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How To Protect The Ocean

Celebrating the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary: A New Era of Ocean Protection

Duration:
18m
Broadcast on:
16 Oct 2024
Audio Format:
other

In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, host Andrew Lewin shares exciting news about the establishment of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of California. This sanctuary is groundbreaking as it is the first of its kind in California to be co-managed in partnership with Indigenous peoples, specifically the Chumash people.

Spanning 4,500 square miles, the sanctuary will prohibit oil drilling and protect numerous cultural resources, including the suspected remains of ancient submerged villages. The designation of this marine protected area (MPA) is a significant step towards recognizing and honoring the rights and knowledge of Indigenous communities in ocean management.

The journey to establish the sanctuary began in 2015, with the Chumash people advocating for its protection. After facing setbacks during the Trump administration, the Biden administration prioritized the proposal, leading to its recent designation. While the sanctuary's boundaries may not encompass all desired areas, it represents a crucial victory for Indigenous rights and environmental protection.

The episode emphasizes the importance of collaboration and communication among various ocean users, highlighting the need for ongoing dialogue to ensure that all voices, especially those of Indigenous communities, are heard in the management of marine resources. The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary not only aims to protect marine biodiversity but also serves as a model for future co-management efforts, fostering trust and cooperation between Indigenous peoples and government agencies.

Overall, this episode celebrates the establishment of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary as a landmark achievement in marine conservation and Indigenous rights, paving the way for more inclusive and effective ocean management practices.

Link to article: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-10-14/white-house-announces-new-california-marine-sanctuary

