Does Your Public Comment Count? Two Ocean Wins Show How

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In 2004, halfway across the world,

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a government agency rezoned an entire
National Marine Park and ended up being

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one of the largest protected area
decisions on the planet.

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And somehow they ended up with broad
public support instead of a fight.

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They didn't just get lucky, right?

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They built that process specifically to
design to earn the support that they

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received. And here's what that process
actually looks like and what

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it tells us about how any of these
decisions

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can be made in the future and just even
now in the present.

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This is the How to Protect the Ocean
podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is
where I talk about marine science,

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marine conservation, and just how we can
protect the ocean better.

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I am a marine biologist myself.

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I am also a science communicator and I am
the ocean communications manager

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for a consulting firm called Pisces Oceans
where we work with ocean projects

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to help them succeed to make a bigger
ocean impact.

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Today on the podcast, we're gonna be
talking about marine protected areas,

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just like we have been all week.

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We're gonna be talking about something
that's really,

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really important is actually getting
public support.

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That doesn't always happen, and it and it
can be very tricky.

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And there's a lot of things that have
happened over the years,

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over the decades.

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That have improved that process.

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But we're gonna be talking about two
successes and what doesn't really work.

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So, like the two successes, we're gonna
talk about why they worked,

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and we're also gonna be talking about
another process that happens that doesn't
have

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the right things to make this work and and
it causes conflict,

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which we kind of saw in the California
Marine Protected Areas Network interview

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I did with Anupa Asokon earlier this this
week.

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So you can check that out after you listen
to this one.

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But this is something that's really
important because like

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I think the biggest thing when we talk
about MPAs or we talk about

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any kind of public process where
conservation is the focus,

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people wonder if it's even worth showing
up to a public meeting,

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right? About any kind of environmental
decision.

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Or is it just kind of noise that they just
like,

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hey, yeah, we want to get your input,

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but we're not going to listen.

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To be honest, this happened already this
year or last year when

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the American government put out a public
opinion period for about a month

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or a little bit longer.

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For the American Samoa and the Northern
Mariana Islands,

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the CNMI, when it came to looking at and
exploring deep sea mining.

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Sixty-six thousand people came out and
said,

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We do not want deep sea mining around the
Mariana Islands.

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And the government said, Hey, you know
what?

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Actually, we're gonna do it and we're
gonna double the amount.

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So that makes people wonder like,

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why do we even show up to these public
processes?

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Cause having like a just a bare petition
you know,

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where you just submit and w and wait.

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with no dedicated structure for managing
conflict or reconciliation,

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~ compete like some kind of competing
input in plain language.

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like that doesn't necessarily work.

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You need something to put together,

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So here's the problem with that structure.

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But before I talk about the problem,

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I want explain first. When there is
something at hand,

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like something ~ environmental,

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and an environmental decision needs to be
made,

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we'll say we'll use MPAs, that's what
we've been talking all the day.

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Marine Practical Areas, we've been talking
about that all week.

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When when a petition gets gets put forward
of a question or of a worry or even

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Proposing an MPA, that has to go through
an entire process.

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But if you just have this bare petition
process and you submit,

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you wait, and you don't have any dedicated
structure for managing

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any kind of conflict or reconciling
competing input,

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it just doesn't work. So this is the part
of where like I've seen this stuff happen

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where it's succeeded and I've seen where
it hasn't succeeded.

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So we're gonna talk about that today.

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I'm gonna guide you through the process of
what worked with two examples.

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The first is the Great Barrier Reef Marine
Park,

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the Marine Park. And this is, you know,

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one of the wonders of the world.

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We've been talking about a lot on the
podcast because they have a huge barrier
coral

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reef. it is one of the most beautiful
places in the world to go diving.

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and it is the the ecosystem services,

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the things that that that are provided
through this process or through this
barrier

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reef park.

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Is unbelievable and we need to protect it.

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And so a while ago, back in the 70s,

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they went Australia went through a
process,

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the government went through a process to
put in these zones,

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these managed management zones of the the
Great Barrier Reef Park.

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And they call it the Great Barrier Reef
Marine Park.

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And it's so it is it is a an authority on
there that works to protect

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the interests of a number of different
coastal people,

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but also the environmental aspect and
protect the environmental aspect.

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when they went through a part where
they're like,

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let's get feedback, because in the law,

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they had to have feedback, right?

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So you know, this is like 30 years later
after it was it was put into place,

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there was a what they called a Great
Bearer Reese representative areas program,

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which ran from 1999 to 2004 and rezoned
the entire marine park.

