-: All right. Aloha kākou.
Mahalo for joining us today
for a wonderful Third Thursday presentation webinar.
We have a very special guest for you today.
Our own Office of National Marine Sanctuaries director,
John Armor,
who's going to be giving a presentation titled,
"National Marine Sanctuaries: Where We've Been
and Where We're Headed."
So we should really look forward to this.
It's our 50th anniversary this year,
half a century of National Marine Sanctuaries.
But before we get started,
a couple of quick housekeeping things,
if you are having trouble with your audio,
generally, the problem is that
you don't have the correct microphone or speakers selected.
So in the control panel, in the upper right hand corner,
just make sure that you have the right speakers,
whether you're using a headset
or whether you're using computer speakers.
That's generally where the audio problems arise.
And if you're still having problems,
please type into the question box
and we'll see if we are able to help you connect
or resolve any of those audio issues.
And also, if you do have questions during the presentation,
also type those into the question box
and we will get to as many of those as we can
at the end of the presentation.
And also in the chat, we'll be posting resources and links
related to what we're covering in the webinar,
so please check that and see,
and go to visit those sites as we post them.
Also, if you can't connect via your computer audio,
there is a dial-in number and access code on this slide,
so if you're still having problems,
you can try to connect via phone line.
So with that,
in Hawaii, it's customary to set the place
to create a space for learning, for openness,
and so we start often our meetings and presentations
with a chant or, in this case, Mele no Papahānaumokuākea,
a name song for Papahānaumokuākea.
So I'm going turn it over to Malia Evans
who's going present this to you.
Over to you, Malia.
-: All right, mahalo, Andy.
And aloha mai kakou and welcome to all of you.
So I'll begin through Hawaiian culture protocol
by setting this space,
this space of a'o aku, it's the giving,
and a'o mai, the receiving of information and knowledge
from our director, John Armor,
as we celebrate 50 years of trusteeship and protection
through the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
As we honor Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
through this oli, through this chant,
I invite all of you to reflect
on the natural and culture environments in your community
that you hold dear and value.
So I'm gonna turn off my camera as I oli.
(chants in Hawaiian language)
(speaks in Hawaiian language)
-: Mahalo, Malia.
I'm sorry for the hiccup.
I had my computer advanced too fast.
Anyway, we are here.
We work for the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And here is a map of our system.
We cover sites across the United States
and here in the Pacific.
We have 15 National Marine Sanctuaries,
Marine National Monument.
We also have two sites,
they're in National Marine Sanctuary designation process.
Well, actually three now,
we have Lake Ontario, which is one of the more recent ones,
Hudson Bay, which isn't even on this map,
we'll talk about a little bit later,
but it's being proposed National Marine Sanctuary,
and Papahānaumokuākea,
which is also now proposed National Marine Sanctuary.
But we have sites on the East Coast,
Stellwagen Bank, Monitor, Gray's Reef, Florida Keys,
Flower Garden Banks.
On the West Coast of the US,
we have sites such as Monterey Bay, Channel Islands,
Olympic Coast.
And out here in the Pacific,
we have two National Marine Sanctuaries,
the Hawaii Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary,
and all the way down South,
American's National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.
So we cover quite a vast area of ocean and Great Lakes,
and we're expanding,
as you can see, it's pretty exciting.
And Justin will post in the chat,
how to participate in the Hudson Bay,
proposed Hudson Bay National Marine Sanctuary,
which is just announced on World Ocean Day,
so just this week.
We're also celebrating 50 years
of National Marine Sanctuaries, which is just incredible.
Half-century of protecting your ocean
and Great Lakes treasures.
And we're gonna have many events across the system.
If you go to that link at the bottom,
which we'll also post in the chat,
you can participate in some of these events
in your area,
or some of them are virtual,
so we hope you celebrate with us
this incredible achievement.
But our site
is the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument,
and we cover 582,578 square miles of ocean
and ocean area.
And so the largest,
fully-protected marine protected area on the planet.
And we just celebrated 16 years of our site,
yesterday was our birthday, sweet 16.
If you were to cover, lay it over the United States,
we cover an area about from Little Rock to Las Vegas,
so it's a huge area of the Pacific Ocean that we protect.
And also,
getting back to our original National Marine Sanctuary map,
Athline just reminded me that I forgot to mention
the Chumash Heritage,
proposed National Marine sanctuary on the West Coast.
So that's not even on our map either,
so we need to get an updated map.
So we're expanding, which is really exciting.
Our oceans need this expanded protection.
And so our hosts today are myself, Andy Collins,
I'm the education coordinator
for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument,
Malia Evans, who presented the oli earlier,
who's our O'ahu Education and Outreach
under the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation,
and Justin Umholtz who's our education coordinator
at Mokupāpapa Discovery Center in Hilo, Hawaii.
