30 stocks. The 14 remaining stocks include a variety of charismatic megafauna, from bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, to sperm whales in Hawaii and Steller sea lions in the North Pacific — all left vulnerable to commercial fishing.

It gets worse. NMFS lacks a human-caused mortality estimate or a maximum allowable removal level on 1 in 3 of the 113 marine mammal stocks that the agency has identified as “critical,” or facing serious threats from commercial fishing

So what’s the problem here? why can’t NMFS gather basic data on the animals it’s required by law to protect?

It boils down to this — a lack of funding for stock assessments and fisheries observers. Just 27 percent of fisheries that most affect marine mammals have adequate or near-adequate observer coverage, meaning on-board scientists to record the deaths of marine mammals. Without observers, NMFS must rely on anecdotal evidence or outdated data — sometimes eight or more years old — to determine the effects of commercial fishing on marine mammals. Because of this paucity of data, NMFS can’t calculate fishery-related mortality for more than half of the animals it is ordered to protect.

And, perhaps more critically, it means NMFS doesn’t really know whether marine mammal populations are thriving or not.

The GAO rightfully observes that the challenge here is “very large, complex, and difficult.” An infusion of much-needed cash from the new administration could help get NMFS on its feet.

In the meantime, here’s a call to all would-be secretaries of the Commerce Department, which oversees our national fisheries: Come on over; you’ll have an opportunity to champion some of the world’s most beloved underwater creatures.

These are among the last places on the planet where you can still see sharks and other top predators in something like a healthy state. President Bush — and the Pew Environment Group, Marine Conservation Biology Institute and Environmental Defense Fund, who worked so hard for these monuments — can be justifiably proud of the results.

It’s easy to point out that the protected areas around the 10 islands could have been 16-times larger if Bush had included the full 200-mile exclusive economic zone in the monuments. As National Geographic scientist Enric Sala points out, there’s no magic scientific line at 50 miles. It looks more like a political line to me.

And I can’t help but observe that those same corals now protected as national monuments are still at grave risk from climate change and ocean acidification, which the Bush administration studiously ignored for its full eight-year term. The incoming Obama administration, then, certainly has some opportunities to finish the job.

Still, it would be churlish not to give credit where it is due, and President Bush certainly deserves credit for acting when there was no political benefit to be gained; even his own vice president opposed creating the monument. When you add the roughly 335,000 square-mile-area in the Pacific that is now protected from virtually all fishing to the nearly 700,000 square miles he closed to bottom trawling, the most destructive kind of fishing gear, this president has given future generations an ocean gift nearly the size of Texas and Alaska combined.

That’s something for which all of us who are working to protect and restore our oceans can be grateful.

In recent years, NOAA has ignored scientists’ advice when it comes to setting quotas for some of our most vulnerable fish species, favoring commercial interests over conservation. With a scientist like Lubchenco in charge, I hope that NOAA will start to take a more scientific tack in its management.

Lubchenco, a well-regarded researcher and professor, will have her hands full. America’s fisheries are among the best-managed in the world, but that’s just because there’s not much competition.

Take the recent ICCAT negotiations in Marrakech, for example, where the body charged with preserving eastern bluefin tuna potentially condemned the species to commercial extinction by setting a quota double scientists’ recommendations.

America’s salmon stocks are still reeling from this year’s mysterious crash. Alaska pollock, often considered an example in good fishery management for the rest of the world, not only wastes salmon as bycatch but also faces sudden declines of its own. Meanwhile, the Chesapeake soft shell and peeler blue crab fisheries are in such poor shape that watermen are now eligible for $20 million in federal bailout money.

But with Lubchenco at the helm, I have renewed hope. Protecting seafood species isn’t complicated. Given a chance, most fish species will rebound to healthy levels, but only if they get relief from unrealistic fishing pressure. A clear-eyed scientist like Lubchenco can steer America’s fisheries to health because she recognizes the stakes. As she told the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin:

The oceans have long been thought to be so vast and bountiful that they must be impervious to human depredation. The evidence is now overwhelming that even the immense oceans are depleted and disrupted. Turns out that oceans are more vulnerable — and more valuable — than we thought.