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Spring 1997 |
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Page 4 |
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Inside |
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Sanctuary News & Notes |
pg. 4 |
 Joanne Flanders, MBNMS Assistant Manager, joined the office in late 1996. (See last issue.). |
New Strategic Plan for Sanctuaries Announced
At the January 17, 1997 Sanctuary Advisory Council meeting, Sanctuaries and Reserves Division (SRD) Chief Stephanie Thornton briefly outlined the SRD's new strategic plan for the nation's National Marine Sanctuaries. The strategic plan is intended to provide an overall vision and direction for the National Marine Sanctuaries Program through the year 2000.
Some of the strategies detailed in the new plan include an emphasis on tying research and education activities to resource protection, the role of outside revenue enhancement, using sanctuaries to serve as a global model for resource protection and an emphasis on the `human dimension' in Sanctuary management. "This [latter strategy] is an acknowledgment that you don't really manage the resources as much as you manage people and their effects on the resources," explains MBNMS Manager Terry Jackson. "Most of the managers have recognized this and have operated accordingly, but the new Plan formalizes this approach."
For further information on the new SRD Strategic Plan, please contact NOAA's Sanctuaries and Reserves Division at (301) 713-3125.
SRD Chief Stephanie Thornton has announced that the northern portion (from the San Mateo/Santa Cruz county line northward) of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) will be jointly managed by the MBNMS and the Gulf of the Farallones NMS (GFNMS). Under this new management structure, both sanctuaries share responsibility for resource protection, education and research activities, constituency building, volunteer programs, enforcement, emergency response, permitting and regulations.
The managers of both sanctuaries will work together over the next several months to develop a co-management plan. A seven-member task force, including Thornton, has been established to facilitate this new management structure.
Thornton has set aside $25,000 from the SRD budget to expand existing programs into a joint management scheme or create new cooperative projects in the region. A satellite office, staffed by personnel from both sanctuaries, may be established in Half Moon Bay.
"From our perspective, this will allow us to start expanding some of the programs we've done successfully down here up into the northern region," says MBNMS Manager Terry Jackson. Ed Ueber, GFNMS Manager, is interested in expanding his Beach Watch volunteer program into the co-managed area. SRD highlighted the Water Quality Protection Program and volunteer programs as priorities to be funded through this cooperative pool.
In March 1993, the northern portion was temporarily placed under the management of the GFNMS to compensate for a MBNMS staff shortage (personnel consisted only of Jackson and one other staff person) and to streamline the coordination process between the two sanctuaries. Some of the intended benefits of this new management scheme are to maximize limited resources and to build a strong constituency base in the northern portion that supports both sanctuaries.
The Sanctuary will benefit from three grants provided by CUEREC (California Urban Environmental Research and Education Center), a non-profit group that receives funding from the EPA and distributes those resources to projects that link California State University faculty with resource management programs. The grants will support an intertidal rocky shore survey, a new beach monitoring program and development of the Sanctuary's GIS (geographical information systems) capabilities.
"It is as if they developed the goals of CUEREC with us in mind," says Andrew DeVogelaere, the Sanctuary's Research Coordinator, who is a Co-Principal Investigator on the three grants. "This will allow us to use the technical expertise of the Cal State system's faculty to help with real problems here in the Sanctuary."
Here are summaries of the three grants:
- Mike Foster, at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
(MLML), will help with intertidal monitoring in rocky
shore habitats. The program will set up stations to look
for changes in the resources and to prepare for natural
resource damage assessment, which can be helpful in case
of an oil spill.
- Jim Harvey, also at MLML, will use his expertise to
establish a beach survey program. Volunteers will be
trained and organized to walk the Sanctuary's beaches
regularly to obtain baseline information on birds,
mammals and fish that wash ashore. The goal is to learn
natural mortality rates, to be able to detect changes in
the health of the Sanctuary.
- Rick Starr from Sea Grant and Jack Parris from CSUMB will help to develop a geographic information system (GIS). They will work with CSUMB's SIVA (Spatial Information Visualization and Analysis) Center to make existing data accessible to resource managers in map and other user-friendly formats.
MBNMS Interpretive Area at San Carlos Beach
Plans are underway to establish a Sanctuary interpretive area at San Carlos Beach in Monterey as a memorial to the tremendous contributions made by David Packard to the Monterey Bay region and to the Sanctuary. Staff from the City of Monterey are working with a subcommittee of the City Council and staff members from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and MBNMS to develop an appropriate display.
The proposed location for the interpretive area is
adjacent to the picnic tables at the beach. The concept
currently includes the installation of six interpretive
panels and a circular rock structure with some panels
recessed in the rock. The rock sculpture is designed to
represent a tidepool and will have creatures embedded in the
rock for children to touch and feel; the sculpture is
envisioned as a means to celebrate David Packard's
exploration and revelation of the Monterey Bay. Some of the
topics being considered for the interpretive panels include:
recreational and commercial use of the bay; habitats;
diversity of life; the Sanctuary; and the bay as a "hotbed'
of exploration and discoveries. Committee members hope the
memorial can be installed sometime in 1997. 
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