Speaking of which,
we just reopened after two years of closure.
So for two years during the pandemic,
our center in Hilo was closed,
but we just reopened last Saturday
with a World Ocean Day event.
And we're really excited to be able to greet the public
in our facility again.
We have a wonderful facility
with 3,500 gallons saltwater aquarium,
incredible exhibits in ōlelo Hawaii or the Hawaiian language
and in English.
And we're open 9-4 PM, Tuesdays through Saturdays.
So we hope if you get over to Hilo
that you can come visit us.
And we're really excited to be open again.
But across the system,
we protect these areas for their biodiversity,
also to provide shelter
for threatened and endangered species
and species that don't have any other place
where they can go to raise their young.
Also for the incredible cultural heritage,
in Papahānaumokuākea, the first two islands,
Nihoa and Makumanamana, have some incredible cultural sites.
This is a picture from Makumanamana, which is called,
the sacred site called heiau or shrine
on top of this island and the entire island
is covered in these ceremonial sites.
Also, incredible maritime heritage.
Some of our sites are dedicated to the preservation
of maritime heritage, such as in the Great Lakes.
Of course, our first National Marine Sanctuary,
the Monitor.
And in Papahānaumokuākea,
we have many shipwreck sites that we protect and manage.
We also conduct extensive research on the environment
and the animals that live in these environments,
and study how they change over time due to impacts
such as from climate change.
And we have some incredible restoration efforts
also in process.
In the Florida Keys, we have a very expansive program
to restore some of those sites and do coral outplanting,
which is very complex procedure,
but it's really exciting process
to try to restore some of those coral reefs.
And, of course, we do education like this webinar series
and our Mokupāpapa Discovery Center
and outreach events in the community to connect people
to our national marine sanctuaries.
And we do this not only through staff,
but through an extensive volunteer network.
So we hope that
if you live near a national marine sanctuary,
if you're able to, we'd love to have you as a volunteer,
or even some virtual opportunities
for volunteering.
But I think a lot of us learned during the pandemic
that it is important to protect our spiritual connection
to these places,
and that's one of the reasons why we protect these places,
to have a place to go to renew our spirit
and to reconnect with nature.
So they're just these incredible
environment, places across the country.
But today I'm gonna ask John to turn on his webcam.
We have a special presenter, John Armor, who's a director
of the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And I'm going to turn it over to our superintendent,
Athline Clark, who will introduce John for the talk today.
-: Aloha no kākou.
As Andy said,
yesterday was our 16th anniversary of Papahānaumokuākea.
It is also the 50th anniversary
of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
and also the anniversary of several other pivotal coastal
and clean water act designations,
and also the 50th anniversary
of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.
And as you know,
Papahānaumokuākea is also a mixed World Heritage Site,
the only one in the United States.
So many reasons to celebrate,
including having John Armor here.
We're thrilled to have him as our presenter today.
As Andy said, he is the director
of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And you already heard what that entails
in terms of the sites.
In this capacity, he provides strategic vision
for the program and overall policy direction.
Mr. Armor, John,
has worked with the National Marine Sanctuaries Program
since 2000,
and many of us have been in and out of this program with him
in several different roles as we work through this process.
And John has a lot of experience having worked with us
in the early stages of the development of Papahānaumokuākea,
and many stories that each of us could tell
of what was going on during those early days.
So that's me, ad-libbing in his bio,
but it's just important that you know that he has a strong
and long connection to Papahānaumokuākea.
Prior to John coming in
with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
he worked for the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection
to implement state, wetland, and estuary protection.
With that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to John
so that you can hear from him
what our strategic direction looks like for the future.
So, mahalo for tuning into us today.
-: Yeah, mahalo, Athline.
Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction.
Talofa to everyone in American Samoa.
Aloha to everybody in Hawaii.
And hello to everyone in the mainland,
good evening, good afternoon, good morning.
Thank you so much for being here.
And, you know,
Athline, I really appreciate that introduction.
And Andy, you know, something you said really,
somebody recently asked me for,
what's your verb for national marine sanctuaries?
And I think the individual was expecting me
to say something like protect or conserve or preserve.
And we do do those things as you mentioned.
But I think one of the things that we do best is connect.
And webinars like this that we've been holding,
and, you know, kudos to you, Andy and to Malia,
and to Justin and the team
at the Mokupāpapa Discovery Center
for connecting people across time and space,
because I really do think that
that is one of the real key values
that National Marine Sanctuaries bring to ocean conservation
and to communities around the country.
So I love it.
Thank you so much.
As Andy said, as Athline introduced, I'm John Armor.
I'm the director of NOAA's Office
of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And I'm pretty sure I have the coolest job
in the federal government right now.
I love it.