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One of the largest protected area planning
decisions that have

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Ever been undertaken. And it wasn't an
optional thing for the agency to do.

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They had to do this because it was
governed by law,

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right? It legally required a minimum of
two separate formal public comment phases,

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each at least a month long. And then one
before a draft zoning plan

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was ever written, and a second on the
completed draft itself.

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So people can comment on the different
parts.

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And on top of that,

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There's a legal minimum. The agency built
and ~ and

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may maintained standing community
structures.

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So the local marine advisory committees
and reef advisory committees.

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So that ongoing dialogue with fishers,

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tourism operators, and coastal communities
happened continuously,

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not just during the official two windows.

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So this was something that was ongoing.

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This was a system, a governing system that
was put in place,

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implemented to say, hey, this is how we're
gonna go forth and we're gonna.

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You know, move forward with all of these
like getting that feedback from people.

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It's been an ongoing conversation,

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not just a one you submit and you just
wait.

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The process drew over 31,500 public
submissions.

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And the outcome, the no-take protection
areas were like,

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so I remember I said there was a different
management zones.

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One of them was no-take, meaning like you
couldn't take anything from there.

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Even researchers weren't allowed in to
survey these places.

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They were at five percent protection of
the entire park.

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So five percent of that park was no-take
areas.

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That went after this process went from 5%
to more than 33%.

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This was unprecedented at the time.

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I remember sitting in on a lecture at
Akata University where I did my graduate
work.

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And Brian Day, who was the chair of the
park,

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he was a director of the park,

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he was like, Yeah, this is what we did,

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and this was amazing. We did no clue that
this was happening.

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And a side story on top of that is that
one of the things that they were looking

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at was they had actually ~ followed and
tracked fishers and where they would go.

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And they noticed when they put the tracks
like at first,

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fishers were like really against you know
it like increasing the

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no take areas because that affected their
business,

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right? And then what they did is they
said,

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yeah, okay, well, I'll tell you what,

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we're gonna overlay where you guys were,

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so the tracks over this certain amount of
time,

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and ~ we're gonna show you where we wanna
increase.

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And it actually happened where the
increase in the in the area didn't affect
where

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these fishers fished. And so they like,

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Okay, well, this makes sense. Like,

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yeah, this is where you guys are are
fishing,

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and we want to protect it just on the cusp
of that,

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but not where you fish. And the fish are
like,

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Yeah, that makes sense. No problem.

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That's actually going to improve our
fishing later on.

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So I'm sure it wasn't that great of a
dialogue in terms of that easy,

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but you know, that's what they did.

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They used the data that they were
collecting to provide that in the comment
period.

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They had these conversations with fishers,

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and it ended up winning. And not only
that,

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were they

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The whole process was recognized
internationally as best practice,

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winning multiple national and
international awards,

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including the UNESCO Environmental Prize.

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So the program's own director later
co-authored an analysis,

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making a specific point worth repeating.

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Strong science alone would not have
produced that outcome.

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It took science, public participation,

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and the political support that
participation generated together

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as three connected pieces.

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Not one substituting for the others.

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That's huge. That is what we need to put
into these plans so that we get the
buy-in.

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Because the marine protected areas is
great in theory,

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but unless you have buy-in, it just
becomes a paper park because nobody's
gonna want

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to follow what what they're doing,

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like what the plan was to do. And if you
get that buy-in,

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that's even better. Now the second case is
closer to

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the US, actually in the US, in California.

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And so this is the Shumash Heritage
National Marine Sanctuary

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off California's Central Coast.

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So the critical difference here is where
the idea came from.

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So before the Marine Park had already been
put in,

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like the Great Berry Reef Marine Park had
already been established for

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a number of years. And this was part of
their ongoing feedback and

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and using science and feedback and public
support to do that.

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But this one wasn't like a state or a
federal agency proposing a protected area,

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asking the public to react to it.

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The Northern Shumash Tribal Council itself
nominated the site in 2015.

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And it was the results of like decades of
the tribe's own advocacy for this area.

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So from there, it moved through NOAA's
formal stage sanctuary designation
process,

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an initial nomination review, a scoping
phase seeking public input

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on boundaries and priorities.

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Releasing of draft management
environmental documents,

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and then a defined like final public
comment period.

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And that final comment window alone drew
more than 98,000 submissions

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of people putting comments, with
independent analysis finding over 99%

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in support of the protected area.

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So the sanctuary was formally designated
in November 2024.

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It's the first tribally nominated national
marine sanctuary in the country.

