National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF)

Conservation & restoration:our National Marine sanctuaries are hotspots for biodiversity. They are home to iconic species like migratory whales and majestic sea birds, and habitats like massive coral reefs and towering kelp forests; and they preserve our historical and cultural remains like shipwrecks, aircraft, and artifacts that define our nation's maritime history. The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation's work aids in the conservation, restoration, and protection of these special places.working with individual sanctuaries within the National Marine Sanctuary system, the Foundation supports locally implemented projects to improve the conservation and management of our protected waters, engage surrounding communities and stakeholders in the stewardship of sanctuaries, and enhances our scientific knowledge of our ocean, coasts, and great lakes. The Foundation supports whale conservation and research, Marine debris removals, and habitat restoration. National Marine sanctuaries and monuments are important areas for finding solutions to help prevent entanglements, rescue whales, and reduce mortality from ship strikes. The Foundation works with its partners to host disentanglement workshops to improve response and preparedness to rescue entangled whales, supports research to identify whale use areas to reduce co-occurrence with fishing activity, vessel traffic, and other threats, and actively tests and supports new gear innovations that reduce the risk of entanglements. In 2023, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation in close partnership with noaa fisheries, hosted the second annual trainings for members of the large whale entanglement response network in monterey bay and channel islands nms. These trainings are critical for preparing for the high season of emergency rescues and include on-the-water vessel operations where responders are able to practice valuable skills while simulating real-world rescue scenarios to practice safety and reduce risk. The Foundation also achieved significant progress in testing fishing gear innovations in partnership with California fishermen, which could offer solutions to reduce whale entanglement risk while allowing fishing to continue. These trials are vital for assessing the gear's performance and feasibility in real-world conditions and for obtaining feedback on how to improve and refine the gear to meet specific needs. To date, fishermen have carried out over 400 trials with three different systems, achieving a 98% retrieval success rate (based on preliminary analysis of data).marine debris removal from both underwater and shoreline habitats is an expanding program for the Foundation. In 2023, the Foundation and its partners removed 92,591 pounds of debris under the Foundation's two community-based debris removal programs: goal: clean seas Florida keys and channel islands Marine debris removal program in the Florida keys and channel islands (as of dec. 2023). In the channel islands, the Foundation continues to work with local commercial lobster fishers, local nonprofit partners, tourism companies, universities, and the channel islands National Marine Sanctuary and National park service staff to conduct shoreline cleanups on the remote beaches of the channel islands. Additionally, the Foundation has expanded its Marine debris program through a multi-year effort, initiated in 2023, to remove hundreds of tons of large debris which includes abandoned or derelict vessels and structures, from five National Marine sanctuaries. The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation is supporting community partners on restoration initiatives across the country to reverse the degradation affecting many key habitats including coral restoration in Florida, Guam, the commonwealth of northern mariana islands, Hawaii and the u.s. virgin islands, deepwater and mesophotic coral communities in the gulf of mexico and submerged aquatic vegetation along the west coast. Seven grants were awarded to support capacity-building efforts for coral restoration in the us pacific. In the gulf of mexico, the Foundation's rov was upgraded to increase its depth capacity for further research on mesophotic and deep benthic coral (mdbc) reefs, and aquarium and museum partners were selected for the mdbc exhibits. Progress was made in a project to strengthen the science and collaborative decision-making tools and approaches that contribute to the conservation and management of nearshore habitats that support foundational submerged aquatic vegetation.in the face of the hottest days in recorded history and an unprecedented Marine heatwave that resulted in coral bleaching events and widespread coral mortality, the Foundation mobilized an emergency response with noaa and coral restoration partners to support a multi-faceted approach for coral rescue and recovery at key reef sites and coral nurseres in the Florida keys. Efforts continue to rescue at-risk corals, relocate them to land-based facilities or to deeper and cooler waters, and preserve endangered and threatened corals genetics that can seed future restoration. The Foundation mobilized funders and community restoration partners to rescue and relocate more than 12,000 corals since the start of the Marine heatwave.

