When Obama administration officials came to Providence last fall to solicit comments on creation of a new national ocean policy, more than 250 people jammed the Rhode Island Convention Center and 70 requested the opportunity to speak.

And in what was a sharp counterpoint to nearly every other national issue, virtually every speaker strongly supported creation of a national ocean policy.

Last week, their wishes came true.

President Obama signed an executive order creating the first National Ocean Policy in the nation’s history.

Two of its major recommendations — marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management — were prominent themes for the people who came from as far as Maine and North Carolina to testify in Providence.

Rhode Island is considered a national leader in marine spatial planning with its new Special Area Management Plan to determine the best place to locate a giant wind farm in state and federal waters offshore. The state is spending nearly $10 million to study fisheries, geology, recreational uses, shipping and many other activities that go on along the coast.

Governor Carcieri and Coastal Resources Management Council Chairman Michael Tikoian recently announced that the study’s completion would be rolled back from August to October, a relatively minor delay considering the complexity of the work.

Not long after the highly publicized fish kill in Greenwich Bay in the summer of 2003, the state also enacted sweeping legislation calling for ecosystem-based management — a protocol for managing an environment in a holistic way, rather than the conventional species-by-species manner.

State budget and staffing cuts have stood in the way of major management changes. But the state did create the Rhode Island Bays, Rivers and Watersheds Coordination Team that works to bring agencies together to deal with marine issues.

John Torgan, Save the Bay’s baykeeper, said he was excited to see so much of what was recommended by Rhode Island ocean experts incorporated in the new policy.

Some feared the Deepwater oil spill would get in the way of implementation of the policy, Torgan said, because the spill is a crisis while the policy is a long-term, somewhat “wonky” document.

But the policy was enacted anyway, he said, and now the challenge will be in putting it to work.

Heather Leslie, a biology professor at Brown University, also testified at the oceans hearing and she thought the administration’s Oceans Task Force did a tremendous job of producing a document in such a short period of time.

She said she thinks the new policy will go a long way toward helping people see the connections among abundant seafood, clean water, safe beaches and coastal development.

“The new policy provides an opportunity to be pro-active in managing ocean resources, which is a real shift from what we have been doing. If you look at the BP spill, everything there has been reactive,” Leslie said.

The new policy charges the Northeast Regional Oceans Council, an already existing group, to draw up a planning document for New England waters. Leslie said Rhode Island and Massachusetts are already way out in front with coastal planning.

What’s more, she and her students at Brown have already worked with the Oceans Council by critiquing some of its work. Leslie said she would be delighted to continue playing an advisory role.

There is no mistaking the reaction of the Conservation Law Foundation, a regional environmental advocacy group. Just look at its Web site.

“Obama Stands Up for America’s Oceans,” reads a headline.

“This is a first for the United States,” says Priscilla Brooks, vice president and director of CLF’s ocean conservation program. “This is the first-ever national ocean policy. It is the first time the U.S. government has said it will be the policy of the United States to manage the health, sustainability and biological diversity of the oceans. That’s profound.”

She said the policy will be transferred into action through the regional ocean-mapping efforts that extend out to 200 miles offshore. The new policy sets timelines for completing the marine-mapping projects.

“With their planning work so far, Massachusetts and Rhode Island really had a big influence on the national ocean policy recommendations,” Brooks said. “It’s really terrific. It’s a complicated process, but in this region we’ve shown we know how to do it.”

plord@projo.com