Tag Archives: marine reserves

Surprise! The Marine Reserves Bill is Back for Round Two

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Hello everyone!

Just like the marine reserves bill, I’m back in Salem for the 2024 session.

This time around, things are going to be a little different. Though the Legislature convenes every year, on odd-numbered years we hold a “long session” that lasts about five months while on even-numbered years there’s a “short session” that only lasts about five weeks. Last session, I wrote a blog post that used the journey of the marine reserves bill (then HB 2903) to provide a high-level overview of the legislative process. Seeing as we just entered the abbreviated short session, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to continue to use the marine reserves bill (now HB 4132) to do a rapid-fire deep dive into the legislative process. Since I’ve covered it before, I’m not going to rehash what this bill is about and why it’s so important in this post, but if you want to dig into that check out my first blog post here.

Picture of the State Capitol Building in Salem Oregon
State Capitol Building in Salem, Oregon; Credit: RG – stock.adobe.com

Here’s the plan: each week I’m going to focus on a different step in the legislative process – from policy development to a signature from the Governor (fingers crossed the bill makes it that far). In this post, I’m going to cover everything that went into preparing this bill for the 2024 session during the five-month session interim. Let’s get into it!

July – September: The session interim is a time for brainstorming and policy development. First things first, you need an idea. These ideas can come from anywhere, from legislators to staff to advocates to constituents. Once you have an idea, you need to translate it into a bill draft. Typically, this involves forming a working group of advocates, experts, people with lived experience, and other legislators and staff. In our case, a lot of the policy development was informed by conversations with individuals at conservation organizations like the Oregon chapters of Surfrider, Oceana, and the Nature Conservancy as well as community-based organizations affiliated with each of the marine reserves.

Since this working group was formed prior to session last year, we entered the session interim ready to hit the ground running. The moment the 2023 session ended the group began dissecting why the bill didn’t pass and what issues needed to be addressed to set us up for success in 2024. Since our bill relates to a program within the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), we also spent time communicating with ODFW leadership and staff to nail down exactly what resources were needed to address the proposed mandates. After all these conversations, we arrived at the conclusion that the best path forward was to run the exact same bill as last session.

October – November: Once October hit, it was time to start working with Legislative Council (LC). LC is essentially the legislature’s law firm, responsible for drafting every measure and amendment you see during the session. It’s typically the goal to have your bill introduced on the first day of session. In that case, there are several presession deadlines you need to be aware of, one of which is the LC draft request deadline. This deadline typically falls in September for the long session and November for the short session. The moral of the story here is, if you want to work with a legislator on a policy concept, start doing so early. Once these deadlines have passed, especially during the short session, there’s not a lot your legislator can do to address your request until the following session.

Lucky for us, working with LC was a painless process, largely because we were recycling language from the previous session. In no time, LC provided us with a legislative concept (confusingly also abbreviated as LC), which is essentially a formal bill draft with a number and everything.

December: In December, our working group kicked things into high gear, developing outreach materials and lobbying tools designed to build a broad coalition of support for the marine reserves bill. Representative Gomberg’s office also began having conversations with the Chair of the committee our bill would likely be assigned to: the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water. Though each of these steps are always important, the former is particularly critical during the long session when there is more time to drum up support while the latter is crucial when entering a short session when you need the Committee to schedule your bill for a public hearing during the first week of session.

January: Once you have your legislative concept and additional communication materials on your bill, it’s time to start looking for Sponsors. Over the month of January, we were able to drum up support on both sides of the aisle and across the House and the Senate. The goal is to bring on Sponsors who can act as champions for your bill in relevant Committees and in the opposite Chamber (in this case, the Senate). During session, members can only sign on to a bill as a Sponsor when it’s in their Chamber. Therefore, it’s important to get these kinds of Sponsors prior to the start of session so you know that you have someone prepared to guide your bill through the legislative process when it moves to the opposite Chamber.

Once you’ve gathered your Sponsors, all that’s left to do is file your bill with the Chief Clerk’s Office before the pre-session deadline. Oh, and then you have to do everything else required during session to get your bill over the finish line, but one step at a time. In my next post I’ll cover the first week of the 2024 session and do a deep dive into the public hearing process. If you want to stay up to date with the movement of HB 4132 through the legislative process in real-time, check out the bill’s OLIS page and click “e-Subscribe” in the top right corner (photo below). This is a great way to stay up to date with this bill and any others of interest to you during session.

