Does Your Public Comment Count? Two Ocean Wins Show How

0:00 In 2004, halfway across the world, a government agency rezoned an entire National Marine Park and ended up being one of the largest protected area decisions on the planet. And somehow they ended up with broad public support instead of a fight. They didn't just get lucky, right? They built that process specifically to design to earn the support that they received. And here's what that process actually looks like and what it tells us about how any of these decisions can be made in the future and just even now in the present. This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is where I talk about marine science, marine conservation, and just how we can protect the ocean better.

0:44 I am a marine biologist myself. I am also a science communicator and I am the ocean communications manager for a consulting firm called Pisces Oceans where we work with ocean projects to help them succeed to make a bigger ocean impact. Today on the podcast, we're gonna be talking about marine protected areas, just like we have been all week. We're gonna be talking about something that's really, really important is actually getting public support. That doesn't always happen, and it and it can be very tricky. And there's a lot of things that have happened over the years, over the decades. That have improved that process. But we're gonna be talking about two successes and what doesn't really work. So, like the two successes, we're gonna talk about why they worked, and we're also gonna be talking about another process that happens that doesn't have the right things to make this work and and it causes conflict, which we kind of saw in the California Marine Protected Areas Network interview I did with Anupa Asokon earlier this this week.

1:38 So you can check that out after you listen to this one. But this is something that's really important because like I think the biggest thing when we talk about MPAs or we talk about any kind of public process where conservation is the focus, people wonder if it's even worth showing up to a public meeting, right? About any kind of environmental decision. Or is it just kind of noise that they just like, hey, yeah, we want to get your input, but we're not going to listen. To be honest, this happened already this year or last year when the American government put out a public opinion period for about a month or a little bit longer. For the American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, the CNMI, when it came to looking at and exploring deep sea mining. Sixty-six thousand people came out and said, We do not want deep sea mining around the Mariana Islands.

2:21 And the government said, Hey, you know what? Actually, we're gonna do it and we're gonna double the amount. So that makes people wonder like, why do we even show up to these public processes? Cause having like a just a bare petition you know, where you just submit and w and wait. with no dedicated structure for managing conflict or reconciliation, ~ compete like some kind of competing input in plain language. like that doesn't necessarily work. You need something to put together, So here's the problem with that structure. But before I talk about the problem, I want explain first. When there is something at hand, like something ~ environmental, and an environmental decision needs to be made, we'll say we'll use MPAs, that's what we've been talking all the day. Marine Practical Areas, we've been talking about that all week.

3:01 When when a petition gets gets put forward of a question or of a worry or even Proposing an MPA, that has to go through an entire process. But if you just have this bare petition process and you submit, you wait, and you don't have any dedicated structure for managing any kind of conflict or reconciling competing input, it just doesn't work. So this is the part of where like I've seen this stuff happen where it's succeeded and I've seen where it hasn't succeeded. So we're gonna talk about that today. I'm gonna guide you through the process of what worked with two examples. The first is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the Marine Park. And this is, you know, one of the wonders of the world.

3:43 We've been talking about a lot on the podcast because they have a huge barrier coral reef. it is one of the most beautiful places in the world to go diving. and it is the the ecosystem services, the things that that that are provided through this process or through this barrier reef park. Is unbelievable and we need to protect it. And so a while ago, back in the 70s, they went Australia went through a process, the government went through a process to put in these zones, these managed management zones of the the Great Barrier Reef Park. And they call it the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. And it's so it is it is a an authority on there that works to protect the interests of a number of different coastal people, but also the environmental aspect and protect the environmental aspect.

4:27 when they went through a part where they're like, let's get feedback, because in the law, they had to have feedback, right? So you know, this is like 30 years later after it was it was put into place, there was a what they called a Great Bearer Reese representative areas program, which ran from 1999 to 2004 and rezoned the entire marine park. One of the largest protected area planning decisions that have Ever been undertaken. And it wasn't an optional thing for the agency to do. They had to do this because it was governed by law, right? It legally required a minimum of two separate formal public comment phases, each at least a month long. And then one before a draft zoning plan was ever written, and a second on the completed draft itself.

5:13 So people can comment on the different parts. And on top of that, There's a legal minimum. The agency built and ~ and may maintained standing community structures. So the local marine advisory committees and reef advisory committees. So that ongoing dialogue with fishers, tourism operators, and coastal communities happened continuously, not just during the official two windows. So this was something that was ongoing. This was a system, a governing system that was put in place, implemented to say, hey, this is how we're gonna go forth and we're gonna. You know, move forward with all of these like getting that feedback from people. It's been an ongoing conversation, not just a one you submit and you just wait. The process drew over 31,500 public submissions.

5:56 And the outcome, the no-take protection areas were like, so I remember I said there was a different management zones. One of them was no-take, meaning like you couldn't take anything from there. Even researchers weren't allowed in to survey these places. They were at five percent protection of the entire park. So five percent of that park was no-take areas. That went after this process went from 5% to more than 33%. This was unprecedented at the time. I remember sitting in on a lecture at Akata University where I did my graduate work. And Brian Day, who was the chair of the park, he was a director of the park, he was like, Yeah, this is what we did, and this was amazing. We did no clue that this was happening. And a side story on top of that is that one of the things that they were looking at was they had actually ~ followed and tracked fishers and where they would go.

6:42 And they noticed when they put the tracks like at first, fishers were like really against you know it like increasing the no take areas because that affected their business, right? And then what they did is they said, yeah, okay, well, I'll tell you what, we're gonna overlay where you guys were, so the tracks over this certain amount of time, and ~ we're gonna show you where we wanna increase. And it actually happened where the increase in the in the area didn't affect where these fishers fished. And so they like, Okay, well, this makes sense. Like, yeah, this is where you guys are are fishing, and we want to protect it just on the cusp of that, but not where you fish. And the fish are like, Yeah, that makes sense. No problem. That's actually going to improve our fishing later on.

