NOAA Fisheries Issues Final Rule to Protect Pacific Marine National Monuments from Illegal Fishing
CONTACT:
William Chandler, Conservation Advisor
703-851-9931 cell
202-546-5346 office
william.chandler@marine-conservation.org
marine-conservation.org
Washington DC (June 3, 2103) - Today, after a four-year process, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published final fishing regulations for the Marianas Trench, Pacific Remote Islands, and Rose Atoll Marine National Monuments, which were established by President George W. Bush just before he left office in January 2009. Consistent with President Bush’s proclamations, the regulations prohibit commercial fishing within the monuments, but allow recreational and non-commercial fishing under certain guidelines. The rule takes effect on July 3, 2013.
The Pacific marine national monuments span approximately 195,000 square miles of ocean and small coral islands, which provide prime habitat for a diverse array of marine and terrestrial species, including whales, valuable fisheries, and millions of seabirds. Many of the islands within the monuments, such as Rose Atoll in American Samoa and Palmyra Atoll, are units of the National Wildlife Refuge System, which is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
“It’s great to see the rule finally issued,” said William Chandler, Conservation Advisor to the Marine Conservation Institute. “These areas are supposed to be safe havens from commercial exploitation, but without codified no-fishing regulations, the government was not able to prosecute illegal fishing that was known or suspected to be occurring.”
The Marine Conservation Institute actively supported the designation of several Pacific marine national monuments, and has been working for four years to have them formally protected from illegal fishing, vessel groundings, and trespass. In February 2012, the Marine Conservation Institute filed a petition for rulemaking to the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior. The petition requested that NMFS and the US Fish and Wildlife Service promptly issue regulations prohibiting commercial fishing within the Pacific marine national monuments. The petition was never answered, but today’s rule makes the petition moot.
“In addition to the fishing regulations,” said Chandler, “NOAA needs to move quickly to plot monument boundaries on US nautical charts and describe these areas in official navigation guides and other relevant publications. This is the best way to notify and educate mariners that the monuments are legally protected,” continued Chandler. “These simple acts by NOAA will go a long way towards preventing illegal activities and groundings in the monuments.” Chandler noted that the boundaries of US protected areas are customarily delineated on NOAA charts to alert mariners when they are inside legally protected marine areas.
The following map provides a general overview of the location of the marine national monuments in the Western Pacific. [Note: Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is covered by separate fishing regulations and not included in the new regulations.]
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Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization is a nonprofit, science-based organization dedicated to saving wild ocean places, for us and future generations. See www.marine-conservation.org.
First-Ever National Ranking Shows Most Coastal States Failing to Protect Oceans
CONTACT:
Dr. Elliott Norse, Chief Scientist
425 968 0449
elliott.norse@marine-conservation.org
marine-conservation.org
CONTACT:
Laura Cassiani, COO
415 693 3177
lcassiani@mission-blue.org
mission-blue.org
Seattle WA - Today two leading marine science and conservation organizations, the Marine Conservation Institute and Mission Blue, issued the 1st-ever quantitative, scientifically rigorous national ranking of states’ protection of their ocean waters. SeaStates: How Well Does Your State Protect Your Coastal Waters? shows that most states and territories are failing to safeguard our nation’s marine life, seafood and coasts.
Oceans are crucial to our health and economy. Coastal counties include only 5.71% of the area in the lower 48 states but generate 35.54% of the Gross Domestic Product. Indeed, coastal counties generate $7,992 more GDP per person than inland and Great Lakes counties.
“Despite so many threats to their health, states are failing to protect our ocean waters,” said Dr. Lance Morgan, President of the Marine Conservation Institute. “No-take marine protected areas are the gold-standard for healthy oceans, but far too few states and territories are designating them.”
SeaStates measures the percentage of state’s waters they strongly protect. Being free from fishing, oil drilling and other extractive uses allows marine life in no-take marine reserves to thrive and recover their former abundance. That’s crucial because marine animals and plants maintain healthy oceans essential to people. As coastal areas face increasing overfishing and climate change, strong marine protected areas maintain biodiversity, fisheries and coastal economies. Dozens of studies show that no-take marine reserves provide more effective protection than weaker protected areas, often providing an overflow of marine life into surrounding waters. Many marine scientists recommend designating at least 20% of state waters as no-take areas as the best way to sustain ocean health.