And if you're not convinced,
I hope by the end of my presentation,
I hope you're convinced that the national marine sanctuaries
are a phenomenal system of sites across the country.
I hope you are inspired to if you haven't to get out
and visit one and enjoy one and recharge and rejuvenate.
But I'm here to talk to you about,
as the title implies here,
where we've been and where we're going.
I'm gonna try to spend a little bit more time
on where we're going,
because I feel 50th anniversaries for a program like ours
is sure, it's a great opportunity to look back,
but I think it's really more about our future.
But let's start by looking back.
Let's go way back.
1872, Yellowstone National Park
was created by President Ulysses S. Grant.
And in that, establishing that first is really,
when the United States federal government finally woke up
to the value of protecting some of these natural places
in United States.
And obviously, very controversial history initially,
especially with tribes and indigenous communities
in that area,
but the park itself really represented
something of an awakening in terms of protecting places
on land.
Now in 1872, I should tell you,
in the ocean, I think it was largely,
there was still commercial whaling happening,
especially in Alaska and other places,
and the ocean was still primarily thought of as a place
for commerce and war and for,
and as I said, whaling.
This is a picture, not from 1872,
but this is a picture from about 2016 or so,
with my family in Yellowstone National Park.
The picture's a little dated, as you can see,
that was probably about 20 pounds ago for me,
and the young man in the yellow sweatshirt
is now over 20 years old,
I can't believe it, but anyways.
So that, the concept started a long time ago.
And then in 1969,
the oil spill off the coast of California and Santa Barbara
really gave a sense of urgency to protecting the ocean.
And there were some other things as well,
but this is really where people started to wake up and say,
we have to do something about the ocean too.
There was a commission formed.
The Stratton Commission looked really hard
at our national parks and said, you know,
asked the question,
can we apply that same logic from the national parks on land
to the ocean?
So they wrote a report,
and the Stratton Commission also established an agency.
In 1969,
in 1970, I should say,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
was formed.
And so here's the question,
in 1972,
this is our first polling question.
I'm sorry, Malia, you're gonna ask the question.
Sorry, I jumped the gun.
Take over question one. Malia: Sure thing.
All right, friends, here we go.
In 1972, which president signed the Marine Protection,
Research, and Sanctuaries Act,
a key piece of legislation that would have profound impacts
on the nation's marine conservation?
So, I'm launching the poll.
Go ahead and register your vote.
You got four options.
Richard M. Nixon,
Lyndon B. Johnson,
Gerald R. Ford,
or John F. Kennedy.
So go ahead.
There's about 40% of you.
Oh, we're going higher.
It's almost 50%.
We'll give it about five more seconds
for you to register your vote.
And we are gonna do a three, two, one.
And let's see what the audience results are.
Okay, John.
So here's our results.
72% said Richard Nixon,
13 said Johnson,
8% each for Ford and Kennedy.
What do you think?
What do you think about our audience?
-: I think they're pretty smart.
Richard Nixon was the president
that signed the Marine Protection, Research,
and Sanctuaries Act.
Let's see, can I advance?
Here we go.
Oops.
There we go, there he is.
And there is President Nixon on October 23rd 1972,
signing the Marine Protection,
Research, and Sanctuaries Act.
Actually, I have to be honest,
I'm not sure that picture is of him signing that law,
but anyways, that's him signing a law,
and that is right.
So 72% of you, I really appreciate that.
Title III, just to be technical,
Title III of the Marine Protection, Research,
and Sanctuaries Act,
that created the National Marine Sanctuary System
way back in 1972.
And right off the bat,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA
got to work right away.
On January 30th 1975,
NOAA designated the very first sanctuary
to protect the wreckage of the USS Monitor.
And for those Civil War buffs out there,
you may remember that the Monitor was a Union vessel
that fought a Confederate vessel, the Merrimack,
in the James River, Virginia.
And it was a stalemate,
but it really was a sign of the times during the Civil War,
the Monitor was a marvel of engineering.
It was moving away from wooden hole vessels
to steel hole vessels.
And the Monitor was subsequent to that battle,
was lost in a storm off the coast of North Carolina
and lost for years.
And so it was discovered by a team of scientists
at Duke University,
and then designated as our first sanctuary in 1975.
So that was our first sanctuary.
But here's our second question.
Malia, over to you.
Malia: Oops, let me get my mic on.
How many square miles of protected ocean
and Great Lakes waters are there
in today's National Marine Sanctuary System?
Go ahead and register your vote.
And our numbers are climbing.
All right, your answers,
1 million square miles,
240,000 square miles,
620,000 square miles,
or 730 square miles.
I am gonna close out this poll
so we can keep everything moving.
Let's see what our results are.
