Dan Haifley, Our Ocean Backyard: The benefits of national marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments
On April 28, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to open up much of the U.S. coastline to offshore oil development, as well as to review new, or expansions of existing, marine national monuments or national marine sanctuaries established since April 28, 2007.
The review of monuments and sanctuaries, done to determine whether they interfered with the administration’s goal of resource extraction, was completed in August but its conclusions haven’t been made public.
I’ve argued in this space that NOAA’s system of 13 national marine sanctuaries and two marine national monuments, as well as marine national monuments managed by other federal agencies, provide a variety of useful tools for site-specific ocean management to protect habitats and the diverse array of life that inhabit them. I often did so referencing an excellent article published by former National Marine Sanctuary Foundation director Jason Patlis and now, a four-page paper published in June 2018 by seven authors titled “Safe Harbors: The Many Benefits of Marine Monuments and Sanctuaries” provides a high level view of the emerging field of ocean management.
The article was published just before the introduction by Rep. Jimmy Panetta of a proposed law that would establish the governance of U.S. ocean areas with an emphasis on managing their bio-diversity, very much as Panetta’s predecessor Sam Farr had done. Farr’s efforts led then-President Barack Obama to establish an ocean policy by the executive branch, which was recently extensively re-written by President Donald Trump to emphasize resource extraction.
The article points out that all the benefits provided by U.S. ocean areas that enjoy various levels of protection include fishing and other resource extraction, which in turn rely on “functioning ecosystems.” Arguments have been made that sanctuaries and monuments do not add value beyond existing non-extractive economic activities such as diving, tourism and marine mammal watching. In other words, if this was not a sanctuary, wouldn’t there still be whale watching? This line of reasoning ignores the benefits that sanctuary and monument protection add through research and resource protection, which reduces the threats posed to those industries by, for example, oil spills and increases the public’s knowledge through research and education. The education mission of monuments and sanctuaries also enriches the public’s knowledge of the resources that exist, and the benefits provided by, their ocean.
The article also provides some recommendations to federal resource managers and to policy makers on strengthening and diversifying that tool box for ocean protection. Many states, such as California, Oregon and Washington, have taken steps ahead in the absence of federal government action to protect the ocean. A great example is the work being done by the California Ocean Protection Council chaired by Natural Resources Agency Secretary John Laird, to fight ocean acidification, plastic pollution and to manage ocean bio diversity. In fact, the staffs of federally protected areas such as sanctuaries and monuments establish partnerships with state and local governments as well as nonprofits and businesses to implement programs. An example being Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary staff’s work with multiple public agencies under an agreement to protect water quality.
To read the “Safe Harbors” article, visit frontiersin.org.
Dan Haifley is executive director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey. He can be reached at dhaifley@oneillseaodyssey.org.
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http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20180714/NEWS/180719880
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