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I have good news to share on this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. There is a new marine protected area in the US off the coast of California that is the first of its kind. It's called the Shumash heritage national marine sanctuary. It was designated on Monday announced on Monday and the first it's the first such preserve in California to be managed in cooperation with indigenous people the 4500 square mile sanctuary off the coast of California's rugged central coast with prohibit oil drilling on offer other protections to an area that encompasses numerous cultural resources including the suspected remains of ancient submerged villages. We're going to talk about that on today's episode. Let's start the show. Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean and what you need to do to live for a better ocean by taking action and today we're going to be talking about government action that has been taken to put in a national marine sanctuary called the Shumash heritage national marine sanctuary. As I mentioned in the pre intro just before we did this episode it is the first of its kind where it's in partnership to manage with a indigenous people which is great. This is this is this is awesome. Now the sanctuary is going to stretch from just south of St. Louis of Bispot in California to just just about the Channel Islands so Santa Barbara. This is a territory that has been in the making since 2015 when the Obama administration allowed groups of people to submit their own area for protection so the Shumash people decided to do this. This was very important to them and so there it was the the Santa in these band of Shumash Indians which submitted the the the proposal and that was tabled once the Trump administration got into power for that that era and then in 2021 I believe after years of sitting on the shelf due to that Trump administration the Biden administration made the proposal a top priority but after Noah publicly posted the initial detail plan in 2023 progress hit a wall so many indigenous and environmental leaders wanted the sanctuary to extend up to the Monterey Bay sanctuary past the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant however that wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons including the fact that there's offshore wind companies had long plan developing near the power plant which provides an easy connection to the electrical grid since Diablo Canyon already has sent 6% of the state's power from the coastal inland from coastal inland so you know they wanted to propose it all the way up to the Monterey Bay sanctuary which would have been a huge stretch however that got kibosh because of there was other ocean uses this happens a lot of times with marine protected areas it's almost like a business plan for the for the ocean along the coastline and in this case you know there are different ocean users that wanted protections and there are other ocean users that want to use it for offshore wind offshore wind has I guess a controversial history in terms of the way it's built and how quickly it's been built some people really don't like it a lot of misinformation around windmills around these offshore wind areas but you know there's there's always worry about it disrupting marine mammal migration patterns sea turtles sharks and so forth so there is a lot of environmental planning that goes into that process but it is it can be controversial just because of the two sides like I said there's a lot of misinformation on one side saying that you know offshore wind doesn't really help however there's a big push to put them out there and there is there's shown to be proof that the offshore wind is great to have however when you're looking at protecting a swath of land you or swath of ocean you have ocean users that that can conflict in that and so you can't take the entire way however that doesn't mean in the future we can build on what's been put in place and hopefully extend to north to the Monterey Bay area which would be really great to have because that would make it a very large mpa with a lot of different management areas hopefully and we've seen different management areas before it's it's not as easy to put in because that takes a lot of negotiation a lot of discussion with the different ocean users we've seen it happen in Australia with the Great Barrier Reef where the Great Barrier Reef has a number of different management areas along it's it's the along the reef basically along the coastline of Australia and the eastern coastline of Australia and we've seen that work in a big benefit at one point I remember when I was a master student in 2003-2004 there was a presentation given where the Great Barrier Reef actually increased its no-take areas by 30 percent at the time because it was at three percent so they increased it by 30 percent to make 33 percent and they realized that the reason why they were able to do that is they tracked where fishers were fishing in and around those no-take areas they noticed that they weren't going in the areas where they wanted to extend the no-take zone so they said okay we're going to be able to do it you guys don't fish there anyway we can increase it they said okay since we're not fishing there no big deal and it's going to help us in the long run so they they added that on so just eventually help but it helped because they did studies within the within the marine protected area and the network of marine protected areas the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park so they're able to get that data and show that there's not really that much of a conflict the problem lies in a marine protected area when there's a lot of conflict or there's there's conflicting sides that want to the same piece of the area so that can take that can play a role when we look at how do we increase or how do we move closer to a larger marine protected area now of course there are some areas where you know some people the part of the Shumash area but a different region said that they did not feel that they were they were approached to find out what they thought of the marine protected area now it initially the northern Shumash tribe of San Luis Obispo County and region whose tribal territory overlaps with the sanctuary now said that her this is Haley Batista said that her tribe wasn't made aware of the proposal until after an initial plan was already submitted to NOAA so now again I don't know exactly what happened here but one one of the tribes did submit the proposal they may not have included the this tribe here or they may have just submitted just hoping that it would get um it would get designated later on and help everybody they brought in people I don't know exactly what happened but obviously it makes a big difference to have a number of different ocean users right whether you're trying to have the same protections you know to the table bring everybody to the table before you start and hopefully they'll be able to to be able to voice their concerns so they said they've voiced their concerns multiple times and submitted letters uh and their reciprocation hasn't been great so there's still a lot of communication even though this MPA this marine protectors marine sanctuary if you will was designated there's still a lot to build on uh you know a lot of the times when we put in a marine protected area the initial marine protected area may not be the best outcome for everybody there some people may not be happy that they weren't involved enough some people may not be happy that they didn't get their voice heard or they wanted certain things they didn't get uh certain areas that were protected that what they wanted protected or not protected and they didn't get those so that this has to build when you're looking at a marine protected area there's a lot of conflict that goes on a lot of negotiations and so this is a lot of conflict resolution when you when you really look at it um but the thing is is like with all of these groups the ocean to them is sacred and it's important for them to have a place to be able to protect um so they want to quick to be dismissed and and that's a that's a big thing for a lot of these groups ocean users you know uh indigenous people fishers nobody wants to be dismissed everybody wants to be able to uh have their say and especially when it comes to indigenous people with the way they've been treated in the past a lot of trust needs to be built not only now but in the future uh and that's just starting and it's it's pretty rocky in a lot of places it doesn't matter what government you're talking about Canadian government the US government there's a lot of negotiations that are continuing to happen for territories but also just the the the basic trust of government to indigenous people relationships and vice versa is just not there at all and i don't know that's going to be a long time before that gets there but these these processes of building and marine protected areas and co-mangees and main protected areas could help build that trust as they move forward um so