Education & outreach:the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation connects people to their sanctuaries and implements public education, outreach, conservation, and maritime heritage projects that encourage people to become engaged stewards of u.s. Ocean, coasts, and great lakes waters. We encourage local stewardship and National engagement that leads to big differences for our ocean and great lakes, including promoting sustainable recreation and tourism in National Marine sanctuaries; establishing lifelong connections to National Marine sanctuaries and monuments through education and public awareness; demonstrating how the National Marine Sanctuary system serves as a global model for Marine protected area management; and engaging partners and the public in conservation and stewardship of Marine protected areas.the Foundation led efforts to create the first-ever National Marine Sanctuary day, a National day of celebration of our protected waters in the ocean and great lakes that hold america's shared maritime and ecological heritage that is held annually on october 23. The campaign included National media op-eds, trending on social media, take-action alerts, and community voices uplifting our National Marine Sanctuary stories centered on the people who make them spectacular.the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation participated in the biden-harris administration's initiative to create a National ocean justice strategy, led by the white house council on environmental quality. As a delegate and leading voice of Marine protected areas and sanctuaries, our comments were incorporated into the final strategy announced in december 2023 at cop28. The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation invests in preparing the next generation of conservationists to tackle the challenges facing our ocean and great lakes. Programs reach more than 1,000 k-12 educators annually; and connect sites in the National Marine Sanctuary system to sustainable fisheries/seafood and endangered/protected species. We aim to create aha! Moments that lead to a lifelong passion for the ocean and great lakes by providing students, educators, and lifelong learners with opportunities to explore and discover connections to the natural world, no matter where they live. Our education work includes in- and out-of-classroom learning experiences, teacher trainings, and educational exhibits at Sanctuary visitor centers, zoos, and aquariums across the country. As part of reinvigorating sustainable recreation initiatives in the National Marine Sanctuary system, the Foundation initiated a public-private partnership to support family fishing clinics, piloted in three National Marine sanctuaries in 2023, with 100 participants, the majority (68%) who had never visited their local National Marine Sanctuary, but nearly all (98%) stating they plan to return.the Foundation supports staff, operations, exhibits, and/or programs at nine visitor center sites in each of the three regions of the National Marine Sanctuary system. The Foundation works continuously with its partners at noaa and other organizations for innovative exhibits, facilities, and programs that allow Sanctuary visitor centers to become vibrant hubs centering the role and value of sanctuaries to their surrounding communities. The Foundation engages a variety of stakeholder groups, including recreational and commercial fishers, seafood supply chain and consumers, international stakeholders, and encouraging thorough, informed, science-based dialogue on the value of Marine protected areas like National Marine sanctuaries. The Foundation also supports projects that work closely with indigenous communities to advance the understanding and use of indigenous knowledge, encourage better public understanding of the role of native people in our history with our waters, and celebrate the cultures of indigenous communities. These programs span the entire National Marine Sanctuary system, with particular focus in the pacific islands, olympic coast, and the central coast of california.professional development for formal and informal educators is a large part of our education portfolio, since the train-the-trainer approach allows exponential impact, since one educator might bring ocean science lessons and activities to dozens of students. The Foundation seeks through its ocean odyssey grants that serve title i schools and communities underrepresented in stem fields, to increase the diversity and accessibility of ocean exploration, ocean literacy, and great lakes education, increasing stewardship but also inspiring the future scientific workforce of tomorrow. The Foundation supports networks of educators to share ideas, best practices, and activities that engage students in the classroom, the Foundation looks outside of the classroom as well to immersive, hands-on education activities, in sanctuaries and their watersheds.the Foundation supports ocean guardian schools, schools throughout the u.s. In 14 states and 3 territories since inception, that make a commitment to the protection and conservation of the school's local watersheds, the world's ocean, and special ocean areas like National Marine sanctuaries, by proposing and implementing a school- or community-based conservation project along five distinct project pathways with measurable outcomes that exceed 180 thousand pounds of trash collected, 44,000 reusable bags and bottles distributed, and more than a million single-use plastic bottles not used, since its inception. Participating students are advocates and ambassadors, with parents observing a 66% increase in their children speaking up for the environment to friends, family, and their community. Nearly 90,000 students, more than half from title i schools, have participated since the inception of the program, along with approximately 3,600 educators.the Foundation also conducts capitol hill ocean week (chow) the premier ocean-focused conference in the u.s., offered both in-person and virtual in 2023, convening nearly 1,000 stakeholders in ocean and great lakes management and conservation to advance ocean policy initiatives and increase inclusion for the ocean conservation movement and Marine sciences. The Foundation also hosts its annual blue beacon series with locally driven events to shed light on pressing ocean issues.

