WASHINGTON, D.C. – With reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act pending before Congress, the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans conducted a field hearing at UCSB yesterday.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) and Congressional Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), the subcommittee chairwoman, presided over the hearing as a majority of the eight expert witnesses who testified spoke in favor of strengthening the act and lifting a moratorium on designating new protected maritime zones under its provisions.

Rep. Capps' district contains two of the National Marine Sanctuaries designated under the act: Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, established in 1980 and encompassing 1,252 square nautical miles, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which spans 276 miles of coast and 5,322 square nautical miles of ocean.

William Douros, West Coast regional director of the National Marine Sanctuary Program under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the subcommittee that the administration had four top priorities for strengthening the act. He said the goals of the act, whose last reauthorization was in 2000, need to be clarified, the process for choosing and designating new sanctuaries should be standardized, some of the sanctuary protections should be extended to National Marine Monuments and the moratorium on designating new sanctuaries should be lifted.

Margaret Caldwell, senior lecturer at Stanford Law School and a former member of the California Coastal Commission, said the act should state clearly that resource protection is its primary goal and should contain specific provisions to review and inventory resources and sites that should be protected. It should also grant explicit authority to create fully protected marine reserves as well as provisional sanctuaries when an urgent need is identified, said Ms. Caldwell. She also called for an end to the moratorium on new sanctuaries.
Dianne Black spoke on behalf of local government in her role as the county director of development services, although she is also Santa Barbara County chairperson of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary advisory council.

She said she strongly supports reauthorization of the act, adding, "The act has resulted in good government and collaborative management." She pointed to sanctuary advisory councils, made up of local stakeholder representatives, as an example of effective collaboration and inclusion of input on the local level.

Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, spoke in favor of strengthening the act, adding that the coastal area of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary helped pump $45 million into the California economy in 2004.

She called California's coastal area "the golden goose that drives the economy" and joined other panelists in calling for a strengthened act that has as its goal "ecosystem protection" as opposed to protection of specific species. She also favored a lifting of the moratorium on new sanctuaries and called for "adequate and sustained funding" to put its provisions into effect.

"The wealth of our oceans is disappearing under out watch," she warned.

Congresswoman Bordallo asked Ms. Black why some stakeholders, such as commercial fisherman, say their perspective has not been heard.

She answered that they have been included in the outreach process, but their sentiments reflect dissatisfaction with the results.

"I can assure you every voice has been heard," she said.

A lone voice of dissent from the witnesses was that of Jim Martin, regional director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, who said the act often runs roughshod over regional fisheries management under the 1976 Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which is now known as the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

"We see the need for more public involvement," he said, adding that the conflict between the National Marine Sanctuaries Act and Magnuson-Stevens should be resolved. He called for adoption of recommendations of the eight regional management councils established under Magnuson-Stevens.

Another witness, UCSB Professor Dr. Steven Gaines, said there is scientific evidence that the sanctuaries have resulted in increases in the biomass within their boundaries and that recreational fishermen have even capitalized on this by operating at the boundaries of the sanctuaries.

"Hundreds of scientific studies have confirmed that," he said.
He called for the establishment of wider networks of sanctuaries separated by areas open to wider use as a way of protecting ecosystems while increasing the benefits to stakeholders such as recreational fishermen.

"In reserves (that have been) in place for decades, some off the best fishing is found on the boundary," he said. "The same thing is starting to emerge in the Channel Islands."

Rep. Capps referenced the three blue whales struck by ships and killed this year in the Santa Barbara Channel, saying that the rerouting of commercial ship traffic was an area worthy of additional study after it was noted that ship traffic has been rerouted off Massachusetts to help protect right whales.

Denny Takahashi-Kelso, executive vice president of Ocean Conservancy, called for "thoughtful and surgical" adjustment of the act, including a fully funded "inventory process and monitoring program."

Witness Robert Talbot of Talbot Productions and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, said the reauthorization of the act, two years overdue, must include increased funding.

"The ocean is dying and we're sitting here talking about it," he remarked. "We really have to act."

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