One small step for man

One sensible step for a town:

The small Australian town of Bundanoon has become the first place in the country, and possibly the world, to ban the sale of bottled water.

Residents of the town southwest of Sydney voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ban on Wednesday night.

Local businesses have agreed to stop selling bottled water and free water fountains will now be installed in the town.

The voluntary boycott was triggered by concerns of the environmental impact of bottling and transporting water.

"Bottled water has a role to play in various parts of Australia and many parts of the world but we don't really need it as we have a wonderful municipal water supply," local businessman Huw Kingston, who led the campaign, told Reuters news agency.

One larger sensible step for a nation:

But the oceans, like the land, have gotten crowded, and now scientists and policy makers are looking for ways to plan ocean development -- with the aim of preventing our public-owned seas from turning into sprawling, watery versions of Houston, Texas, or Atlanta, Georgia.

"The oceans are kind of the last frontier for use and development," said Amanda Leland, ocean policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. "Even in the 1970s we thought that the oceans were limitless resources of fish. We know today now that fisheries are collapsing all around the world."

In an attempt to address this and other crowding problems, governments are for the first time devising comprehensive plans for their marine waters.

The Obama administration on June 12 announced a task force devoted to federal ocean planning. By September, the group must recommend a national policy on the subject that's designed to protect ocean ecology, address climate change and promote sustainable ocean economies.