Picture of the OLIS webpage with the link to e-subscribe to a bill.

Well, for anyone who made it this far, thanks for reading! I’ll check back in next week.

An Update on Oregon’s Marine Reserves

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Hello everyone!

As promised, I’m back with an update on HB 2903 and Oregon’s marine reserves. Buckle your seatbelt because you are in for a bumpy ride.

Back when I left you in April, everything was full steam ahead. HB 2903 had passed unanimously out of its first House committee and was sitting in the Joint Committee on Ways and Means awaiting the announcement of the state revenue forecast. To give you some context as to what that means, here is some background on the legislative process.

When a bill is created, it can be introduced in either chamber: the Senate or the House. In this case, the bill got its start in the House. Its first stop is the House floor where the bill will be read before the Chamber and referred to a policy committee for further discussion. In this case, HB 2903 was referred to the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water. Once a bill reaches committee, it needs to be scheduled for a public hearing, during which individuals may provide public testimony in reference to the bill and its objectives. Following the public hearing, the bill must be scheduled for a work session where a committee can act on a bill (e.g., make amendments or take a vote).

At this point, the committee can vote on the bill and, often, the bill will move back to the Chamber for a full vote. However, if a bill has a fiscal ask, as was the case with HB 2903, it has one more stop before it can be called for a vote on the floor: the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. There are some internal processes that go on once the bill reaches Ways and Means that we do not need to get into here. What is important is, if the bill makes its way out of its Ways and Means work session with a “do pass” recommendation, then it is ready to be put to a vote on the floor.

Once a bill successfully makes its way out of the first Chamber it then makes its way to the second, in this case, HB 2903 would have gone on to the Senate. There the bill will be read, make a procedural pitstop in Ways and Means, and then come back to the second Chamber floor for a vote. Assuming the bill withstands all of that, it will finally be passed on to the Governor to be signed into law.

A diagram of the legislative process describing a bill's movement from it's first reading until eventually being signed into law.
Diagram of the legislative process.

As you have probably gathered, HB 2903 did not make it that far.

The session took a sudden turn when Senate Republicans walked out on May 3rd (I’m not going to dig into it in this blog, but if you want to read more about it, you can do so here and here). In the state of Oregon, the Senate chamber must achieve a 2/3 quorum in order to vote on bills. Therefore, by walking out, Senate Republicans were able to effectively pause all bill movement in the Senate even though the Democratic party held the majority.

By the end of May, there was no sign of the Senate reaching quorum and HB 2903 was trapped in Ways and Means with nowhere to go. It was time to search for other avenues.

On top of policy bills like HB 2903, there are also bills that handle agency budgets. Passing these budgetary bills is one of the most important tasks for the State legislature. While policy bills will just die if they don’t pass during the regular session, budgetary bills must pass, and a special session will be called if the legislature cannot do so during the regular session. Therefore, Representative Gomberg, the Chair of the Coastal Caucus, got in contact with the Co-Chairs of Ways and Means and requested that the fiscal component of HB 2903 be included in HB 5509, which appropriates money from the General Fund to ODFW for a period of two years.

We knew this ask was going to be tough. Each session, the Governor’s office releases a recommended budget, which is essentially a proposal based on state revenue forecasts on how state funds should be allocated. The Governor’s office then negotiates with various parties, including legislative leaders and members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means to generate a budget that will be voted on at the end of the session. When Governor Kotek released her recommended budget back in January, funds were looking tight, and many agencies were preparing to make cuts to afford for reduced revenues. One of those cuts was the Community Project Leader position within ODFW’s Marine Reserves program. So, the Caucus wasn’t just advocating for new funding, they were also working against a proposed cut.

On the one hand, this cut made sense: the position related to the cut had been vacant for three years. However, advocates and the Coastal Caucus argued the story around this vacancy was more complex and in part the result of two failed recruitments and a hiring freeze during the pandemic. It was the position of the Coastal Caucus that this context made the situation unique from other prolonged vacancies and that to permanently lose this position would be to permanently sever a critical connection point between coastal communities and marine reserves.

At this point, we had one last option: to advocate for the inclusion of HB 2903 and funding for cut position in the end of session budget reconciliation bill. This bill tends to be comprised of several smaller, often unrelated policies or amendments. Its tendency to have a little something for everyone gave this bill its nickname: the Christmas Tree Bill.