Okay, John, we've got 16% who said,
1 million square miles, excuse me,
11% said, 240,000 square miles,
39%, 620 square miles, 620,000,
and a close 34% said, 730,000 square miles.
So what is the correct answer?
-: Well, we're growing as Andy said,
but currently, as of today,
we are at 620,000 square miles.
So congratulations.
I think it was,
I forgot how many, but great, great guess.
So here's, since Monitor was,
since the Sanctuaries Act was established in 1972,
and the Monitor was established or was designated in 1975,
as I've already discussed,
here is all of the designations
that have taken place over the course
of our almost 50-year history of the Sanctuary System.
You can see there was Key Largo in the Florida Keys,
and then several there in the early 1980s.
And then you can see that if you look at this timeline,
one of the things you might notice is that
around in the late '90s, there was a bit of a law,
and we really kind of scaled back on the process.
And so in 2014,
we recognized the fact that we weren't done yet,
the United States was not done yet,
in terms of protecting special treasure places in the ocean,
so we established a community-based nomination process
in 2014
that allowed communities to nominate sites.
And that really lit a spark and has us got going again
in designating more sanctuaries.
We designated Mallows Bay right here
in my home state of Maryland in 2019.
And then our newest sanctuary designated
was Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast, as the name implies,
off the coast of Wisconsin in Lake Michigan.
Here's what the Sanctuary System looks like right now.
Andy, I gotta get you this map,
I'll replace your map for your opening,
but this is our all 620,000 square miles
of the National Marine Sanctuary System,
from Stellwagen Bank off the coast of New England,
down to National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa
in American Samoa.
And we currently are working on designating
four national marine sanctuaries right now
in Lake Ontario in the Great Lakes,
Hudson Canyon off the coast of New York and New Jersey,
Chumash Heritage in Central California,
and then as Andy mentioned,
we're also working on a sanctuary designation
for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
So this is an incredibly exciting time
to be a part of the Sanctuary System, for sure.
And not the least of which,
because of our 50th anniversary coming up here in October
of this year.
And Andy mentioned it a little bit.
I'm gonna talk a little bit about
some of the things that we're doing to celebrate,
and then I really want to end on
using this milestone that we have as the 50th anniversary
to sure, take a peek back at our history,
celebrate a little bit, learn a little bit,
but more so, pivot to the future,
and talk about where we need to head
with ocean conservation,
and with community wellbeing,
and where sanctuaries can play a role in that.
Like any government agency,
we launched our 50th website,
which I have to say is pretty awesome.
So if you haven't seen it,
I'm sure it's in the chat or it will be in the chat.
Go check, there it is.
Thanks, Justin. You're good.
It's in the chat box,
go click on our website and check it out.
We've got so many really cool things on there.
We got a video,
and we've got this really cool timeline.
If you're a nerd like me, you can click on that timeline.
And some of the things that I included in my presentation
are on that timeline.
So check that out.
One of the things that I really think is cool is we,
as part of the campaign,
is we have our artists developing commemorative posters
for each of the national marine sanctuaries in the system
and going in order of their designation.
So far, Matt,
and kudos to Matt McIntosh if he's on the line,
I want to give him a huge props
for developing these posters.
He's an incredibly talented artist
that works with the local team and the community
to develop a poster that's relevant for that site,
but again, reflects the overall benefits
of being part of the system.
So far, Matt's done Monitor, Channel Islands,
Greater Farallones, Gray's Reef,
American Samoa, and Cordell Bank.
And we've got many more to go.
So, Matt's busy.
Matt, if you're listening,
great job, my friend.
The other thing Matt did,
and I don't know if I can just,
yeah, I guess I can click on this,
is we updated our branding.
You could see I'm wearing actually a dated shirt.
I'm a little embarrassed.
I should be wearing a shirt with the updated brand.
But we changed our logo just ever so slightly.
This video shows you how we did it.
And Matt, again,
Matt McIntosh, our artist here at ONMS headquarters
is amazing talent and helped us develop that new logo.
So we're pretty excited about that.
And let me get,
yeah, there we go.
The other thing we're doing
is a partnership with our nonprofit organization,
the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation,
which is a key partner of ours,
with whom we work side by side in managing these places
and exposing them to people around the world really.
So we have a co-branded theme
with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
called Save Spectacular.
And we have,
over the course of the year,
leading up to and past October of this year,
we are focusing on different aspects of spectacular.
So we celebrated spectacular back in October,
we're discovering spectacular in the spring.
We're really getting in there and doing a lot of research
and exploration in April to June.
We're enjoying spectacular in July and September,
reflecting on the fact that many of these places
are places that,
are there to be loved and there to be appreciated.
In order to do that, you gotta get in there,
you have to learn about them, and explore them,
and enjoy these places.