“Whether you love our oceans for their beauty, for their fishes and marine mammals, or for generating half of the oxygen we breathe, you should want them to be strongly protected. But most states in this report get a score of zero and only a handful are protecting even 1%. That’s not good enough when our oceans are facing grave threats like overfishing and pollution. America’s oceans and people deserve better,” said eminent marine biologist and President of Mission Blue, Dr. Sylvia Earle. “The United States has a long way to go if we want to be a world-leader in marine conservation.”
SeaStates shows that 15 coastal states (AL, AK, CT, DE, GA, LA, MD, MA, MS, NH, NJ, NY, RI, SC, TX) out of 23 have no (zero) no-take areas. Six states (FL, OR, WA, NC, VA, and ME) have designated barely 1% or much less of their coastal waters as no-take areas. Only 2 states strongly protect over 5% of their waters in no-take reserves. Hawaii ranks 1st for ocean protection with 22.9% fully protected (most inside the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument), while California ranks 2nd with 8.7%.
“SeaStates shows that very few places are getting the protection they need” said Dr. Morgan “and most states are doing a very poor job of safeguarding your oceans. It’s time for that to change. Seabirds, whales, groupers and deep sea corals all need refuges where we do everything possible to protect them.”
The science team at Marine Conservation Institute compiled SeaStates using MPAtlas.org, the world’s best information source on marine protected areas, and data provided by NOAA's MPA Center.
To read the full report visit www.seastates.us.
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The Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to securing protection for the oceans’ most important places. Founded by marine ecologist, Dr. Elliott Norse in 1996, Marine Conservation Institute sees the big picture and uses the latest tools in collaboration with scientists, government officials, businesses and conservation organizations to recover healthy, living oceans around the world for us and future generations. See www.marine-conservation.org.
Mission Blue is a global initiative formed in response to Dr. Sylvia Earle’s 2009 TED Prize wish to “ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas called Hope Spots large enough to save and restore the blue heart of the planet.” Dr. Earle—famous for her pioneering scuba and deep-sea submarine explorations—is also National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and served as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under President George HW Bush. Currently, the Mission Blue community includes 60+ respected ocean conservation groups and like-minded organizations. See www.mission-blue.org.
Deep Coral Areas Urgently Need Protection to Help Save Global Reefs
CONTACT:
John Guinotte, PhD, Marine Biogeographer
360-467-4043 office
206-915-2037 cell
john.guinotte@marine-conservation.org
marine-conservation.org
Seattle WA - Marine scientists from Australia and the US today called for global efforts to protect deeper coral reefs as insurance against the widespread destruction of shallow reefs and their fish populations now taking place around the world. In the well-respected climate journal, Nature Climate Change, lead author Dr. Tom Bridge from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, Dr. John Guinotte, and colleagues point out that global conservation policies have so far failed to prevent the widespread destruction of shallow coral reefs and their fish life, which now threatens the food security of millions of people. They propose that deeper coral reefs may be able to function as refuges for some coral and fish species that are threatened at shallower depths.
With more than 60 per cent of the world’s shallow reefs under immediate threat from human activity, the researchers argue that efforts to identify and protect reefs lying deeper --30-150 meters below the surface-- should be stepped up, so as to provide a secure refuge for fish and corals that can also live in deeper areas. Many reef species which inhabit shallow waters are also found on reefs at depths of 30 meters or more, amid lower light conditions. This makes these deep reefs a potential refuge for both corals and other sea life when shallow reefs are degraded.
These deeper reefs are relatively insulated from global warming and other direct human pressures for the time being – but there are signs that overfishing, pollution and other forms of degradation are now starting to affect them too, making their protection urgent, they warn.
“We recommend acting quickly to identify and protect these deeper areas because pressure to over-exploit deep reefs will inevitably grow as shallow reefs become almost universally degraded from growing human populations, climate change, and ocean acidification” says co-author Dr. John Guinotte from the Marine Conservation Institute.
In China, coastal development and overfishing has destroyed 80% of coral cover in just the past 30 years. In Australia, coral cover on coastal reefs is also plummeting and the World Heritage Listing of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is now under review.
“The area of these deep reefs may in fact be quite large. On the Great Barrier Reef recent surveys have revealed up to 20,000 square kilometres of deep reef – equal in size to the combined area of all the shallow reefs,” Dr. Bridge says.