7:22 So I'm sure it wasn't that great of a dialogue in terms of that easy, but you know, that's what they did. They used the data that they were collecting to provide that in the comment period. They had these conversations with fishers, and it ended up winning. And not only that, were they The whole process was recognized internationally as best practice, winning multiple national and international awards, including the UNESCO Environmental Prize. So the program's own director later co-authored an analysis, making a specific point worth repeating. Strong science alone would not have produced that outcome. It took science, public participation, and the political support that participation generated together as three connected pieces.

8:05 Not one substituting for the others. That's huge. That is what we need to put into these plans so that we get the buy-in. Because the marine protected areas is great in theory, but unless you have buy-in, it just becomes a paper park because nobody's gonna want to follow what what they're doing, like what the plan was to do. And if you get that buy-in, that's even better. Now the second case is closer to the US, actually in the US, in California. And so this is the Shumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off California's Central Coast. So the critical difference here is where the idea came from.

8:45 So before the Marine Park had already been put in, like the Great Berry Reef Marine Park had already been established for a number of years. And this was part of their ongoing feedback and and using science and feedback and public support to do that. But this one wasn't like a state or a federal agency proposing a protected area, asking the public to react to it. The Northern Shumash Tribal Council itself nominated the site in 2015. And it was the results of like decades of the tribe's own advocacy for this area. So from there, it moved through NOAA's formal stage sanctuary designation process, an initial nomination review, a scoping phase seeking public input on boundaries and priorities.

9:28 Releasing of draft management environmental documents, and then a defined like final public comment period. And that final comment window alone drew more than 98,000 submissions of people putting comments, with independent analysis finding over 99% in support of the protected area. So the sanctuary was formally designated in November 2024. It's the first tribally nominated national marine sanctuary in the country. That's huge. That's that's insane to get 99% report ~ support from a tribal nominated marine sanctuary, huge, huge to be able to do that.

10:09 I don't think we've ever seen that happen, obviously in the US, but I don't know if I've seen it happen elsewhere either. And then of course with the Great Barra Reef, you went from no-take growth from five percent to over thirty-three percent of the entire marine park. That I've like that was unheard of at the time. Like there's there's no way that that happens. So the the the real thing here is that when you look at the petition only process without any kind of stage ~ phases or standing advisory structure or clear proposal ownership, is if that's all missing, then you you don't have anything. This here had a structure to the process. It was the fact that for the Schumas ~ example, it was the fact that there was a petition that was submitted after a lot of work and they put all the information in there.

10:53 It went through a federal process where state authorities were involved. And the tribal council was involved the entire way. And of course, they were in support of it because they're the ones who nominated it. The government just provided the feedback in terms of regulatory process and handling all the public comment. When the public comment comes out, 98,000 public comments, or even more than 98,000, and 99% support. That's like that's success. That is success. And I think what what what happens is when you when you fall short of that. And you don't put that structure in, you don't get buy-in for the marine protected areas, and that becomes a problem. That's where it becomes a paper park where nobody is going to listen to the rules and they're just gonna do what they want to do because they didn't feel heard, constant ~ contact. And I think that's really important.

11:43 And of course, having the structure is just like a one part of the process. To make sure that everybody gets their say within the struct, like within the public comment period, whether it's written submissions or in person, that's another story, which I think we found out that it could go very wrong when we s when we spoke to Anupa in the latest California run, MPL run, like the Marine Protected Area Network run, where people were shouting back and forth. Some people didn't feel safe to say anything. And that's a that's a an ~ you know a a way of of that process failing. Because that doesn't make it safe to first speak out. You're not getting buy-in from everybody. Then people are going complain after.

12:24 And they may not listen to the new, the new rules. And so what I want you guys to think about and listening to this, you're probably wondering like, why do we need to care? Because the public process, if that opens up near you and you want to have a say, this is how it goes. So I want you to understand the process so that you feel like you can go and speak your mind. Right. You can you can get a group of people to go. You can go with your family. You can go on your own, but you know the process, you're familiar with the process. So you're not going in blind and you're not going in because sometimes these processes can be emotionally charged, which I understand for a lot of places, but you want to still have that background and that understanding of how the str the process works and how the structure works.

13:09 By all means, join another group. Like the you know, Surfrider always organizes ways to go to these processes. Anupa's organization, Fish On, is also like helping to organize like buses to go to Sacramento in in October to be able to attend these public meetings and make sure that people feel safe to say things and support one another. Because everybody has a stake within a marine protected area and they all deserve to have a voice, but not one should be listened to over the other or shouted over the other. And when we have a good design process and we can It could be repeatable just like science. You know, it doesn't mean that luck plays a role.

13:50 It's it's the it's the actual difference between ~ you know lasting conflict and lasting buy-in if you have that structure. And I think when we these two examples show a a ~ perfect way of doing things, obviously it's never perfect, but a good way of doing things and having a having a solid structure so that people can feel hurt. And that's the episode for today. It is a simple one. It is about public comments. And it's one of the most important parts of a protected area process. Whether it's just been designated or it's trying to be designated or they're trying to make improvements and assessment. This is what really counts. And now you've been told how it works. So I'd love to hear your experiences doing a public comment in person as well as participating on one written.

14:37 Because I would love to know your experience in in both or either. ~ because this is the start of a conversation. ~ I want to hear you, I want to I want you to continue it. I want to have that conversation with you and see what your experience is like, good or bad. Hopefully it's good. But if it's bad, I would love to hear how we can learn and how I can learn to tell people of what some of the experiences are and and what we can learn in the future. So I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Thank you for joining us. Have a good day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.