Sanctuary Education Panel Meeting

Thursday, March 15, 2001
State Parks Office, Monterey

Attendees:
Steve Clark, Monterey Academy of Oceanographic Sciences
Pat Clark-Gray, State Parks - Monterey District
Dawn Hayes, MBNMS
Fleur O'Neill, Save Our Shores, Education Coord
Pete Scriviani, Save Our Shores Director
Wendy Ward, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Debbie Wyatt , Monterey Peninsula Regional Parks District

Guest Speaker: John Berkey, Watershed Coordinator, Carmel River Watershed Council
John presented the SEP with an overview of the watershed "movement" and the formation of the Carmel River Watershed Council, see

http://www.carmelriverwatershed.org/history.html.

John explained his role as Watershed Coordinator and shared the Council's mission: The primary mission of the Carmel River Watershed Council (CRWC) is protection of the natural resources that form the Carmel River Watershed. The council will balance environmental protection and the diverse needs of the Community. This will be accomplished by exemplifying integrity, inclusiveness, education and mutual respect. He is currently a one man show, but is close to securing funding to bring on an Education Coordinator. The council has joined several others along the coast to form a regional effort. The joint group would share information, techniques, concerns and approaches to watershed protection. Next meeting will be June 13th, location is tentatively Garland Ranch. For more on the Carmel River Watershed Council see:

http://www.carmelriverwatershed.org/.

Sanctuary Advisory Council Meeting -- Pat Clark-Gray
Pat updated the members on the last SAC meeting.
Public Comment period was quite involved with Fishers and Environmental groups both commenting on no-take zones, marine protected areas and potential threats to the fishing community in the form of fishing regulation. MBNMS Concerns with the Navy's Proposed Use of Ft. Hunter Liggett Bombing Range also saw public comment. MBNMS would prefer the Navy stay clear of its Boundaries, period of public comment to the Navy was extended. Update on CalTrans HWY 1 Issues, Dr. Holly Price shared information regarding proposed work and current projects and partnerships. Update of the Management Plan Review. Pat and touched upon discussions with MBNMS and the Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fishing. SAC also Covered Fireworks permits and the NAPA report.

MBNMS Staff Report -- Dawn Hayes
Staff Changes
Maris Sidenstecker will be leaving the Education Team the end of May. She will be consulting and working on her children's book. Maris' 5 year efforts on the Education Team and her creative approach to Water Quality issues has been remarkable. She has achieved and created some huge shoes to fill. The Sanctuary will be offering a full time contract position for water quality and resource issue education. We hope to expand Maris' successful approach to Water Quality to hit other resource issue concerns like Tide pool Trampling, Marine Mammal Disturbance, Exotic Species, Dredging and Aerial Overflight.

Julie Barrow (our Half Moon Bay educator) has been converted to a HQ representative with a Management Plan Review focus. Her job will be to help implement the review process for the San Mateo Coast, she reports directly to Dan Basta.

Events and Opportunities:
There are so many events and opportunities that the Sanctuary could be involved with. We can't be at all and we are missing ones we don't even know exist (International Migratory Bird Day for one!). We are compiling a list of the events we know of through December 2002.

ACTION ITEM : If you have some suggestions of events you feel we should attend, consider or at least know about, please do send these to Dawn.

Sanctuary Currents Symposium planning is already underway. Several topics have been brought up: Marine Protected Areas, Management Plan Issues and Exploration/Technology. The SEP voted to propose the Technology focus.

MBNMS, MBA and MATE are considering a single (very large) student summit. This would have all student involved with various monitoring, research, ROV design/ development and other project to see what other High School students are doing, how they are doing it and to be present at each other's presentations/competitions. The Aquarium's Coastal America Learning Site status may entitle us to $10,000 to launch the collaborative event. NOTE: SAT9's scheduled for the last two weeks of April.

Educational Materials:
We have been fortunate to be included in a reprint opportunity. The Spanish Version of NOAA's Coral Reef Activity Guide has been reprinted and we've ordered 150 copies. We have 75 remaining and they are available on a first come, first serve basis.

Sustainable Seas Teacher Resource Books (Units 1 and 2) are also available. We have many copies of Unit 1 and can order a batch of Unit 2 if there is interest.

MBNMS Land Sea Connection Curriculum has been translated into Spanish, is posted on the web and is due from the printers next week.

Visitor Center/Educational Displays:
Bill has met with State Parks recently to discuss a number of topics and one thing that came up was the opportunity to possibly partner with State Parks/Beaches to create MBNMS displays for all the Parks and Beaches along the coast. While a huge endeavor, we need to come up with some comprehensive plan to submit to HQ in order to get into a pool of contestants for potential construction funds available next fiscal year.

Dawn and Jen have been meeting with Dave Vincent, State Parks Superintendent, Santa Cruz District, on a potential Visitor Center project. Dawn and Jen are working to create a basic needs document so we can create a statement of work for a contractor to do a feasibility analysis for sighting. Seacliff State Beach, another Santa Cruz site and Heritage Harbor in Monterey have all been suggested as potentials, but we'll need to see how these stack up when comparing visitation, accommodation, permitting, construction and a number of other issues. The RFP will be finished the end of this month.

National Education Plan:
The National Education Working group has developed a comprehensive plan to direct the program as a whole. This document is long and detailed. It is a lot of very good work and MBNMS hopes to develop it's own regional plan within its framework (one of the National Plan's Goals). In order to do this, we all need to take the time to read through this carefully and consider what MBNMS can do now, what we can feasibly plan to incorporate and what we could do with more staff. The SEP now has its best opportunity to work with the sanctuary in the development of this regional document. What are things not addressed in the National Plan that need to be addressed locally (multicultural education ). As a group we need to develop a solid plan (using this format for ease) to identify what the direction is for the next 5-10 years. Time is of the essence. We need to have a plan developed in order to get our needs incorporated into the management plan review process. We are poised to get a good portion of our needs written into the new management document. Let's take advantage of it!

We will alter the regularly scheduled September 20th meeting to focus all attention on this Regional Plan. We will hold a 3p-7p meeting at Elkhorn Slough and plan on a potluck. In the interim, Dawn will compile the materials worked on in 1998/99 as well as get the new NMS Education Plan out to all SEP Members.

ACTION ITEM: This very important topic requires you full attention, please do take the time to go through the National Plan. We will take information from the previous body of MBNMS Plan work and try to shape what we can into a similar format. There may be things we want to address in the next ten years that were absent in the first go round. PLEASE do look for this information to arrive in the next few weeks. If you do not receive it by June 22, please contact Dawn Hayes @ 647-4256.

Museum Analysis -- Debbie Wyatt
Debbie wanted to take advantage of the expertise in the group to take a look at the museum displays at the Garland Ranch Museum. There was not much time, but Debbie got some information. Anyone is welcome to take a stroll through and give Debbie feedback.