How To Protect The Ocean

Earlier this year, about 65,000 people submitted comments on a federal deep-sea mining proposal near the Northern Mariana Islands, most of them opposed. The area under consideration nearly doubled anyway. So why should anyone show up to a public meeting about the ocean? Andrew Lewin makes the case with two marine protected area processes that earned broad public support by design.
The first is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park's Representative Areas Program, which rezoned the entire park between 1999 and 2004. Two formal community participation phases, one before any draft existed, drew more than 31,000 public submissions, while standing local advisory committees kept fishers, tourism operators, and coastal communities in the conversation year round. No-take zones grew from about 4.5 percent of the park to 33.3 percent. The second is the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off California's Central Coast, nominated by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council in 2015 and designated in October 2024 after a staged NOAA process that drew more than 110,000 comments, over 98 percent in support.
Andrew explains what those processes had that a bare petition process lacks: staged phases, standing advisory structures, clear ownership of the proposal, and a room where people feel safe to speak. He connects it to what happened in California's MPA review, covered earlier this week with Anupa Asokan, and to the Fish and Game Commission meetings in Sacramento this October. He wants to hear about your own public comment experiences, good or bad.
Takeaways:
A petition process with no staged phases, standing advisory structure, or way to reconcile competing input tends to produce conflict and weak buy-in.
The Great Barrier Reef rezoning ran two formal public phases, in 2002 and 2003, and drew more than 31,000 submissions.
Local marine advisory committees kept dialogue with fishers, tourism operators, and communities going between the formal windows.
No-take zones grew from about 4.5 percent to 33.3 percent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 2004.
Andrew recalls fisher tracking data being used to place new no-take areas where they would have the least impact on fishing.
A study of the rezoning found science, leadership, public engagement, and politics all had to work together for approval.
The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary was the first tribally nominated national marine sanctuary in the US, and more than 98 percent of comments supported it.
Without buy-in, a marine protected area risks becoming a paper park.
Knowing how the process works makes it easier to show up, speak, and support others in the room.
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In 2014, just two years after California finished its statewide network of marine protected areas, a marine heatwave known as The Blob settled over the Pacific coast and stayed for two years. Kelp forests collapsed up and down the state, and sea star wasting disease wiped out sea stars on a scale few scientists had seen. For a network built partly to protect kelp habitat, it was the worst possible first test.
Andrew Lewin walks through what the state learned when it checked. California's first Decadal Management Review pulled together long-term monitoring across kelp forests, rocky reefs, the intertidal, sandy beaches, and more, producing seven technical reports plus an independent synthesis from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis so the state wasn't grading its own work. A UCLA-led study in the Journal of Applied Ecology then used nearly four decades of satellite imagery to show that kelp inside MPAs recovered better after the heatwave than similar unprotected coastline, most clearly in Southern California.
The reason comes down to predators. Inside MPAs, California sheephead and spiny lobster were protected from fishing and kept urchins in check, so recovering kelp beds weren't mowed down into urchin barrens. Andrew covers the 2023 recommendations that came out of the review, how the Ocean Protection Council is folding them into California's 30x30 commitment, and why he'd like to see these assessments happen every five years instead of every ten. Thursday, the series turns to who gets heard in what happens next.
Takeaways:
The 2014 to 2016 marine heatwave (The Blob) and El Niño hit two years after California completed its MPA network, collapsing kelp forests statewide.
California's first MPA Decadal Management Review, released by CDFW in January 2023 with the Ocean Protection Council, drew on long-term monitoring across multiple habitats.
The review produced seven technical reports and one synthesis report, with the synthesis led by an outside group, NCEAS, for independent perspective.
A UCLA-led study in the Journal of Applied Ecology used satellite imagery from 1984 to 2022 and found kelp inside MPAs recovered better after the heatwave than matched unprotected sites, most clearly in Southern California.
The likely mechanism is a trophic cascade: protected sheephead and spiny lobster keep urchin populations from exploding into kelp-eating barrens.
CDFW's recommendations are organized around MPA governance, the MPA management program, and overall network performance.
The network covers 16% of state waters across 124 MPAs, and the Ocean Protection Council is treating it as a foundation for California's 30x30 goal.
Regular, checkable assessments show where protection is working and make the case for expanding it.
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In 1999, California passed a law ordering the state to fix its patchwork of ocean parks. For two years, almost nothing happened, and two attempts to get the process moving both failed. It took a 2004 public-private partnership, roughly $35 million in public and philanthropic funding, and a decade of work before the state had a real network of marine protected areas. Partway through that decade, more than 300 people from over 50 tribal nations walked into a public meeting in Fort Bragg to protest how the process was treating their rights.
Andrew Lewin walks through what actually happened between the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act and the 124-MPA network Californians know today: the 2004 partnership with the nonprofit funder Resources Legacy Fund that finally got the process moving, the region-by-region design work built on stakeholder groups, a Science Advisory Team, and a Blue Ribbon Task Force, and the Fish and Game Commission votes that made each region official, starting with the Central Coast in 2007.
The process also shows where good intentions ran into real conflict. On California's North Coast, tribal sovereignty and traditional gathering rights were not built into the process from the start, and it took a public confrontation before the state addressed it. The North Coast's final proposal, with a formal tribal gathering exception, was not adopted until 2012, and tribal leaders accepted it with conditions rather than a full endorsement. Andrew connects this history to yesterday's conversation with Anupa Asokan about the network's ongoing adaptive management review, and explains why managing an MPA network never really finishes.