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That's huge.

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That's that's insane to get 99% report ~
support from

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a tribal nominated marine sanctuary,

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huge, huge to be able to do that.

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I don't think we've ever seen that happen,

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obviously in the US, but I don't know if
I've seen it happen elsewhere either.

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And then of course with the Great Barra
Reef,

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you went from no-take growth from five
percent to over thirty-three percent

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of the entire marine park. That I've like
that was unheard of at the time.

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Like there's there's no way that that
happens.

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So the the the real thing here is that
when you look at the petition only process

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without any kind of stage ~ phases or
standing advisory structure

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or clear proposal ownership, is if that's
all missing,

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then you you don't have anything.

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This here had a structure to the process.

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It was the fact that for the Schumas ~
example,

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it was the fact that there was a petition
that was submitted after a lot

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of work and they put all the information
in there.

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It went through a federal process where
state authorities were involved.

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And the tribal council was involved the
entire way.

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And of course, they were in support of it
because they're the ones who nominated it.

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The government just provided the feedback
in terms of regulatory process

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and handling all the public comment.

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When the public comment comes out,

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98,000 public comments, or even more than
98,000,

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and 99% support. That's like that's
success.

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That is success. And I think what what
what happens is when you when

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you fall short of that.

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And you don't put that structure in,

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you don't get buy-in for the marine
protected areas,

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and that becomes a problem. That's where
it becomes a paper park where nobody

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is going to listen to the rules and
they're just gonna do what they want

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to do because they didn't feel heard,

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constant ~ contact. And I think that's
really important.

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And of course, having the structure is
just like a one part of the process.

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To make sure that everybody gets their say
within the struct,

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like within the public comment period,

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whether it's written submissions or in
person,

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that's another story, which I think we
found out that it could go very wrong when

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we s when we spoke to Anupa in the latest
California run,

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MPL run, like the Marine Protected Area
Network run,

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where people were shouting back and forth.

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Some people didn't feel safe to say
anything.

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And that's a that's a an ~ you know a a
way of of that process failing.

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Because that doesn't make it safe to first
speak out.

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You're not getting buy-in from everybody.

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Then people are going complain after.

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And they may not listen to the new,

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the new rules. And so what I want you guys
to think about and listening to this,

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you're probably wondering like,

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why do we need to care? Because the public
process,

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if that opens up near you and you want to
have a say,

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this is how it goes. So I want you to
understand the process so that

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you feel like you can go and speak your
mind.

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Right. You can you can get a group of
people to go.

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You can go with your family. You can go on
your own,

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but you know the process, you're familiar
with the process.

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So you're not going in blind and you're
not going in because sometimes these

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processes can be emotionally charged,

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which I understand for a lot of places,

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but you want to still have that background
and that understanding of how

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the str the process works and how the
structure works.

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By all means, join another group.

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Like the you know, Surfrider always
organizes ways to go to these processes.

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Anupa's organization, Fish On,

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is also like helping to organize like
buses to go to Sacramento in in October

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to be able to attend these public meetings
and make sure that people feel safe

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to say things and support one another.

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Because everybody has a stake within a
marine protected area and they

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all deserve to have a voice, but not one
should be listened to over

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the other or shouted over the other.

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And when we have a good design process and
we can

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It could be repeatable just like science.

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You know, it doesn't mean that luck plays
a role.

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It's it's the it's the actual difference
between ~ you know lasting conflict

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and lasting buy-in if you have that
structure.

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And I think when we these two examples
show a a ~ perfect way of doing things,

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obviously it's never perfect, but a good
way of doing things and having

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a having a solid structure so that people
can feel hurt.

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And that's the episode for today.

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It is a simple one. It is about public
comments.

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And it's one of the most important parts
of a protected area process.

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Whether it's just been designated or it's
trying to be designated

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or they're trying to make improvements and
assessment.

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This is what really counts. And now you've
been told how it works.

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So I'd love to hear your experiences doing
a public comment in person

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as well as participating on one written.

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Because I would love to know your
experience in in both or either.

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~ because this is the start of a
conversation.

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~ I want to hear you, I want to I want you
to continue it.

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I want to have that conversation with you
and see what your experience is like,

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good or bad. Hopefully it's good.

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But if it's bad, I would love to hear how
we can learn and how I can learn

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to tell people of what some of the
experiences are and and what we can learn

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in the future. So I want to thank you so
much for joining me on today's episode

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of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.

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Thank you for joining us. Have a good day.

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We'll talk to you next time and happy
conservation.