Editor’s Note: This is the fifth post in the Sea Shapes Us Series, focused on how humans depend on the living and non-living bounty of the sea and the policies that balance these uses. In it, guest blogger Zac Hart looks at South Carolina’s rice industry. In coastal South Carolina, the sea gave rise to an industry that would define the early history of the state and leave a lasting cultural impression. That industry was rice. By 1700, colonists in the South Carolina “Lowcountry” foun...

For centuries the people who lived on the south coast of Oregon have relied on the ocean to sustain their way of life. No place has the salty Pacific been more a part of life than Port Orford.

Most often when people hear “fishing” they think of sport and commercial fishing. Both activities are known to generate high economic gains for coastal economies. There is an entirely different type of activity—subsistence and ceremonial fishing—that extends far beyond economic gains.

At times the ocean’s vastness and plight may seem too great to comprehend or change, but there are still special places in the sea where authentic involvement allows people to rediscover their connections to nature and heritage through profound personal experiences—the most powerful and enduring kind of learning and engagement.

As a life-long surfer and the Environmental Director at the Surfrider Foundation, I am keenly interested in how coastal communities think about surfing areas and their contribution to the local economy.