Seeking public input on nomination process for potential new marine sanctuaries

June 28, 2013

A humpback whale feeds in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Download image here. (Credit: NOAA)

Pink coral at Rose Atoll in National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.

Download image here. (Credit: NOAA)

Diver explores bow of E.B. Allen in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Download image here. (Credit: NOAA)

NOAA is seeking public input on a proposed process and associated criteria to evaluate potential new national marine sanctuaries in the nation’s marine and Great Lakes environments.

NOAA will finalize the proposed process and criteria upon receiving public comment. NOAA will then consider whether to begin accepting nominations for new sanctuaries.

The National Marine Sanctuaries Act in 1972 gave NOAA a mandate to identify, designate, and protect marine areas of special national significance. The public’s involvement in shaping the mechanisms used to nominate new sanctuaries will help NOAA in this mission.

“National marine sanctuaries support local economies by ensuring a healthy and productive ocean,” said Holly A. Bamford, Ph.D., assistant NOAA administrator for the National Ocean Service. “Our goal is to establish a process communities can use to recommend areas of the marine environment that could benefit from designation as a sanctuary, and we’re asking the public to tell us what they think that criteria should be.”

In 1995, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries deactivated the previous process for nominating national marine sanctuaries. Since that time members of Congress, state officials, tribes, non-governmental organizations, and others have expressed interest in pursuing new national marine sanctuaries.

Reestablishing the nomination process will not affect the public’s current use of the marine environment. NOAA may implement regulations only when an area is designated as a national marine sanctuary – a process that is highly public and participatory and typically takes years to complete.

Comments can be submitted electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov. Under Keyword or ID, type in NOAA-NOS-2013-0091. Click the “Comment Now!” icon, complete the required fields and enter or attach your comments. To read the full Federal Register notice, visit: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov

All comments must be received by August 27.

The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries serves as trustee for a system of 14 marine protected areas, encompassing more than 170,000 square miles of America’s ocean and Great Lakes waters. Through active research, management, and public engagement, national marine sanctuaries sustain healthy environments that are the foundation for thriving communities and stable economies.

NOAA's mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.

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Application to import 18 beluga whales for public display denied

August 6, 2013

Following a number of public engagement efforts, NOAA Fisheries today announced it is denying the Georgia Aquarium’s request for a permit to import 18 beluga whales from Russia for public display in the United States. NOAA Fisheries based the decision on requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).

The MMPA allows marine mammals to be removed from the wild or imported for the purpose of public display, and provides a process for issuing permits. This is the first application for a permit to import recently caught wild marine mammals in more than 20 years.

“The Georgia Aquarium clearly worked hard to follow the required process and submit a thorough application, and we appreciate their patience and cooperation as we carefully considered this case,” said Sam Rauch, acting assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “However, under the strict criteria of the law, we were unable to determine if the import of these belugas, combined with the active capture operation in Russia and other human activities, would have an adverse impact on this stock of wild beluga whales.”

After careful review, NOAA Fisheries concluded that the application did not meet several of the MMPA permit criteria. NOAA Fisheries denied the permit application because:

NOAA Fisheries is unable to determine whether or not the proposed importation, by itself or in combination with other activities, would have a significant adverse impact on the Sakhalin-Amur beluga whale stock, the population that these whales are taken from; NOAA Fisheries determined that the requested import will likely result in the taking of marine mammals beyond those authorized by the permit; NOAA Fisheries determined that five of the beluga whales proposed for import, estimated to be approximately 1½ years old at the time of capture, were potentially still nursing and not yet independent.  

Beluga whale pod in the Chukchi sea on July 1st 2008.
Marine Mammal Permit: 14245

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

The Aquarium sought to import the whales from Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station on Russia’s Black Sea Coast for public display at its own facility in Atlanta and at partner facilities, including SeaWorld of Florida, SeaWorld of Texas, SeaWorld of California and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

The whales were captured from Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk between 2006 and 2011. There is little reliable scientific information about the size and population trend of the Sakhalin-Amur stock of belugas, and the impact on the stock of other human activities, such as hunting and fishing, is unknown.

NOAA Fisheries held a public hearing on the proposed beluga whale importation on October 12, 2012. The 60-day public comment period closed Oct. 29, 2012, with NOAA Fisheries receiving approximately 9,000 comments.

Beluga whales are social animals that typically migrate, hunt and interact together in groups of ten to several hundred in the arctic and subarctic waters of Russia, Greenland and North America. Beluga whales face a number of threats including ship strikes, pollution, habitat destruction and entanglement in fishing gear.

For more information, including the decision memo, are available online.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.

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Public support slips for steps to curb climate change

From gas-mileage standards to tax breaks for windmills, public support for "green" energy measures to tackle global warming has dropped significantly in the past two years, particularly among Republicans, a new poll suggests.

By Mark Dadswell, Getty Images

Wind generators are seen in Australia. Americans' support for various steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions has dropped significantly in the past two years, a new poll suggests.

By Mark Dadswell, Getty Images

Wind generators are seen in Australia. Americans' support for various steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions has dropped significantly in the past two years, a new poll suggests.

Majorities still favor most such tax breaks or restrictions on industry, finds the Stanford University poll to be released today. It shows 65% support gas-mileage standards and 73% support tax breaks for wind and solar power. But just 43% support tax breaks for nuclear power, 26% support increasing gasoline taxes and 18% support hiking taxes on home electricity.

Overall, support for various steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions has dropped an average of 10 percentage points since 2010, from 72% to 62%, lead researcher Jon Krosnick says. "Most Americans (62%) still support industry taking steps aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions," Krosnick says, "but they hate the idea of consumer taxes to do it." His group's nationwide polls compared responses from 1,001 people in 2010 to 1,428 people this year.

In 2010, the National Academy of Sciences called for "strong federal policies" to curb greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gasoline, coal and natural gas. It warned that "climate change is occurring" and said these fuels are partly to blame. The warning came after the failure in 2009 of a Senate bill that would have created a U.S. market for rights to buy and sell greenhouse gas emissions credits.

In a March Gallup poll, 53% of Americans agreed that "global warming is caused by pollution resulting from human activities," similar to percentages in past years.

Public opinion experts including Drexel University's Robert Brulle point to declining news coverage of global warming for the falling support of steps to fight greenhouse gases; others cite the economy's doldrums.

Krosnick suggests that distrust of environmental scientists among Republican voters, expressed by about 41% of them in the poll, may explain much of the drop. Such distrust was not seen as strongly among independent and Democratic voters, he says. The average drop in support for these policies was about 7 percentage points among those who identified themselves as Democrats or independents vs. 14 points for Republicans.

Since Republican Sen. John McCain expressed support for steps to slow global warming during the 2008 presidential race, "we have seen a significant shift in political rhetoric in the primary races in Republican debates," Krosnick says. (McCain says he no longer supports such steps.) This year, Republican debates regularly featured the views of likely nominee Mitt Romney, who has said, "We don't know what's causing climate change."

Brulle says the effect of the economy on views about climate change needs to be more carefully studied.

Even if the public supports steps to address global warming, Brulle says, "opinion on climate change and environmental issues overall has consistently ranked at the bottom of the overall public concerns" in polling. Just 1% of people ranked the environment as a "top concern" in the Gallup Poll in March.

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