And then finally, ending with the key,
the signature theme, Save Spectacular,
recognizing the enormous fragility and importance
of these places that we're charged with protecting.
Just some key dates.
And I can't wait to get my hands on that Reyn Spooner
aloha shirt there in the lower right hand corner
that we're doing with them.
But just some key dates here on the screen
of things that we're doing.
One thing I wanna point out,
and Athline mentioned it in the intro,
but I think it's worth pointing out,
is the National Marine Sanctuaries Act
was not the only law that was enacted in 1972.
In fact, there were a number of environmental
and important ocean and coastal conservation laws
that were enacted that year beyond,
aside from the National Marine Sanctuaries Act,
it was the Coastal Zone Management Act,
the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
and the Clean Water Act.
So we're also celebrating the 50th anniversaries
of those other laws with our colleagues in NOAA,
and the US Fish and Wildlife Service,
and the Marine Mammal Commission as well.
So there's a lot to celebrate this year as we look forward.
But I wanna pivot now,
and think about where this Sanctuary System is headed,
and I'll start here with this slide
that shows you the Sanctuary System as it exists,
the map that I've already shown,
but on here, I'm also showing some of the areas
that have been put forward as a community-based nomination,
I mentioned that earlier, for designation.
This map actually now I'm realizing,
is also a little bit dated,
'cause Hudson Canyon should be a blue square,
so I apologize for that.
But we are,
so in addition to actively designating
those four sites that I mentioned,
again, Hudson Canyon,
off the coast of New York and New Jersey,
Lake Ontario, Chumash Heritage, and Papahānaumokuākea.
We also have Alagum Kanuux,
which is in St. George Unangan Heritage,
which are two sites in the Pribilof Islands of Alaska.
We also have a site in Lake Erie
off the coast of Pennsylvania.
And then the Marianas Trench.
All of these are sites that
we are not actively working on at the moment,
but these are sites that have been proposed to NOAA
from a community, a local community,
that feels like they should be part
of the National Marine Sanctuary System.
I should also mention that the president
and the administration
is very focused on this issue right now.
And many of you may have heard about President Biden's
"Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful" initiative,
which is part of that initiative
is to conserve 30% of our lands and waters by 2030.
So it's called the 30 by 30 initiative.
We are, in NOAA, we are heavily involved in that.
I'm personally heavily involved in that
in terms of trying to figure out,
okay, where are we now as a nation in this
and where do we need to go?
And one of the things that
the president's report specifically calls out
as being consistent with all of its principles
of collaborative, voluntary protection
that respects the rights of Native American tribes,
indigenous communities around the country,
the National Marine Sanctuaries process
is really called out explicitly
in the president's initiative.
But there's also something I want point out here,
and that is about the expectations
that are out there right now for the Sanctuary System,
not just from the administration,
but there are, in fact, there are two bills in Congress
to establish a national sanctuary off of Alabama.
There's other rumors of other bills going on
to establish sanctuaries in other parts of the country.
We have enormous pressure right now from other partners,
from the recreation and tourism industry,
that is putting a ton of pressure on our system right now
to both expand and to enhance the management of the places
that we have already.
But I have to be honest, there's a bit of a mismatch here.
This is our budget.
As you look at it and the president's request there,
you can see that our appropriations
over the last several years have been relatively flat
compared to the expectations and the demands that we have.
And the president has recognized that
in his Fiscal Year '23 Request of Congress,
a substantial increase to our appropriations,
again, reflective of the demands that are on the system.
We also, sort of in that same theme,
we also worked with the National Academy
of Public Administration here in DC
to do a review,
to feed into our 50th anniversary.
And basically, we asked NAPA that,
again, the National Academy of Public Administration,
not the auto parts store,
to look hard at our system and provide us with really,
a hard look at how we're doing,
how we've done over the last 50 years,
and some of the things that we need to think about.
There was also the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
also worked with the Meridian Institute
to do something very similar,
different methodology,
but they both came back,
among their recommendations and observations,
one of the things that they both came back with
is the Sanctuary System is woefully underfunded right now,
compared to comparables.
If you use appropriation dollars per acre,
you look at the National Park System,
and I think most people would agree,
fairly underfunded, right?
A lot of people are looking at what's going on right now
in Yellowstone.
A lot of people are reflecting
on their own experiences with national parks
around the country and saying, they could use more funding.
But when you look at what their funding is,
dollars per acre, it's almost $30 per acre.
If you are familiar with Wildlife Refuge System,
it's about $25 per acre.
And for folks inside NOAA,
the National Estuarine Research Reserve System,
which is a partnership between NOAA and Coastal States,
their funding is about $28 per acre.
The National Marine Sanctuary System, 14 cents per acre,
14 cents per acre, right?
And so nobody,
I don't want anybody to look at this graph,
and take away the impression that
these other systems are overfunded or have,
you know, all the resources they need, they don't.
