[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 216 (Thursday, November 9, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 77369-77371]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-24839]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Request for Information: National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy

AGENCY: National Science Foundation.

ACTION: Notice of request for information.

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SUMMARY: The National Science Foundation, on behalf of the National 
Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Ocean Science and 
Technology (SOST), requests input from all interested parties to inform 
the development of a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy (Strategy), 
covering the genetic lineages, species, habitats, and ecosystems of 
United States (U.S.) ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters. The 
Strategy will strengthen the knowledge foundation and coordination on 
which federal agencies and other parties can align priorities and 
investments toward more cost-effective and successful solutions to the 
increasing challenges that require information on biodiversity and 
living resources. The Strategy will align research and monitoring on 
ocean life for safe and sustainable management, conservation, 
development, and climate solutions; and improve delivery of 
biodiversity information to support wise

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management and the growing ocean economy. Through this request for 
information (RFI), SOST seeks input on the foundational elements of a 
Strategy for delivering needed knowledge and implementing effective 
stewardship of ocean life. Those elements will include actions federal 
agencies should take to collect, coordinate, and deliver information 
for policy, investment, development, and management, to better align 
ocean biodiversity investments and policy with societal needs for both 
use and protection of living resources, ensuring benefits to society 
across sectors and from local to international levels.

DATES: Responses are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on February 28, 
2024. Responses received after this deadline may not be taken into 
consideration.

ADDRESSES: Interested individuals and organizations should submit 
comments electronically to [email protected] and include 
``RFI: Public Comment on the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy'' in 
the subject line of the message. Submissions should be machine readable 
in PDF or Word format and should not be locked or password protected. 
All submissions must be in English.
    Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each individual or 
organization is requested to submit only one response. Commenters can 
respond to one or many of the questions described below. Submissions 
are suggested to not exceed the equivalent of five (5) pages in 12 
point or larger font. Submissions should clearly indicate which 
questions are being addressed. Responses should include the name of the 
person(s) or organization(s) filing the response. Responses containing 
references, studies, research, and other empirical data that are not 
widely published should include copies of or electronic links to the 
referenced materials. Responses containing profanity, vulgarity, 
threats, or other inappropriate language or content will not be 
considered.
    SOST agencies may post responses to the RFI, without change, on 
their websites and may use the information received as they see fit. 
NSF therefore requests that no business proprietary information, 
copyrighted information, or personally identifiable information be 
submitted in response to the RFI. The U.S. Government will not pay for 
the responsible preparation or for the use of any information contained 
in the response.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information, please 
contact Gabrielle Canonico, National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, [email protected], telephone: (240) 533-9452, 
and/or Emmett Duffy, Smithsonian Institution, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    People are an integral part of nature and vice versa. Even in the 
continental heartland, our lives, livelihoods, health, and identities 
depend on the ocean's biodiversity, meaning the variety of life in all 
its aspects--species, genetic lineages, habitats, and associated 
ecosystems and interactions--from the sea surface to the deep ocean, 
the coasts, and the Great Lakes, and from microbes to whales. These 
living resources provide our food, clean air and water, a favorable 
climate, recreational and cultural benefits, and critical resources and 
economic opportunities. Indeed the U.S. ocean economy supports 2.4 
million jobs across multiple sectors including fishing, tourism, 
shipping, and energy generation, which contributed $397 billion to the 
U.S. gross domestic product in 2019. Much of that economic engine is 
driven by living organisms.
    Our natural heritage, and the ways of life that it supports, are in 
crisis. A comprehensive analysis reports that around 1 million species 
worldwide face extinction, many within decades, unless aggressive 
action is taken to reduce drivers of biodiversity loss in the near 
future. The biodiversity crisis is closely intertwined with the ongoing 
crises of climate change and inequity among people, and it is 
increasingly clear that these challenges must be approached together to 
reach lasting, just solutions that support human health, economies, 
national security, and other domestic and global challenges. To address 
them we need biological intelligence: trusted, accessible, and 
scientifically rigorous inventories and knowledge of ocean species and 
habitats, their interactions, and the ecosystem functions and services 
to people that they support.
    That knowledge will come from long-term monitoring of biodiversity 
and associated environmental drivers and conditions, strategically 
located across the nation's expansive marine territory. These 
activities are critical to the ability of managers, rights holders, and 
resource users to make decisions that effectively steward uses of the 
ocean, track change in its vital signs, design effective climate 
solutions, and grow the ocean economy. But we are far from that goal. 
Information on ocean life and ecosystems is currently collected by many 
parties using a wide range of methods; the data are heterogeneous, 
generally not coordinated, and often not shared. Resulting information 
products are routinely created without engaging users `on the ground' 
and with poor understanding of their needs for actionable information. 
This lack of coordination and interoperability wastes limited resources 
and harms our ability to effectively sustain multiple uses of a healthy 
ocean. As a result, relevant information about many aspects of ocean 
life and ecosystem services is unavailable or inaccessible.
    The Strategy will address these challenges by facilitating, 
streamlining, and coordinating the delivery of knowledge on ocean life 
and ecosystems to develop ocean spaces sustainably, including advancing 
conservation plans and decision processes jointly by co-design with 
resource users and rights-holders. It will advance capacity to forecast 
changes in ocean life and the ecosystem services it provides by 
ensuring that data are comparable and shared across sectors 
(government, non-governmental organizations, private, academic) and 
regions (subnational, national, international), much as weather data 
are shared across international meteorological organizations to enable 
nowcasts and accurate forecasts that are widely used on a daily basis.

