Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Management Plan revision process quick guide

As part of my California Sea Grant fellowship with NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary I’ve been helping with the beginning stages of our Management Plan revision process. Since this is a large, multi-year process for our sanctuary, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what this looks like, and why we’re revising it in the first place. Here, I’ll try to break things down make it a little more digestible!  
 
What is a Management Plan in the first place?
Our sanctuary’s Management Plan encompasses all of the programming and activities NOAA does in the sanctuary and in the surrounding communities. Specific program areas include: research, education, outreach, volunteers, conservation, and enforcement. Effectively, the Management Plan guides the direction of these program areas, and helps ensure that we’re staying on track to meet our goals.
 
It should be noted that our first mission under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the law that authorizes our program, is protecting the marine resources of the sanctuary. Hence, the Management Plan is organized with this main goal in mind.  
 
Great, your Management Plan helps guide your sanctuary office’s mission. Why revise it?
Any governing doctrine should be periodically reviewed for a number of reasons. Mainly, our office wants to know, are we on track to address the issues in our previous plan (last updated in 2009)? Have we successfully addressed certain issues or are there still gaps to fill? If so, where are they? Have new issues come to light, or are we too focused on outdated topics? We’ve been gathering this information for some time, and recently released our 2016* Condition Report earlier this summer.
 
With the help of the Condition Report, along with Public Scoping, we are better able to begin the process of revising our Management Plan to meet the needs of the coming years.
 
*Even though the Condition Report was released in 2019, the data used come from 2016 and before.

An image from a recent public scoping meeting in Santa Barbara

Ok, sounds like a lot of work. How can I get involved?
The purpose of the National Marine Sanctuaries is to protect cultural resources of historical significance and areas of special biological concern. Here at CINMS we encourage the use and visitation of the sanctuary and are actively interested in hearing from our constituents and stakeholders. On October 1st we released a Notice of Intent for Public Scoping and will hold this public scoping period open until November 15th. During this time, we hope to gather as many public comments from as many stakeholders as possible!
 
How can I submit a comment during the public scoping period?
Currently there are two ways you can submit public comments:
Online: Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal
Use docket number NOAA–NOS–2019-0110
 
By mail: Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
NOAA CINMS UCSB
Ocean Science Edu Bldg 514 Mail Code 6155
Santa Barbara, California 93106
Attn: Management Plan Revision
 
Some things to consider when submitting public comments

• The Management Plan review is not intended to start from scratch/reinvent the wheel.
  • We’ve been managing the sanctuary under the previous plan for a decade.
  • Therefore, it would be helpful to us if comments are framed in the context of activities that we’re already doing, if you’re familiar with them.
• If we’re doing something that you think is great, feel free to let us know!
• If you’re proposing new programming that we’re not currently engaged in, we’re also looking for your ideas on how we can accomplish them with the resources we have, and with partnerships.
• One of our lessons learned from the 2009 plan was that some of the activities that we identified were not possible to implement within the budgets that we had to work with.
• Along the same lines of keeping in line with reality, another of our goals is to come up with a management plan that will be flexible enough to stay relevant as new requirements emerge.

A simple flowchart showing the Management Plan revision process