2011
Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI) changed its name to Marine Conservation Institute to more accurately reflect our interdisciplinary approach to marine conservation.
MCBI organized and recruited speakers for 8 symposium sessions for the 2011 International Marine Conservation Congress in Victoria, British Columbia.
2010
MCBI, working with NOAA's Marine Protected Areas Center, created the California Ocean Uses Atlas, the first map of the full range of significant human uses of the ocean in state and federal waters off the coast of California.
MCBI provided scientific and policy analyses supporting the issuance of President Barak Obama’s Executive Order 13547,
Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes, which led to the creation of a National Ocean Policy that establishes ecosystem-based coastal and marine spatial planning for all US waters.
MCBI published “Ecosystem-based spatial planning and management of marine fisheries: why and how?” in the Bulletin of Marine Science. We published “Impacts, perception and policy implications of the BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil and Gas Disaster” in a special issue of
Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis.
At the request of the United Nations, MCBI prepared the scientific rationale to designate Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a World Heritage Site in June 2010.
We funded awards to five scientist-researchers to document ocean life before humans altered marine ecosystems, providing a poignant picture of what healthy oceans used to look like.
MCBI led a workshop to understand and address ocean acidification impacts on Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.
2009
MCBI helped organize a workshop as part of the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative to work toward identifying an initial set of areas on the high seas that could meet the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSA) criteria.
MCBI hosted a workshop in Hawaii to determine the scientific needs for effective management of Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monuments.
MCBI awarded six Mia J. Tegner Memorial Research Grants in Marine Environmental History and Historical Marine Ecology to young and early-career scientists.
MCBI hosted a workshop to determine effective means to address surveillance and enforcement of high seas marine protected areas.
MCBI held a scientist's advocacy day, where we taught scientists how to advocate to protect marine ecosystems on Capitol Hill, during Capitol Hill Ocean's Week.
Sandra Brooke, Coral Conservation Director at MCBI, worked with the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to create the Oculina Bank Habitat Area of Particular Concern (HAPC) and Experimental Closed Area, protecting deep-water Oculina coral off the central East Coast of Florida.
MCBI releases new issue of Current: Ocean Acidification - From Ecological Impacts to Policy Opportunities. This issue highlights ocean acidification, the ongoing global scale changes in seawater chemistry caused largely by human combustion of fossil fuels.
MCBI, in partnership with Environmental Defense Fund, prepared scientific and policy analyses necessary to identify, nominate and advocate full protection for eight of the nine Pacific Islands sites designated by President Bush as marine national monuments in January 2009. MCBI rallied scientific support for the President’s action by securing almost 200 signatures on a letter to the President.
how we fish matters
How We Fish Matters
2008
MCBI releases How We Fish Matters: Addressing the Ecological Impacts of Canadian Fishing Gear which we worked on with our Canadian partners the Ecology Action Centre and Living Oceans Society.
MCBI formed and helped lead a conservation coalition to develop ideas for, and promote introduction of, H.R. 6537, the Sanctuaries Enhancement Act, and bill to reform the National Marine Sanctuary Program. MCBI President, Elliott Norse, testified on the bill before the House Natural Resources Committee.
MCBI successfully advocated for increased federal and state funding for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal, and launched a long-term campaign to improve the seal’s prospects for recovery.
MCBI played a key role in the development of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Management Plan, providing detailed comments on the draft.
MCBI hosts 3 symposium at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on bottom trawling, carbon sequestration, and sharks.
2007
MCBI opens Hawaii Program Office to build on advocacy efforts for Marine Protected Areas and to spearhead protection of the Hawaiian monk seal
Partnering with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, MCBI limits trawling in the South Pacific
MCBI hosts symposia on ocean acidification and on the sustainability of deep-sea fishing at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
coral report cover
Status of Deep Sea Corals, 2006
2006
Elliott Norse wins the Nancy Foster Award for Habitat Conservation
MCBI, in cooperation with SkyTruth, National Geographic Society and NOAA, publishes “From Sea to Shining Sea” the first map showing the full extent of the USA
MCBI plays a key role in the establishment of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument
MCBI publishes the first assessment of the status of deep-sea corals of the US
2005
MCBI releases Marine Priority Conservation Areas: Baja California to the Bering Sea, the first continental-scale vision of the ocean places most important to protect in North America
MCBI publishes the review of the history of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act
MCBI produces Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea’s Biodiversity, the first textbook in this new science
2004
MCBI co-founds the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition to stop trawling on the world’s seamounts
MCBI releases the Scientists’ Statement on Protecting the World’s Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Ecosystems, signed by 1452 scientists from 69 countries
shifting gears cover
Shifting Gears, 2003
2003
MCBI publishes a compilation of the Occurrences of Deep-Sea Corals in the Northeast Pacific
MCBI releases Shifting Gears, the first scientific study comparing the damage from 10 major commercial fishing methods
2002
MCBI produces B2B 1.0 — a CD-ROM of physical, biological, and social data relevant to conservation planning within the Baja California to Bering Sea ecoregion.
2001
MCBI holds the Second Symposium on Marine Conservation Biology in San Francisco
MCBI secures listing of the white abalone, the first marine invertebrate ever listed as an endangered species
2000
MCBI spurs President Clinton to issue Executive Order 13158 on Marine Protected Areas
1999
MCBI organizes a scientist workshop to identify priority areas for conservation in the Gulf of Maine
MCBI plays a key role in phasing out commercial fishing in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
journal cover
Conservation Biology issue on bottom trawling, 1998
1998
The journal Conservation Biology publishes 7 scientific papers from MCBI's 1996 bottom trawling workshop
MCBI releases Troubled Waters: A Call for Action [PDF], signed by 1605 scientists from 70 countries
1997
MCBI organizes the First Sympoisum on Marine Conservation Biology in Victoria BC, Canada
1996
MCBI hosts the first scientific workshop on the Effects of Bottom Trawling on Marine Ecosystems
Marine ecologist Dr. Elliott Norse founds MCBI