Scoping and Developing a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy

    The SOST is developing this Strategy because the linked climate, 
biodiversity, and equity crises have created an urgent need for 
biological information that can enable coordinated responses and 
solutions. Equally important, leveraging the exponentially growing 
quantity and variety of ocean biodiversity information for human well-
being requires integration with biogeochemistry, physics, geology, and 
social and economic data to locate both people and the rest of nature 
in integrated knowledge systems that support effective, just, and 
sustainable development and conservation.
    The U.S. has one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the 
world, with a comparable wealth of biodiversity and living resources. 
Collecting and delivering the necessary biodiversity knowledge at this 
national scale is an ambitious goal that requires rapid, large-scale, 
cross-sectoral advances in facilitating integration of communities, 
sectors, and information types. It must engage all Americans, including 
Tribal Nations, Indigenous communities, and local communities. Delivery 
of information needs to be in

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forms tailored to decision contexts, informed by and readily 
understandable by those interested in using the information.
    Rapidly advancing technology is one road to reaching that ambition. 
Emerging technologies now enable biomolecular classification of 
organisms, tracking of animal migration and behavior through tagging, 
acoustics, imaging, and remote sensing across previously impossible 
scales of geography and time. The resulting timely, accessible, and 
accurate information on ocean life is fundamental for our social and 
economic security at all levels of governance. It is also fundamental 
to maintain international leadership as needs for food, water, and 
other resources continue to grow.
    Achieving these goals requires better coordinating data and 
information sharing and resulting actions among federal agencies, 
states, tribal communities, academic, and private sector initiatives. 
The Strategy aims to provide the critical science, data, and knowledge 
essential to guide long-term conservation based on best evidence, and 
to make it more accessible to support a collaborative and inclusive 
approach. The Strategy will identify information users and engage with 
them to understand what information they find useful, and in what 
forms. The Strategy will support consistent and reliable assembly and 
management of ocean biodiversity data that is necessary, but currently 
lacking, for ongoing federal activities, such as the first National 
Nature Assessment, Natural Capital Accounting efforts, the National 
Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, advancing Nature-Based 
Solutions, development of a National eDNA Strategy, and the Ocean 
Climate Action Plan, consistent with FAIR and CARE principles.
    Developing and implementing the National Ocean Biodiversity 
Strategy will advance more cost-effective, strategic, nimble, and 
equitable management of the nation's living marine resources and 
cultural heritage. Importantly, the Strategy will support solutions to 
the intertwined equity crisis by engaging and supporting Indigenous 
Knowledge and prioritizing cross-sector user needs from local to 
national levels.
    The Strategy also seeks to strengthen and increase visibility of 
U.S. leadership in global initiatives focused on solutions to the 
climate and biodiversity crises. Specifically, the High Level Panel for 
a Sustainable Ocean Economy acknowledged the pressing need for national 
contributions to a globally coordinated effort to collect information 
on ocean biodiversity and on extinction risk, and highlighted the need 
to support long-term biodiversity monitoring. Similarly, U.S. 
leadership of a number of programs and activities within the UN Decade 
of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development supports emerging 
communities of practice and the development of harmonized, standards-
based approaches to address this need directly.

Themes and Questions To Inform the Development of the Strategy

    Respondents may provide information for one or as many topics below 
as they choose. Submissions should clearly indicate which questions are 
being addressed. The Strategy will be developed by an interagency 
working group under SOST that is co-led by the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in 
partnership with the Smithsonian Institution and other federal 
agencies. The working group seeks input from Tribal Nations, local, 
State, federal and Territorial governments, the private sector, 
academia, non-governmental organizations, a wide range of stakeholders, 
and the public on high-level goals and how to achieve them in the 
following areas:

Coordination and Priority Setting

     What are the most pressing topics and considerations for 
the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy to address?
     What actions can federal agencies take to facilitate the 
harmonization of ocean biodiversity investments and policy to ensure 
benefits across all sectors?

Science, Technology, and Information

     What are the priority needs and most promising approaches 
in science and technology to provide useful information on ocean 
biodiversity (species, genetic lineages, habitats, ecosystems) and the 
ecosystem processes and services they support?
     How can we best align the efforts of knowledge holders 
with the needs of knowledge users?
     How can ocean biodiversity data be made more usable and 
available? Which existing mechanisms or repositories could be 
leveraged?

Capacity Building and Community Engagement

     How could public and private partnerships be developed or 
enhanced to explore and characterize ocean life, which existing 
partnerships could be leveraged, and how might opportunities for 
participation by diverse parties in such partnerships be maximized?
     What are the key needs for training and education to 
improve broad knowledge and stewardship of ocean life?
     How could the public be engaged in developing and 
implementing improved understanding and stewardship of ocean life?
     Is there anything else you would like to be considered in 
the development of the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy?

    Dated: November 6, 2023.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2023-24839 Filed 11-8-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P