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Duke Marine Lab Director to Give 2002 Revelle Lecture

Michael K. Orbach, professor of the practice of marine affairs and policy and director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, has been selected to give the 2002 Roger Revelle Memorial Lecture sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences’ Ocean Studies Board (OSB).

Orbach, the fourth lecturer and the first social scientist in the Revelle series, will present “Beyond the Freedom of the Seas: Ocean Policy for the Third Millennium.”

The OSB created the lecture series in honor of the late Roger Revelle, the first head of the Office of Naval Research’s geophysics branch and director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography for 12 years. The OSB chooses speakers and topics to highlight the important links between oceans sciences and public policy. This year’s Revelle lecture will be Nov. 13 at the National Academy of Sciences Auditorium in Washington, D.C. It is open to the public.

Orbach, who knew Revelle, said his talk will pick up on an earlier Scientific American article written by the noted oceanographer as the introduction to a 1969 special magazine issue devoted to the ocean.

In his speech Orbach will tackle the controversial topic of governance of the sea. Countries worldwide may govern fishing rights, marine environmental protection and scientific research within 200 nautical miles of their shores, but on the high seas, there is no uniform regulatory authority. “We can no longer afford the freedom of the seas policy that has been in place for the past 1,000 years,” he said. “Our ability to exploit the resources of the ocean, our ability to pollute the oceans, is so great that we are going to have to extend some sort of more formal governance to the high seas, and closer governance to all of the world’s oceans.”

Orbach said he will discuss how a new governance system might work that would shift the “burden of proof” standards now accepted on the oceans. “We need to have licensing and permitting for all ocean activities, with the burden of proof for a safe environment on those who want to take the action,” said Orbach.

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