Science & technology:science underpins the work of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. Our conservation, restoration, and education work all rely on supporting critical research that supports the management and conservation of sanctuaries. This includes socioeconomic research that provides information on how many people use and how they use National Marine sanctuaries. This work is important because it benefits local communities to have an increased understanding of the importance of National Marine sanctuaries to their local economies as well as have access to critical socioeconomic data that can further inform local community discussions with regards to resource conservation and regulatory processes and decisions. Our work in science and technology includes supporting academic partners' access to National Marine sanctuaries to conduct habitat and species research and monitoring. We support experts providing input to fisheries ecology, whale behavioral ecology, whale and bird tagging to better understand where keystone species found in sanctuaries go and why, we support water quality monitoring, habitat monitoring that provides important baselines on the health of coral reefs that help identify and mitigate issues more expeditiously, we support acoustic monitoring projects where standardized measurements were used to identify sounds produced by Marine animals, physical processes, and human activities, and comparisons were made across 30 nationally-distributed locations, and also another collaborative project using passive acoustic drifting recorders to study the Marine soundscape in the California current, including the west coast sanctuaries. The acoustics project was expanded to Hawaii in 2023.the Foundation supports the integration of science activities across the National Marine Sanctuary system to enhance awareness and engagement with local communities across the country with regards to ongoing research, monitoring and assessment activities. The Foundation also supports the acquisition of oceanographic and hydrographic survey data, as well as soundscape mooring data; maintains oceanographic and hydrographic survey instruments, and conducts technical data processing operations this data is made available to the public and partners for queries and analysis. The Foundation began identifying local Massachusetts fishing charters, project managers, and side scan sonar equipment to use in a unique project intended to map stellwagen bank National Marine Sanctuary for determining potential locations of historic shipwrecks to avoid in renewable energy site determination.but we don't just leave science for people with phds. The Foundation also supports community science programs like ocean count, where volunteers spend three saturdays a year spotting and identifying whales in Hawaiian islands humpback whale National Marine Sanctuary, volunteers tally humpback whale sightings and document the animals' surface behavior during the survey. In 2023, over the three ocean count and partner events, nearly 1,000 volunteer community scientists counted 2,705 whales across the state of Hawaii. Data collected combined with other research efforts can help reveal trends in humpback whale occurrence within and amongst whale seasons.

Mission support:the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation fosters a public-private partnership in the Florida keys for the mission: iconic reefs initiative. Mission: iconic reefs builds off of decades of pioneering restoration efforts proven successful in the Florida keys involving growing and transplanting corals, setting the stage for this large-scale, multi-phased restoration effort at seven reefs. The first phase focuses on restoring elkhorn and staghorn corals, fast-growing species that have not been affected by the current outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease. The second phase will focus on incorporating resilient corals of other slower growing species and introducing grazer species that control invasive algae that smother and outcompete coral. The goal is to restore diversity and ecological function to the reefs by returning coral cover at target reef sites to a self-sustaining level. Modifying fishing gear, identifying areas of high risk of entanglement, and removing derelict gear from the water can decrease the likelihood of large whale entanglement. Innovations like pop-up or ropeless gear would reduce or eliminate vertical fishing lines in the water column. In-water testing of these innovations can provide valuable information, data, and design feedback needed to gauge the technology's efficacy and ease of use by fishermen. The Foundation works collaboratively with fishermen to test different gear innovations in Sanctuary areas and areas of concern. The goal is to foster cooperative and scientifically sound research to simulate real world scenarios that advance innovative solutions. The Foundation also expanded its underwater Marine debris program by continuing goal: clean seas channel islands, modeled after goal: clean seas Florida keys. In goal: clean seas channel islands, the Foundation working with partners to remove 8,630 pounds of Marine debris and 134 lobster traps from 2.5 miles of remote coastlines in channel islands National Marine Sanctuary. Working in partnership with the office of coast management, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation supports restoration of the he'eia National estuarine research reserve (nerr) in Hawaii. The goal of this project is to eradicate invasive mangrove species from this Marine protected area by 2022, the 100th anniversary of their introduction to the state, and replace the invasives with native plants, which in turn helps bring back native wildlife to the reserve as well. The Foundation works with the key Hawaiian partners who manage the he'eia nerr on this project.