While many species inhabit both shallow and deeper waters, the extent to which this occurs is as yet poorly understood. However, they may form an important source of replenishment for shallow reefs and their fish populations, given the destruction that is occurring on the shallow reefs themselves and in the surrounding mangroves and sea-grass beds which are nurseries for juvenile fish.
At present very few of these deeper reef systems receive any form of protection around the world because reef management – where it exists – tends to focus on shallow reefs, the scientists say. Mid-level and deeper reefs are not generally included in Marine Protected Areas – an oversight that needs to be amended. Adopting a broader ecosystem-scale approach that incorporates deep reefs around the world would have multiple and long-term social and economic benefits.
“Identifying the locations of deep reefs globally and establishing protection measures for them should be a high priority for resource managers and conservation groups. Unfortunately this has not taken place. The status quo needs to change because time is not on our side,” says Dr. Guinotte. Their article “The need to protect all coral reefs” by Tom C.L. Bridge, Terry P. Hughes, John M. Guinotte and Pim Bongaerts appears in the journal Nature Climate Change on May 29, 2013.
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More information:
Dr. John Guinotte, Marine Conservation Institute,
4010 Stone Way North, Suite 210, Seattle WA, USA, office +1
360-467-4043, mobile +1 206-915-2037
john.guinotte@marine-conservation.org
Dr. Tom Bridge, ARC Centre
of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville
QLD, Australia, ph +61 (0) 414 219 020, +61 (7) 4781 6189,
Thomas.bridge@jcu.edu.au
Bridge, T. and Guinotte, J. (2013)
Mesophotic coral reef ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef world
heritage area: their potential distribution and possible role as refugia
from disturbance, Research Publication no.109, Great Barrier Reef
Marine Park Authority, Townsville.
http://www.marine-conservation.org/media/filer_public/2013/05/01/bridge_guinotte_2013.pdf
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Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting marine ecosystems. We work with scientists, politicians, government officials and other organizations around the world to fashion sustainable solutions compatible with healthy, living oceans. See www.marine-conservation.org.
National Attention on Monk Seal Issue Highlights Need for Local Program on Kaua’i
HONOLULU, HI (May 8, 2013) – A New York Times Magazine article investigating the monk seal killings on Kaua‘i and Moloka‘i in 2011 and 2012 has revived attention to the conflict over the protection of this highly endangered marine mammal. In “Who Would Kill a Monk Seal?” writer Jon Mooallem, describes the complex conservation issues that plague the island of Kaua‘i, including conflict over the protection of shearwater birds and nene goose.
Marine Conservation Institute, a non-profit organization, hopes its work on Kaua’i eventually will help resolve the conflict over the seal. Marine Conservation Institute has been working with Kaua‘i residents to investigate and resolve the social struggles prompted by federal conservation actions on the Garden Island.
“We are community advocates,” explains fisherman Matt Sproat, who works with Marine Conservation Institute in an effort to understand the ongoing conflict and create solutions that foster coexistence between local communities and monk seals. Sproat continues, “We are here to listen to the community and work with the community, because we know that local fisherman and ocean users are just people like us who want to make sure their livelihoods and rights are protected. We believe there is a way to balance protecting the livelihoods of local people with the needs of monk seals.”
Sproat and his team are currently conducting interviews and focus groups across Kaua‘i, gathering information for a report that aims to understand and address interactions between ocean users and monk seals. The report will craft a number of recommendations for NOAA and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to help reduce and mitigate conflict, and improve government responsiveness to community needs and concerns.
“The people of Kaua‘i are good people. They love their ‘āina and they love their ocean,” says Sproat. He continues, “We are here to work with the community in finding solutions that work for everybody, then we will advocate to see those solutions implemented at all levels of government.”
Residents interested in participating in the interviews or focus groups, or learning more about the project, should contact Matt Sproat.
The Marine Conservation Institute expects to have a draft of the report completed by Fall 2013.
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About Marine Conservation Institute
Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting marine ecosystems. We work with scientists, politicians, government officials and other organizations around the world to fashion sustainable solutions compatible with healthy, living oceans. Honua Consulting represents Marine Conservation Institute in Hawai’i.
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National Attention on Monk Seal Issue Highlights Need for Local Program on Kaua’i