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Protecting Our National Marine Sanctuaries
is the first independent assessment of the National Marine
Sanctuary Program based on field research at all 12 sanctuaries.
The National Ocean Service (a division of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration) asked the Academy to assess
the achievements of the 12 sanctuaries and recommend how the
program could reach its fullest potential. The report is based
on field interviews at all 12 sanctuaries and at NOAA headquarters
with over 200 divers, fishermen, teachers, scientists, community
leaders, and agency officials.
For 25 years, the National Marine Sanctuary
Program has been protecting delicate ecosystems and historical
sites at national sanctuaries along U.S. coastlines. Today
it protects 18,000-square miles of particularly productive
and beautiful ocean, including the Florida Keys, Monterey
Bay, long stretches of the California Coast, and areas off
the coasts of Massachusetts, North Carolina and Virginia,
Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, Washington, Hawaii, and American
Samoa.
The report says that the sanctuary program
is "fundamentally well conceived" and that sanctuaries
are finding "new and more effective ways to establish
a physical presence on the water, establish and enforce regulations,
nourish public understanding of the sites and the threats
they face, and encourage research."
Yet despite many successes, the report notes
that the program is "far from fulfilling its potential."
The program needs to "focus attention on results rather
than on process." And it must reverse "an unnecessary
and unproductive posture of fearing a strong sanctuary advisory
council."
The program has had a tiny budget and has
only one to four staff members at many sites. It is buried
inside an organization (NOAA) with "very different traditions,
constituencies, and culture" than the sanctuaries' "place-based,
comprehensive civic approach."
The next steps for the sanctuary program,
the report states, are to reach out more confidently to communities
near the sanctuaries by:
- making sanctuaries more visible to the
public, with signs, visitor centers, and links with local
museums, whale-watching companies, volunteers, and non-profits
- setting priorities for sanctuary education
programs
making public involvement part of the mission of the sanctuaries
clarifying the roles and responsibilities of sanctuary councils
- welcome advisory councils of local citizens
as active partners rather than holding them at arm's length
- train sanctuary managers to work with
strong-minded boards of advisors
publishing annual "state of the sanctuary" reports
putting more staff in the field at sanctuary sites
In addition, the report states that Congress
and NOAA need to provide more funding for the program and
"demand more competent performance." Since the report
was completed, NOAA requested and Congress approved a budget
increase from $14 to $23 million for fiscal year 2000, plus
$3 million for visitor centers and other improvements; most
of the new funds will be spent at the sanctuaries. The administration
is requesting a further increase to $35 million in fiscal
year 2001.
The report was authored by DeWitt John,
director of the Academy's Center for the Economy and the Environment
under the direction of an expert panel chaired by Jonathan
Howes, an Academy Fellow and Professor at the University of
North Carolina. Other panel members included Jerry Schubel,
President of the New England Aquarium, Professor John Kirlin
of Indiana University, and Nancy Tosta, an independent consultant
from Seattle.
Protecting Our National Marine Sanctuaries,
Order # 00-01, is published by the National Academy of Public
Administration. Copies may be purchased for $20.00 plus shipping
by calling NAPA Publications at 301-617-7801. The media may
obtain complimentary copies by contacting the Academy's Office
of Communications.
The National Academy of Public Administration
is an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress
to improve governance at all levels--local, regional, state,
national, and international. The Academy's membership consists
of 480 Fellows with distinguished careers in public management
as practitioners, scholars, and civic leaders. Since its establishment
in 1967, the Academy has assisted hundreds of federal agencies,
congressional committees, state and local governments, civic
organizations, and institutions overseas.
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