that's always great now just to give a little bit of a background of the marine sanctuary it's line with sandy beaches rocky shores is home of multitude of seabirds and sea lions kelp forest one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world and a great absorbing and great absorbing uh carbon sit off the coast and have have problems just with climate change and everything on the deep sea floor rough volcanic terrain harbors corals sponges and fish the open ocean is home to whales turtles and jellyfish of course also sharks tuna fish like large fish salmon all those um you know important fish that are along those coastlines um really end up being a big part of uh of this marine protected area of course uh and they'll they'll definitely benefit from being in this marine protected area whether they're there all the time or at some parts of those times now uh you know the the big thing here the protection is some of the seawater along california central coast is becoming increasingly unlivable the santa maria and santa ines rivers uh neither of which meet state water quality standards discharge a mix of toxic chemicals fertilizers grease and dangerous bacteria not only do they have that from land the rivers but they have cruise ships and other vessels that go by that can potentially discharge very concentrated sewage gray water bilge water ballast water hazardous hazardous waste and solid waste and this is according to an environmental report by the office of marine sanctuaries and no one of the quotes is from that reporter sewage from vessels is generally more concentrated than sewage from land-based resources as dilute as it is diluted with less water when flushed large cruise ships can carry thousands of passengers and can be and can generate several million gallons of waste per day so this is a that's a big thing then you have seven offshore drilling rigs stand in the vicinity with the with three permanently shuttered and four temporarily out of operation they are each connected by shore by each connected to shore by miles of oil oil carrying pipelines and spills have fouled the sea multiple times in this area developed in this 1970s in 1997 a free point uh free port mr mik moran pipeline ruptured releasing thousands of gallons of oil killing hundreds of seabirds in 2015 annex on mobile a mobile pipeline spilt more than a hundred thousand gallons of crude oil in the ocean i remember seeing that on on t vina and and online and it was awful to see now of course with climate change greenhouse gas emissions and so forth you you have this innate ability with the marine protected area to protect from a lot of the human disturbances around not necessarily climate change but a lot of the other human disturbances so you know overfishing you can that you can stop overfishing you can stop people from being in the area at certain times of the year or even all the time uh you can stop oil production you can stop a lot of things within the marine protected area the one thing you can't protect though is water quality these boundaries that are around this marine protected area will not be physical boundaries obviously it's going to be open boundaries are going to be invisible there's boundaries on a map that you'll be able to delineate but there's no real boundaries in the area that we're going to see in real life so water quality bad water quality from rivers can actually get into the get into the marine protected area and still affect the sea life and the habitats that are you know that make this such a unique habitat so we have to control those types of water quality that type of water quality is coming in now one good thing is if you have a marine protected area through the marine sanctuary program there are different legislative tools that you can use to ensure that the water quality is better because you want to make sure everything in that marine protected area is going to be better so now there's a mandate to protect that area it's not just a you know any kind of uh like just uh just any kind of area that's found around right it's just it's not just some random area that's found it's an actual protected area there's a need to protect it so there's going to be a lot more focus on that now uh Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara will help study the ecosystem they're going to check on it and make sure that its vital signs are good and it's getting to know it better just like they did in the Great Barrier Reef just like they do the nether marine protectors around the world there's going to be a lot more research around there's going to be a lot more focus on the health making sure that they can build on the health now or improve the health that it is now in the future and so that we can build and build and build and we can see that we're going to you know the one good thing about marine protected areas if you want more fish you can get more fish from it if you want more biodiversity by protecting the area and a lot of the different habitats that provide biodiversity like kelp forest then you'll be able to do that as well as long as you're able to enforce the actions that are happening in and around the area make sure that there are no fishing vessels within the marine protected area if they're not allowed make sure that the water quality that goes into the uh the marine protected area is solid is good uh it's great quality water so there's a lot of things that need to happen from now this is just the beginning the designation is just really the beginning of the process now you have to go through the enforcement and the management to make sure that we clean up these rivers we clean up a lot of the stuff that comes off these platforms we ensure that there are no other platforms for oil uh that that start up again so there's a lot of things that happen and there's a lot of forces against it that could be overridden in the future you know if you have a uh a different government in power like an election that's coming up that is more pro drilling uh like the the trump administration that wants to drill more to bring down the price of oil then uh you have a problem here you're gonna this marine protected area is going to be affected by more oil spills it's in the business plan of oil companies and fossil fuel companies that oil will be spilled and that is something that has to be avoided in the future so there's a lot of things that have to happen around here this is just the beginning of the process and the co-management between NOAA the national um the the national atmospheric and administration uh ocean administration NOAA the national ocean administration that national ocean admin atmospheric administration NOAA uh and the national marine sanctuary group will be working with the indigenous peoples or in and around that area to build on the marine protected area make sure it's enforced and management manage it properly um and that's going to be something to be seen i think it's going to be an interesting process to see and build and i'm looking forward to seeing this put in place enforced uh and built upon so it's going to be a lot of fun but that's it for today's episode i want to bring you that good news i know i have mentioned a lot of stuff that could happen that may not be such good news uh but this is a learning process this is an adaptive management process where management changes and priorities change as we go along we figure out what's happening with the area and what are the major threats what are the major priorities that we have to shift in order to protect the area at all costs and of course we need more areas this is part of the 30 30 plan by california this is part of the 30 30 plan by the not the federal government and so we're seeing this being built part of biodiversity plans everything there's a lot of things that can be um ticked off the boxes in terms of environmental protection as well as helping with you know um being better at climate change you know being better at and being more resilient for climate change so that's it for today's episode i'd love to hear what you think put in the comments either if you're watching this on spotify or on youtube you can just put in the comments below if you're watching this or listening to this on apple podcast or or your favorite podcast app please let me know how you feel by instagram or DM me on instagram shows my age instagram me no DM me on instagram at how to protect the ocean if you're on tiktok you can do the same thing just to send me a DM uh that's a at speak up for blue all the links are in the show notes or in the description below looking forward to hearing from you always love to start this conversation and hearing for you to continue that conversation and of course if you want to sign up for our newsletter you can do so speak up for blue dot com forward slash newsletter that speak up for blue dot com forward slash newsletter a lot of things that you can do looking forward to seeing and hearing from you thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast i'm your host angelou and have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation