ACS Monterey Bay Program for August 2007

California's Marine Life Protection Act
and Marine Protected Areas

Thursday, August 30, 2007 7 p.m. Refreshments, 7:30 p.m. Program Lecture Hall, Monterey Boatworks, Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove (Across from American Tin Cannery Outlet Stores) Speaker: Jason Vasques, Associate Biologist, California Department of Fish and Game

Nearly every day the news has reports of different challenges affecting our global environment and ecosystems. Some are local and others are much larger and broader in nature. Grass root efforts can be effective in dealing with local challenges but the larger and broader challenges require a much more coordinated action plan, often requiring government involvement.

In 1999 the State of California enacted landmark legislation by passing the Marine Life Protection Act ("Act"). This represents perhaps the most far-reaching legislation by a State to protect its coastal marine environment and ecosystems. The Act called for the entire 1,100 miles of California coastline to be studied in order to re-examine and re-design California's system of Marine Protected Areas ("MPA"). Among other things, the Act called for a management shift from protecting individual species to protecting marine ecosystems, for improvement of the State's existing MPA's and for management of them as a network rather individual MPA's.

Now, eight years later, California is on the verge of implementing this new phase of protection under the Act.

The speaker for our August meeting is Jason Vasques, associate biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game. He is assigned to the Second Phase Team responsible for implementing this new scheme of protection under the Act. Jason will explain the Act in general, the different levels of protection within the network of MPA's, and enforcement for this new network. In particular Jason will comment on the extent to which California's MPA's will affect the Navy's use of active sonar and other issues which affect many denizens of the sea including cetaceans.

Please join us for what promises to be a very informative presentation about these issues which are important to us today and which will become even more important to us in the future.

Related web pages:

• The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative
• California Department of Fish & Game

• Back to list of previous meetings.