5th Annual Heceta Head Coastal Conference
SUMMARY of CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Panel III ~ "Fulfilling Marine Reserve Legislation"
The Story Behind the Legislation
Arnie Roblan, State Representative
House Bill 3013, Oregon’s Marine Reserve Legislation, was signed by the Governor last July, but there is more to the story of how this legislation was written and passed. The Oregon Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) issued their recommendations in November of 2008:
- Establish pilot marine reserve sites at Otter Rock and at Redfish Rocks;
- Have regional community groups further evaluate potential marine reserve sites
at: Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua, and Cape Arago-Seven Devils
Legislation and funding were needed before OPAC’s marine reserve recommendations could be implemented. Funding for the bill came from $1 million remaining from the New Carissa settlement. Various interest groups had been talking at each other about marine reserves, but it was vital that people start talking to each other in order to achieve an effective piece of legislation. The bill needed to build consensus rather than increase the divisiveness.
The Coastal Caucus is a bicameral, bipartisan legislative group within the Oregon Legislature, and it was an ideal forum for crafting OPAC’s recommendations into a bill that would achieve broad support. The Coastal Caucus, assisted by staff person Anna Pakenham, began working with all of the various groups who had an interest in the outcome of the bill. There were more groups than we could imagine.
The process of reaching a final bill was long and, at times, extremely challenging. In the end, however, all of the hours of work produced a bill that passed by overwhelming margins in both the Oregon House and Oregon Senate. The passage of House Bill 3013 was one of the proudest moments of my legislative career.
The Challenges of Implementation
Ed Bowles, Administrator, Fish Division , Oregon Department of Fish
& Wildlife
Charged with the implementation of Marine Reserves, Ed Bowles reviewed the legislation and OPAC’s recommendations. He described the agency’s work plan and the need for community teams. HB 3013 requires the adoption of rules “to establish, study, monitor, evaluate, and enforce” pilot marine reserves and marine protected areas. This will be a joint process with ODFW, DSL and OPRD. One public meeting has already been held and rule making will begin in December and January.
Next steps will designate and implement two pilot sites by September, 2011, adopt rules for monitoring and management plans, baseline data, and implementation.
Further collaboration, development, and evaluation will be made for the four areas of study—Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua and Cape Arago—by September 2010. Community teams will be established, biological and socioeconomic assessments made, and work with community team to refine and recommend these sites. The potential designation and implementation for these sites is 2011.
Understanding Economic Impacts
Dr. Susan Hanna, Professor of Marine Economics, Oregon State University
The context of economic impacts of marine reserves has three important pieces: direction from the executive and legislative branches to assess economic impacts; the need to allocate resources; and coastal population growth which places increasing demands on resources.
The economic impact assessment has three main elements: documenting existing ocean uses – their location and economic contribution; predicting the behavioral response to spatial exclusion; and identifying the distribution of benefits and costs.
Several methods are appropriate for this type of assessment. An impact assessment has to also specify the spatial, temporal and sectoral scope of impacts being assessed. The process of valuation is also important. Ocean resources are publicly owned, and how Oregon values them in use and nonuse determines how they are best allocated.
The status of economic knowledge was addressed in October 2008 in a workshop sponsored by the Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC). Workshop findings and recommendations are contained in a report at:
http://www.oregon.gov/LCD/OPAC/docs/workinggroups/STAC_EconWkshop-1Final.pd
The workshop found that economic data related to Oregon’s ocean resources are scattered and incomplete, with few spatial components. There is no comprehensive documentation of spatial uses of the Territorial Sea, the value produced, or the economic contribution to coastal communities. To improve the economic information base, the workshop recommended the development of a comprehensive economics data program that includes spatially explicit data. A number of separate mapping exercises are currently underway that will provide isolated baselines. Overall, Oregon needs to build an economic information base that is continuous, coordinated, comprehensive and systematic.
The process of building and maintaining the data base should be publicly controlled, funded and coordinated, and subject to scientific protocols of competition, transparency and review. Only in this way will the full range of economic impacts of Oregon’s marine reserves and other actions in the territorial sea be fully understood.