Let’s make 2024 a year for the ocean

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We who care about the ocean can breathe a bit easier as 2023 comes to a close. 

A race to get at least 60 nations to ratify the United Nations’ high seas treaty will get traction in 2024, and a new U.S. national marine sanctuary from San Luis Obispo to northern Santa Barbara will likely be established.  

This is good news in the fight for biodiversity and against climate change. Given our history of rallying for protection, I’m hopeful it will be a good year for the ocean.

But we all will need to do our part as citizens and help our elected officials know how much we care about our ocean. A couple months ago, a record-shattering 98,000 people provided online public comments on the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, which would be located south of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. I believe most were in favor. 

We also need to keep pushing to get the U.N. high seas treaty approved. That means citizens should contact California’s U.S. senators, Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler, to ask them to move for its ratification. 

We do have a lot to think about this coming year. Let’s start with our nation’s innovative effort to protect the strategic areas of U.S. waters.  

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is on track to designate the tribally nominated Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary next year. It would protect the waters of San Luis Obispo County and northern Santa Barbara County and become the West Coast’s sixth sanctuary, joining Olympic Coast, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, Monterey Bay and Channel Islands. They are located in the California Current that nourishes life from British Columbia to Baja California.

Situated between the Monterey Bay and Channel Islands sanctuaries, Chumash would protect a region where warmer southern waters mix with colder northern waters, creating a rich food web for migrating species including blue, gray and humpback whales, Northern elephant seals and many species of birds. Its team would work with representatives of Indigenous people who stewarded the area for thousands of years.

The Northern Chumash Tribal Council originally nominated the sanctuary to cover 7,600 square miles from the southern boundary of the Monterey Bay sanctuary in northern San Luis Obispo County south to Point Conception. However, NOAA has proposed a smaller area which excludes Cambria to Morro Bay. NOAA suggested this to accommodate infrastructure for planned offshore wind production to the sanctuary’s northwest, and the agency will decide sometime in 2024. 

I think the 98,000 public comments on its draft plan indicates public support for protection against offshore oil, dumping, seafloor mining and other activities. So I am hopeful. 

The effort to establish the sanctuary stretches back four decades – and its history is intertwined with that of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which was designated in 1992. That designation took a 15-year fight against offshore oil development slated for Central California. We did get protection against oil drilling and a bonus – a staff that works to protect habitats, provide education and outreach and conduct ocean research.

Expanding protections in U.S. waters

The 1969 catastrophic Santa Barbara oil spill played out nightly on the television news and the public’s response helped to persuade Congress to approve the national marine sanctuaries act in 1972. Fifteen sanctuaries and two marine national monuments now cover 620,000 square miles of ocean and Great Lakes waters.

In addition to Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, new sites slated for designation include Hudson Canyon off New York, Lake Erie Quadrangle in Pennsylvania and Lake Ontario in New York. The expansion of marine national monuments at Pacific Remote Islands and Papahanaumokuakea off Hawaii to become marine sanctuaries is another welcome plan. 

Our own Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is an excellent example of what marine sanctuaries do. It’s 6,094 square miles from southern Marin County to northern San Luis Obispo County including the Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon, Elkhorn Slough and Davidson Seamount. It hosts 36 species of marine mammals, more than 180 species of seabirds and shorebirds and at least 525 fish species. It has an advisory council with representatives from the community, government, and specific interests –  including commercial and recreational fishing. Its staff and volunteers undertake education and outreach, research and resource protection.

The Sanctuary Exploration Center across the street from the Santa Cruz Wharf hit 500,000 visitors in 2023, and it and the Coastal Discovery Center in San Simeon have provided education programs to nearly 4,000 students in 2023. Monterey Bay sanctuary staff and partners continue to uncover the wonders of the “octopus garden” and work on deep-sea coral restoration and protection. Another project works with area farmers to protect water quality.

West Coast sanctuaries participate in the whale disentanglement team, which in 2022 trained 40 volunteers and conducted 13 rescue missions. The team works with partners on crab gear innovations to prevent entanglement. The “Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies” initiative provides incentives for large vessels to slow down to protect whales from ship strikes and protect air quality. 

Its maritime heritage program protects shipwrecks – such as the airship U.S.S Macon off Big Sur, and Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would steward several sacred Indigenous sites.

Beyond U.S. waters are the high seas, which are beyond the protection of any nation, but cover most of our planet’s waters.

U.N. High Seas Treaty

On March 3, 2023, 84 countries reached an agreement to protect the high seas, which are not governed by any nation. The treaty includes ocean waters covering half the earth’s surface and wildlife such as blue whales, great white sharks and Northern elephant seals that migrate beyond Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and U.S. waters.

Representatives of 193 nations drafted its text with environmental groups, many represented by the High Seas Alliance, which nudged it along. Eighty-four countries have signed the treaty, but to take effect, it must be ratified by the governing bodies of at least 60 of those.

Governments can regulate natural resources, including the ocean and sea floor, out to 200 nautical miles off their coasts. The area outside these territorial waters, the high seas, contains two-thirds of the ocean’s surface and 95% of its volume. 

The treaty would allow the creation of protected areas that in total can cover up to 30% of the ocean. It would not regulate fishing, which is done by regional fisheries management organizations, but protected areas established under the treaty could prohibit fishing.

It would establish new standards for environmental assessments of projects like deep-sea mining. Genetic resources for ocean and medical research would be shared so their benefits would be available to all, including developing states. Knowledge held by Indigenous peoples and local communities would be accessed only with their approval and involvement.

Although the U.S. has signed the treaty, the Senate still needs to ratify it, which will take some work. The Senate has never approved an agreement on seabed mining, despite widespread support from industry, labor and environmental groups. This treaty will enjoy a strong campaign to – successfully, we hope – advocate for ratification.

Most of the ocean is outside any nation’s jurisdiction. There are treaties in international waters around issues such as dumping, but enforcement is difficult. Exploitive practices can occur in commercial activities such as seafloor mining, fishing and dumping. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that 10% of ocean species are at risk of extinction.

Make it happen

Citizen support has and will continue to drive ocean protection, and you can be part of the movement in 2024. Write to your senator. It’s a key step and something every citizen can and should do. 

Dan Haifley serves on the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation board of directors and was the director of Save Our Shores from 1986-1993, and O’Neill Sea Odyssey from 1999 to 2019. He can be reached at dan.haifley@gmail.com.