But I think relative to the Sanctuary System,
this is something that you should take home
and recognize that, you know,
the President's Request of Congress for Fiscal '23
is gonna help close some of that gap.
But what are we doing?
Beyond that, beyond just crying about the resources,
what are we doing to really reinvent
how National Marine Sanctuaries work in the communities,
how do they contribute to ocean conservation generally?
And there's really four things
that we're focused on right now
to really improve how we do what we do.
One of the things that we're doing
is we're trying to work very closely with the recreation
and tourism industry, because we recognize that national,
excuse me, national marine sanctuaries
much like national parks
are really key to tourism and recreation
in the communities where they are,
some contributing to billions of dollars
of economic activity in those areas.
I think about the Florida Keys
and the $4 billion tourism industry down there,
and the role that
a healthy Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
plays in supporting that.
Okay, so there's recreation and tourism.
We're also really thinking deeply
about our relationship with tribal
and indigenous communities around the country.
We recognize that we are relative newcomers to these places.
We have to respect with humility
that many of these communities
have been managing these places successfully for millennia.
So how are we working with them with respect,
listening, understanding how it is that we're,
managing our places in line with tribes,
and respectful of tribes and indigenous communities
around the country.
And, of course, there's climate change, right?
We have to acknowledge that the wildlife populations
in the very fabric of these places are changing.
As we speak, the picture there in the lower left hand corner
is from American Samoa.
And you can see a vibrant coral on the left
and a bleached coral on the right
that's responding to higher water temperatures.
You think about ocean acidification
and its effect on shellfish.
You think about sea level rise.
All of these things are,
you think about wildlife populations,
moving fisheries populations,
all of these things are factors into
we need to make sure that
we're managing sanctuaries of the future,
taking climate change into account.
We also have to look at ourselves,
and make sure that the things that we're doing,
our on-water operations,
and our on-shore operations are as green as possible,
and that we are being cognizant of our emissions.
And finally,
we have to really look at who we are as a program.
Are we reflective of the communities where we work?
And we have to think deeply about access, equity,
diversity, justice, inclusion,
and making sure that we really understand
and internalize those terms,
not just thinking about our workforce,
which that's important.
We need to make sure our workforce is reflective
of the communities we serve.
But are our education programs relevant
and accessible to communities?
Are our regulatory and our management programs accessible?
Are they relevant?
And our science and research and monitoring programs,
are they accessible to all parts of the community?
And these are things that are causing us
to really think differently about how we do a lot of things,
including advisory council meetings,
including how we do our education and outreach programming.
And so I'm close to the end here,
but I just wanna say that,
as I see it, we're at this pivot point right now
in our country.
I really believe that we have an opportunity
to use the 50th anniversary
of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act,
and these other laws that I mentioned before.
We have an opportunity to support the president's
America the Beautiful initiative.
We have an opportunity to be a leader in ocean conservation
and to use sanctuaries for ocean conservation,
and for community wellbeing and health.
And are we gonna invest in it?
If you think of it like a garden,
are we gonna add fertilizer and water
and let that garden grow or are we gonna keep it small?
And it's not to say one's right or wrong.
I acknowledge there are a lot of competing priorities
in our nation right now,
and sometimes it can be hard
to be talking about these things
when we have so many other challenges in our life,
but I honestly, in my heart of hearts,
I believe we're at a pivot point right now
where we have to make a choice,
are we gonna do this or are we gonna keep it small?
So I think you can tell what my recommendation would be,
but we do have,
okay, I think I already gave this one away, Malia,
but over to you for, I think, the final question.
Let's see if people were listening.
Malia: Yes, let's see who was paying attention.
So here we go.
Let's launch the last poll.
What is the date of the 50th anniversary
of the National Marine Sanctuaries?
So go ahead and register your vote,
and we shall see who is paying attention.
All right, our numbers are climbing.
We have about, half of you have voted.
We'll give it a few more seconds,
and let's see what our results are.
Three, two, one, I'm gonna close down the poll.
Okay, John, let's see the results.
We've got interesting mixture.
We've got 13% who said October 12th 2022.
27% said October 23rd 2021.
Oops, what happened to our results?
4% said December 23rd 2021,
and 56%, over half said, October 23rd 2022.
Were they paying attention?
-: They were indeed.
Yes, well done.
October 23rd 2022.
That is our 50th anniversary.
Well done.
I think,
let's see.
I just have a couple of things here, you know,
if folks are interested
in learning more about the Sanctuary System,
the website is a great place to go.
I would encourage folks to read
the National Academy of Public Administration's Report.
And we also just released a document called Our Blue Legacy,
which has a lot of the information that I just related
in this presentation,
but is also a great sort of recap of our program.
So Andy, and Malia, and Justin,
I think with that,
I am done with my presentation.
So I would love to open it up to questions.
-: Yeah, mahalo, John.
Thank you for a wonderful retrospective
and looking forward into the future.
It's a very,
I could say it's a very exciting time and dynamic time
as the public should tell,
since they didn't even have the most updated map
of the National Marine Sanctuaries
and what's being proposed.
I've been with the program for 20 years,
and this is definitely the most exciting time,
aside from our own monument designation,
but wow, it's incredible,
that changing the process involving so much more community,
and that's a big thing we like to do in Sanctuaries
is engaging our communities
and hearing what they have to say.
I think we have a few questions.
I'm gonna turn it over to Justin.
You know, we have a couple questions here.
Justin, what do you think?
Justin: Yeah, let's see.
The first one is,
are the sanctuaries managed only by NOAA
or does it include local governments as well?
-: Yeah, really, really good question.
Sanctuaries are, at their heart,
a collaborative management approach.
So many sanctuaries have co-management agreements
with the states.
Some also include their local governments.
The one here in Maryland includes the local county
where the sanctuary is located.
And some also involved, as I mentioned before,
tribes and indigenous communities.
The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
in the Pacific Northwest comes to mind immediately
as a really good example of collaborative management
with tribes as well.
But yeah, really great question.
Justin: Great.
We have several that are asking specifically about
the nomination for Papahānaumokuākea Marine
National Monument,
just in terms of expansion and expanded funding
or other benefits that would come from becoming
a national marine sanctuary.
We do have some of that information on our website,
but I don't know if you would wanna add anything, John.
-: Yeah, I'd be happy to, Justin.
Also, great question.
And I was kind of hoping I would get one of those.
I agree with Justin,
I would encourage you to go to the website
for some of the sort of the official points on this.
But in my mind, it really is about durability.
It's about durability.
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
was designated by at least two, I think,
at least two different presidents
through their authority under the Antiquities Act.
And that authority is one that allows the president
to use that authority to protect objects and areas
that are, you know, in the US control, right?
And so President Bush did it back in 2006,
the original monument, which was roughly 50 nautical miles
around the island chain.
And then President Obama expanded it to its size today.
I think what the sanctuary brings is a level of durability
and stability to those designations over time.
And so we wanna make sure that
the sanctuary designation takes time,
and sanctuaries have never been undone.
And so we wanna make sure this place is so special,
we wanna make sure that the sanctuary will come on
and will maintain the current status,
and the level of protections that are afforded
by President Bush and President Obama,
but that they endure over time regardless of, you know,
regardless of sort of which way the political winds
are blown at any given moment,
the sanctuary designation will provide a level of durability
and stability.
And that's what we're looking for.
There are, of course, other benefits as well,
but that's really the main thing at least that I think of.
Justin: Great, thank you.
And Malia, just put the link to more information
on designation for Papahānaumokuākea there so.
Thanks for finding it for us. -: Thanks, Malia.
Justin: Here's another great question.
Are there any other conservation
or marine policy organizations
that sanctuaries works heavily with?
-: Do you mean, I assume that aside from
the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, I think?
I'm assuming.
Justin: Yeah, I'm assuming as well.
-: Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we work with dozens of organizations
all around the country on management of our places,
at the both the local regional and national
and international level as well.
You know, thinking about some of our partners
at the international level
like Conservation International, for example,
we work with The Nature Conservancy, The Ocean Conservancy,
a number of nonprofits,
we work with a lot of zoos and aquaria
around the country as well.
We have,
somebody's gonna kill me 'cause I'm blanking on the number.
It's late in the day here,
you guys are gonna have to forgive me,
but we have dozens of partnerships
with zoos and aquarium around the country where we go,
we have messaging and exhibitry in their places
where we can expose the benefits
of national marine sanctuaries
to millions and millions of visitors around the country.
And then finally,
in addition to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
at the national level,
many sanctuaries have specific sort of friends groups,
that work just on those sites.
So I could list them all,
but I'd probably be here all night.
We have a number of really, really powerful partnerships
with all kinds of institutions and organizations
around the country.
Justin: Great, thanks.
And folks can reach out to your nearest
National Marine Sanctuary site or look on their websites
and it'll probably connect them there, correct?
-: Yep.
Justin: All right, do I have time for another question,
Andy?
Andy: Yeah, I think we can do one or one or two more.
Two the most.
Justin: All right.
So John, what are some of the biggest threats
to our National Marine Sanctuary System?
-: I'm tempted to say underfunding justice, but I won't,
I'm gonna put that one aside
just 'cause I think I've drilled that one hard enough.
I mean, you know,
I think it's really two things.
I think it's clearly climate change, of course,
is tops of the list.
You know, what are we doing about climate change
in our sanctuaries?
Are we, you know,
when I think of climate change
and I think of national marine sanctuaries,
I really think of the benefits
in a couple of different areas.
One is I think of sanctuaries as canaries in the coal mine.
We also call them sentinel sites.
These are places where we could do research and monitoring
over long periods of time
to really sound that alarm bell of change,
of change in wildlife populations,
change of ocean chemistry, et cetera.
But I also think about,
so beyond the sentinel site aspect,
I also think about sanctuaries
in terms of the value that they have,
local communities focusing their understanding
of the impacts of climate change on the ocean in a place,
because the impacts can be so,
everybody's heard of sea level rise,
so many people have heard about ocean acidification,
but what sanctuaries can do is make that real.
They can make that real in a place.
And so, you know,
so, I think, and then finally of course,
you know, sanctuaries also are about resilience.
And so while sanctuaries can't stop climate change,
our role is not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions
or these kinds of things,
but what we can do is give the wildlife
and the habitat in these places a fighting chance.
So can we minimize the non climate stressors
to sanctuaries so that they are more resilient
to the changes that are coming at it from climate?
So I would say climate's the biggest thing.
Beyond that is really more, and I touched on this too,
is really more about our relevance
to African American communities,
to all types of Hispanic communities
in the places where that we work.
You know, we have people that live within a mile
of a national marine sanctuary, on the shore,
that have no idea it's there.
It's not relevant to them.
And to me that is a huge challenge going forward.
How do we make ocean conservation
in the form of National Marine Sanctuary relevant
to all segments of our communities?
And that's why, to me,
it's almost an existential question
about who we are as a program and who we serve.
We serve everybody in the community.
And so this is a real challenge for us,
and we're definitely working on it.
We're really thinking deeply about who we are as a program
and how we tackle that.
-: All right.
Thank you, John.
One last question.
Somebody was wondering if we're considering any,
or any sites there to consider coral reef ecosystem sites
that are under consideration for sanctuary designation.
-: The only one on our list right now that has coral is,
I know it says Marianas Trench
and you're thinking deep water,
but there were shallow water portions of that
in the Commonwealth of the North Marianas Islands.
But the others in Alaska,
obviously, Lake Erie, not much coral there.
So not at the moment, no,
but I would just encourage everybody,
if you have a community, that's a coral community,
that's interested in national marine sanctuaries,
please go on our website, give us a call.
We could certainly talk to you about the process
for putting in a nomination.
We'd love to hear from you.
-: Great, well thank you for wonderful presentation
and for staying late,
I know you're getting up on seven o'clock your time,
so we really appreciate it.
I do have a couple of closing slides here
that I'll present.
Give me a second here.
I'll take back presenter.
But,
thank you, John, for your time.
So all of these presentations we've been doing
will be archived on our site.
There's the website.
But if you just type ONMS webinar,
you can go to current webinars and the recorded webinars,
we have an incredible resource there
after all the wonderful webinars we've been doing
during the pandemic,
you could practically take a college level course
in sanctuary through watching all of those.
And this one will be posted within about two weeks.
We've got to caption it
and I worked with our web team to get it online.
So it will be available.
And you'll get an email for that when it is available.
You're also going to get a certificate of attendance
for attending this webinar
for one hour professional development
if that's of use to you.
Teachers, certainly, can use that
for their ongoing professional development.
And we do have another upcoming webinar,
this one's on June 23rd,
"Pride in the Ocean Career Panel,"
celebrating diversity of voices
that are engaged in ocean conservation
and national marine sanctuaries.
So please, go to the website,
again, the webinar website,
and you can register for that.
There's a couple of other webinars coming
that are on there as well.
Also, we've had the great fortune
of having an incredible ocean exploration vessel
in our area, the Nautilus,
through the Ocean Exploration Trust.
And we've had a few recent missions
aboard that exploring deep sea areas,
and they're going to continue their missions
in Papahānaumokuākea and surrounding area
and doing some really neat mapping expeditions
coming up this summer and some more deep sea expeditions.
So please go to Nautilus Live and follow them
as they're exploring Papahānaumokuākea
and our surrounding area,
we did a really neat presentation from the vessel
in ōlelo Hawaii for the first time,
presenting to Hawaiian students in their own language,
as well as American Sign Language.
This last expedition was really exciting,
the amount of outreach from that vessel.
But also please fill out the form.
We want to hear from you.
We wanna know what other things you'd like to see,
and we'd like your feedback.
This is how we justify these programs,
so please don't skip the survey at the end.
We'd love to hear from you.
And again, mahalo for attending.
Happy birthday, Papahānaumokuākea, sweet 16 yesterday.
And have a wonderful rest of your summer.
Take care.
Be well and be safe.
Aloha.