By Dan Haifley
Our recent string of storms brought home the reality of climate change – for many in a brutal way. The problem is here. To fight climate change and adapt to its impacts, our efforts to support the ocean will help absorb atmospheric carbon, buffer the impacts of sea level rise, and bolster biodiversity and resilience.
The solution
Over 30 years ago, a regional citizen effort that went back decades achieved a milestone when Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was designated on Sept. 18, 1992. At the time, climate change was largely absent from the conversation, and the establishment of the sanctuary that now covers 6,094 square miles was promoted to stop offshore oil development, which was then a real threat.
Today, there are 15 national marine sanctuaries in U.S. ocean and Great Lakes waters as well as two marine national monuments, covering 620,000 square miles. Communities and organizations are being encouraged by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to nominate ocean areas of strategic cultural or biological significance for marine sanctuary status.
One of several environmental laws passed in Congress in 1972 in the wake of the disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, the act that established marine sanctuaries got its first test with the 1974 establishment of the USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, which protects an area where a Union ironclad had sunk during a Civil War battle off the East Coast.
National marine sanctuaries provide education, research and resource protection for strategic national ocean and Great Lakes areas. Marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments cooperate with state and local governments and non-governmental groups to, for example, protect water quality. A great example is the work Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary does with farmers to reduce agricultural runoff.
The teams that manage marine sanctuaries work to preserve the habitats within them and the species that depend on them, which in turn supports the resilience of the ocean that covers two-thirds of our planet, provides half the oxygen we breathe and absorbs excess atmospheric carbon. Marine sanctuaries also promote research and education, giving us greater insight into our ocean backyard which can be communicated to the public.
Expanding protections
Among the sanctuaries due to be designated in the next few years are the tribally nominated Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off San Luis Obispo and northern Santa Barbara counties, the Hudson Canyon National Marine Sanctuary off New York and New Jersey, and Lake Ontario in New York.
Other potential sanctuaries include two tribally nominated sites off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and the area around the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific. President Joe Biden recently authorized moving ahead on the designation of 770,000 square miles of U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.
On the U.S. West Coast, and on the Olympic Coast, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, Monterey Bay and Channel Islands, national marine sanctuaries cover around 15,500 square miles, or about 5% of federal waters off California and Washington. Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary is due to add to our ocean protection, providing a chain of support from Point Arena in Mendocino to Santa Barbara.
This is good news for ocean protection, biodiversity, and the fight against climate change. You can support this effort, and the work done by the team at Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary by signing up for Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s newsletter at montereybayfounadation.org, or the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation at marinesanctuary.org, and follow both on social media.
Dan Haifley is a member of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Board. He previously was director of Save Our Shores, and O’Neill Sea Odyssey.