Two years after it was first proposed, an aquaculture license has been approved for a half-acre oyster farm at Jobs Cove in Marion's outer harbor.

Selectmen on Tuesday approved the license after discussing with owners Christopher and Benjamin Bryant the plan's recent permits granted by the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, the state's Division of Marine Fisheries and the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9, 2012 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm

Dartmouth -- Sonya Bradford wouldn't shop anywhere else for the produce and meats she uses in her catering business. All of it, with the exception of olive oil and some spices, is from local farms.

Bradford will likely make the locally sourced chili at the fifth annual Agriculture and Food Conference slated for Feb. 25 at Bristol Agricultural High School in Dighton. Admission includes lunch prepared by Green Gal Catering, a company Bradford started in 2007 with a goal of using only local goods and recycling as much of the waste as possible.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9, 2012 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm

Federal regulators on Friday said they're seeking offshore wind developers who want to build inside a newly redrawn zone of ocean off Massachusetts, which they pitched as a prime spot for wind farms.

Regulators had originally proposed opening up a larger area south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. But after objections, including from commercial fishermen whose businesses would be affected by fields of turbines, they cut the area by more than half, to about 850,000 acres. Read more here.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm

FAIRHAVEN -- Although a proposal to stop the town's wind turbine project is on next week's Special Town Meeting warrant, it's unlikely to have any impact on the turbine project.

Even if Town Meeting wanted to reverse its 2007 vote, it could no longer do so legally, town officials said. Read more here.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm

While Occupy Wall Street and big-city spinoffs such as Occupy Boston no longer physically occupy plots of land, the spirit of the movement has caught traction in the suburbs.

North of Boston, grass-roots Occupy chapters have sprouted in Somerville, Malden, Salem, Lowell, and Woburn, and on Cape Ann. Read more here.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm

Frustrated by years of delay in issuing reports, the Coalition for Buzzards Bay has retained a Boston law firm to help conduct an inquiry into the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, alleging mismanagement by the University of Massachusetts School of Marine Sciences and Technology.

UMass spokesman John Hoey, meanwhile, counters that a combination of factors has contributed to the delays: tight funding or no funding from the state in some years, the scientific challenges, and often flawed data of land use, particularly on the mainland side of Buzzards Bay. Data from Cape Cod was of higher quality because the Cape Cod Commission has been studying these issues for a long time, the parties agreed. Read more here.

Sustainability Almanac - February 9 - February 16, 2012 http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/almanac/2012_02_09.htm