Around that time, the Senate returned to the floor, wrapping up the longest walkout in state history and leaving ten days to move all the remaining bills through the Senate. Now the marine reserves bill was not unpopular. In fact, it was extremely non-controversial and had a lot of community support. However, in the flurry of legislative action that followed the Senate’s return, funding for the marine reserves bill never materialized. It is unclear if under different circumstances marine reserves funding would have been given higher priority, but the pace of the final week of session certainly posed a challenge for legislators trying to negotiate for last-minute additions in the budgeting process.

I guess if I were to sum up the major lesson from this process, it would be **** happens. You can craft a bill to sail through the legislative process and a storm can come out of nowhere and sink it. In the end, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it wasn’t because we didn’t try hard enough, there were just so many incredibly important priorities this session and ours didn’t make the cut. And that doesn’t mean the journey is over. The Coastal Caucus is still very much committed to Oregon’s Marine Reserves Program and is actively strategizing for the coming short session. I’ve learned so much from this experience and I can’t wait to see how the next iteration of this work will turn out.

A photo of a woman and two Senators speaking on the Senate floor.
This is unrelated to marine reserves, but please enjoy this photo of me looking very professional on the Senate floor.

Inking Science into Policy

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Hello everyone!

I will start off with an introduction. My name is Megan Davis, and I am a second year Ph.D. student in the Menge Lubchenco Lab at Oregon State University. I am broadly interested in the science-policy interface as it relates to the ways in which humans use marine space, from marine protection to energy production to aquaculture. For the past few months, I have had the incredible opportunity to witness how science informs policy (and vice versa) at the state level as the 2022-2023 Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellow, working with the Coastal Caucus.

How I spend my time when I’m not in Salem.
Credit: Delaney Chabot

For those of you who have not interacted with this group before, the Coastal Caucus is a bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators that represent the Oregon coast. To put it a bit more plainly (because I certainly did not know what bicameral meant when I first applied for this position), that means that this group is composed of members from both parties from both the Senate and the House. This session, the Coastal Caucus is chaired by Representative David Gomberg (D, House District 10). The Caucus also consists of its Vice Chair, Senator Dick Anderson (R, Senate District 5), as well as Senator Brock Smith (R, Senate District 1), Senator Suzanne Weber (R, Senate District 16), Representative Boomer Wright (R, House District 9), Representative Cyrus Javadi (R, House District 32), and Representative Court Boice (R, House District 1). As the Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellow, I provide technical expertise on marine and coastal issues to the Caucus members and act as a resource for communication with coastal constituents and key stakeholder groups.

Together, the Coastal Caucus forms a powerful coalition that collectively ensures that marine and coastal issues receive adequate attention at the State level. Much of the strength of this group is derived from the bipartisan nature of the Caucus. When all these legislators come together to support an issue, it signals that it has broad support along the coast and, often, across Oregon. This is the case with Oregon’s marine reserves. This session, the Coastal Caucus put forth HB 2903, which is a fantastic example of how science can be harnessed to inform policy. This past week, I had the pleasure of joining Representative Gomberg and Charlie Plybon (a fixture in Oregon’s marine reserves community) to speak to this bill at the Marine Reserves Celebratory Summit (hosted by The Nature Conservancy and facilitated by Sea & Shore Solutions). I would like to share with you what we discussed at the Summit.

In 2012, Oregon completed the planning and designation of five marine reserves: Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, Otter Rock, Cape Perpetua, and Redfish Rocks. The implementation and management of these reserves is led by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) based on standards established in HB 3013 (2009), SB 1510 (2012), and related administrative rules. As the state’s first long-term, nearshore ocean conservation and monitoring program, Oregon’s marine reserves system has been instrumental in tracking and understanding how our marine ecosystems are changing over time, informing policy and management decisions at the state level. It also represents the first comprehensive human dimensions research program focused on examining the economic, social, and cultural dynamics of the Oregon coast and coastal communities.

On top of establishing the reserves, SB 1510 required that an internal (ODFW) and external (Oregon State University) decadal assessment of the marine reserves be carried out in 2022. These rigorous scientific assessments resulted in a series of legislative and administrative recommendations:

  1. that appropriate funds be allocated to ODFW to continue the Marine Reserves program at the necessary capacity;
  2. that a mandate that supports the development of an Adaptive Management Plan for the ongoing management and evaluation of the program be provided; and
  3. that a detailed, collaborative process through which social monitoring data can be interpreted to affect policy decisions be defined.