Takeaways:
California's Marine Life Protection Act passed in 1999 but sat mostly unused for its first two years, surviving two failed implementation attempts before a 2004 public-private partnership with the nonprofit funder Resources Legacy Fund got the process moving.
The full process to build California's network of marine protected areas took about a decade and roughly $35 million in public and philanthropic funding.
Each of the four coastal regions went through the same design steps: a stakeholder group draft, a Science Advisory Team review, a Blue Ribbon Task Force recommendation, and a final vote by the state's Fish and Game Commission. The Central Coast was designated first, in 2007.
The process did not build in tribal sovereignty and traditional gathering rights from the start. In July 2010, more than 300 people from over 50 tribal nations took over a Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg to protest it.
The North Coast region's final proposal, including a formal tribal gathering exception, was adopted in 2012, and tribal leaders accepted it with conditions rather than a full endorsement.
California's network now includes roughly 124 marine protected areas and recreational management areas, and it is still being managed through an ongoing adaptive process, the same one covered in yesterday's episode with Anupa Asokan.
Managing a network of marine protected areas does not end at designation. It requires monitoring, reassessment, and revision, and that takes sustained funding, time, and public patience.
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California has a network of 124 marine protected areas, and in October the state's Fish and Game Commission takes up 15 proposals that could change it. The proposals came out of the network's first 10-year management review, an adaptive management process written into the law so the network could respond to shifting fish populations, a warming climate, and evolving public values. Anupa Asokan, founder of Fish On, explains what that review looked like from inside the room.
Anupa is a marine scientist, angler, and surfer who started Fish On to give conservation-minded anglers and spearfishers a voice. She describes a review where the state asked the public to submit petitions instead of assessing the whole network itself, where early agency evaluations left out climate change and equitable access until people pushed for them, and where a public meeting on tribally sponsored petitions drew offensive comments that, she says, no state official condemned. She also credits the Ocean Protection Council for weighing in with its own recommendations, including a climate lens and support for some tribally led proposals.
Andrew and Anupa also talk about starting a conservation nonprofit with the help of a fiscal sponsor, why MPAs act as an insurance policy for fisheries management, and what data the state could share first to lower the temperature between groups. The Commission hears MPA petitions October 15 and 16 in Sacramento. Anupa lays out how to send a letter, join the meeting, and find other groups working on the petitions, and every link is in the show notes.
Takeaways:
California's 124-MPA network faces its first major adaptive management decision, with 15 proposals before the Fish and Game Commission on October 15 and 16.
Anupa says the state relied on public petitions instead of assessing the network itself, which put the burden on communities and advocacy groups.
The petitions range from a kelp forest package to fishing industry requests to open reserves to tribally sponsored new areas.
She says early agency evaluations skipped climate change and equitable access until people pushed, and she credits the Ocean Protection Council for adding both.
A safe and respectful public process is part of good management, because people who fear speaking up do not speak.
Fish On has an editable letter to the Commission at fishon.us, and Anupa says there may be group rides to Sacramento.
Fish On describes its members as fishers fighting for their fish.
Fish On's Website: https://www.fishon.us/
Fish On's Resource to Speak Up for California's MPA system: https://www.fishon.us/news-resources/speak-up-for-californias-mpa-future
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Sea level rise. It's a phrase everyone's supposed to be afraid of, and almost nobody can picture. A couple of millimeters a year sounds too small to matter, until you find out coastal wetlands have an exact, measured speed limit for how fast they can keep up, and the ocean is closing in on it.
Marshes and mangroves have kept pace with a rising sea for thousands of years by building their own soil upward, layer by layer, as plants grow, die, and get buried in place. That strategy has a hard limit. Peer-reviewed research puts it at roughly 6.1 millimeters of sea level rise a year, the point past which soil simply can't build fast enough. NASA's own sea level data shows the global rate has already gone from about 2 millimeters a year in the early 1990s to roughly 4.5 millimeters a year today, nearly doubling in three decades and closing that gap fast.
There's a second strategy, and it's already working in real places. When a marsh can't out-build the tide, it can move inland instead, if there's room. Maryland's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge has lost more than 5,000 acres of marsh, nearly half its historic wetland, and faces up to three feet of sea level rise in the Chesapeake by 2100. Its 2013 Blackwater 2100 strategy uses conservation easements to pay landowners to keep migration corridors open, and it's already protected more than 3,000 acres along the Nanticoke River and Coursey Creek. This episode connects back to Monday's interview with Dr. Adam Langley and lands on what coastal communities can actually do about it.
Takeaways:
Marshes and mangroves survive sea level rise by building soil upward, but that strategy has a hard limit: peer-reviewed research (Saintilan et al., 2020, Science) puts it at roughly 6.1 millimeters of sea level rise a year.
NASA's sea level data shows the global rate has already climbed from roughly 2 millimeters a year in the early 1990s to about 4.5 millimeters a year today, nearly doubling in three decades.
When building up stops working, marshes and mangroves have a second option: shifting inland, provided there's open land behind them to move into.
Maryland's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge has already lost more than 5,000 acres of marsh, nearly half its historic wetland, and its 2013 "Blackwater 2100" strategy uses conservation easements to keep migration corridors open along the Nanticoke River and Coursey Creek.
The plan is working but unfinished: roughly 812 acres are protected along Coursey Creek and 2,300 along the Nanticoke, with about 5,000 acres still unprotected.
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