For an extra layer of legitimacy, these recommendations were then endorsed by the Ocean Policy Advisory Council, the original stakeholder and government policy forum for marine reserves and protected areas in the State of Oregon. Those recommendations were then presented to the Coastal Caucus, who built HB 2903 around them. To paraphrase Charlie Plybon, that’s not just incorporating science into policy, that’s inking science into policy.

So where is HB 2903 now? The bill made its way out of its first Committee (the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water) and now sits in the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, which is essentially that State’s budgetary committee. Once the State’s revenue forecast is released in mid-May, the Joint Committee on Ways and Means will determine how funds will be distributed to bills with associated fiscal asks, like HB 2903. Available funds are anticipated to be a bit tight this session, but the Coastal Caucus has put their full weight behind this bill, even making HB 2903 one of their priority fiscal asks for this session.

I have been so inspired by the legislators working to take this science-based policy from bill to law, and by all of the scientists, decisionmakers, and advocates who have put in over a decade of work to make Oregon’s Marine Reserves Program the success it is today. I’m excited to continue to work on this topic, both in the context of my fellowship and my dissertation. I will be checking back in (hopefully with an HB 2903 update) at the end of June!

The view from the Marine Reserves Celebratory Summit
Credit: Duncan Berry

A Brief History of Oregon’s Marine Reserves

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This week marks the 10 year anniversary of Oregon’s decision to pilot a system of marine reserves. On July 28, 2009, Gov. Kulongoski signed HB 30131, which directed the implementation of two pilot marine reserves at Redfish Rocks and Otter Rock. The bill also directed study of additional marine reserves using a community process, and as a result of this process, three additional marine reserves (Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, and Cape Perpetua) were designated during the 2012 legislative session. Oregon’s current system includes five no-take marine reserves (40 mi2) and nine adjacent marine protected areas (~77 mi2), an area that totals roughly 10% of Oregon’s Territorial Sea.

Ten years – the merest of moments geologically speaking, but a (somewhat) long time from a human point of view. Because 10-year anniversaries are often a time of reflection, let’s take this time to look back on all the sweet (and less than sweet) memories of Oregon’s relationship with the concept of marine reserves. The impetus for my reflection came from the fact that although my current duties are about looking forward, as Carl Sagan said, “You have to know the past to understand the present.” So, I have certainly spent some time trying to better understand the policy landscape surrounding this issue. I have been assisting the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee as they prepare to submit a legislatively-mandated report to Oregon’s Legislative Assembly regarding the status of Oregon’s Marine Reserves in 2023; this report is to include “an assessment of social, economic and environmental factors related to reserves and protected areas” as well as “recommendations for administrative actions and legislative proposals related to the reserves and protected areas.”2 The report is to be prepared by an Oregon university, but making things a bit more complicated is that no funding was allocated in the bill for this assessment process.

But before we continue, we should get on the same page about terminology. Marine protected areas are defined as, “…any area of the marine environment that has been reserved by federal, state, territorial, tribal, or local laws or regulations to provide lasting protection for part or all of the natural and cultural resources therein.”3 Marine protected areas can allow many extractive uses with few protections or they may allow very little extraction with limited exceptions (for example, recreational harvest of certain species). Marine reserves are a special class of marine protected areas, where no extraction of living or non-living resources is allowed with the exception of take for scientific research. Marine reserves around the world have been established for different purposes, but the purpose of Oregon’s Marine Reserves is to “provide an additional tool to help protect, sustain or restore the nearshore marine ecosystem, its habitats, and species for the values they represent to present and future generations.” 4

Oregon’s foray into using marine reserves as a management tool began about 20 years ago; in 2000, Gov. Kitzhaber’s office requested that Oregon Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) begin gathering information regarding marine reserves as a management tool. Over the next two years OPAC organized informational meetings with experts and regional natural resource managers, held public meetings with Oregon ocean stakeholders, and collected written comments, which typically landed on one of two opposite ends – very supportive or very opposed. In its 2002 Report and Recommendations to the Governor, OPAC recommended that Oregon should test a limited number of marine reserves, and that those reserves should be determined based on “…an open, public process with extensive stakeholder involvement.”5 The discussions and resulting report set off a contentious debate between industry, conservation groups, and the state government, ultimately postponing what was to come by about a decade. Industry groups and fishing communities voiced concerns that such designations would cause further economic harm to Oregon’s coastal communities, which were still reeling from the groundfish disaster and salmon crises of the 1990s. Various government entities and environmental groups indicated that such measures were needed to help avert such disasters in the future.

What changed in the intervening decade? Sentiment-wise, not a lot as far as I can tell. Staunch advocates remained staunch advocates and vocal opponents remained vocal opponents but political winds were shifting.  A number of major reports, the work of national and international scientific experts, sounded the alarm in no uncertain terms that human activities were causing major and detrimental impacts to ocean ecosystems and thus human well-being 6–8. Increasing interest in wave energy development raised a new set of concerns for the fishing industry and fishing communities.

And so, in 2005, Governor Kulongoski requested that OPAC re-visit marine reserves. OPAC’s Marine Reserves Working Group met several times over the next couple of years and in 2008, Executive Order 08-07 accelerated the marine reserves process in Oregon. In line with the process for extensive stakeholder involvement in siting and planning outlined in EO 08-07, community groups and citizens submitted 20 proposals, and on November 29, 2008, OPAC forwarded its recommendation on pilot sites and sites for further consideration to the Governor’s Office. The following November, after passage of HB 3013 (the legislation that established the pilot marine reserves), ODFW’s newly-established Marine Reserves Program worked with OPAC to form community teams to study the sites recommended for further evaluation. With the aid of a facilitator the community teams worked diligently over the next year, logging a total of 35 meetings and ~25,000 collective volunteer hours over an 11-month period to develop their final recommendations, which were submitted to the legislature in early 2011. Although legislation was introduced during the 2011 legislative session to establish the three new sites, negotiations were unsuccessful and the bill died in committee. Between the 2011 and 2012 sessions, the Coastal Caucus (the bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators representing coastal districts) worked to craft a plan that would receive support moving forward. On March 5, 2012, Gov. Kitzhaber signed SB 1510 and the period of marine reserves planning gave way to implementation.

One of the major concerns among opponents during the contentious first decade of marine reserve discussions was that we don’t understand enough about using marine reserves as a management tool. A common theme among proponents was that we can’t wait until we know all the answers and that science should help guide an adaptive management process.

So what have we learned? A quick Web of Science search reveals that since 2000, over 2000 peer-reviewed articles regarding marine reserves globally have been published, with >100 new papers every year since 2008. Change the topic search term to “marine protected areas” and the number of publications is more than doubled. The oldest marine reserves and protected areas are now decades old, and many publications in recent years have synthesized this wealth of data to examine the effectiveness of marine reserves, both from an ecological and a human well-being standpoint.

And as far as Oregon’s nearshore is concerned, the ODFW Marine Reserves Program’s research collaborations and monitoring efforts have contributed new understanding about Oregon’s notoriously difficult-to-study waters (I encourage you to visit the Reserves News to learn more about the research happening in the reserves). While the Marine Reserves Program’s eyes are on the ocean, the eyes of the nation will be on Oregon as the process unfolds. Nationally, Oregon has a reputation as a conservation leader and also a leader in collaborative governance processes that involve citizens in important land use and coastal management decisions – often referred to as “the Oregon Way.” Such participatory processes don’t usually make any one group happy, but they do have the ability to ensure that people feel heard. And when people feel that they had a place at the table, efforts are more likely to succeed.

What is the future of Oregon’s marine reserves system? One of the points of the mandated assessment is to provide valuable information to Oregon’s ocean stakeholders so that adaptive management as envisioned in OPAC’s 2008 Marine Reserve Policy Recommendations can take place. As the 2023 assessment nears, it is time to start thinking about this important next step. Given the current political climate and the still-raw emotions from the 2019 legislative session, it’s helpful to reflect on the fact that Oregonians can have difficult discussions, make tough compromises, and move forward together.

References

1.            House Bill 3013. Relating to ocean resources; and declaring an emergency. (2009).

2.            Senate Bill 1510: Relating to ocean resources; creating new provisions; amending ORS 196.540; and declaring an emergency. (2012).

3.            NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center. Definition and Classification System for US Marine Protected Areas.

4.            Ocean Policy Advisory Council. Oregon Marine Reserve Policy Recommendations: A Report to the Governor, State Agencies and Local Governments from OPAC. (2008).

5.            Ocean Policy Advisory Council. Report and Recommendation to the Governor: Oregon and Marine Reserves. (2002).

6.            Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. (Island Press, 2005).

7.            Pew Oceans Commission. America’s living oceans: charting a course for sea change. A report to the nation. (Pew Trusts, 2003).

8.            US Commission on Ocean Policy. An ocean blueprint for the 21st century. (US Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004).

The Summer of a Thousand Miles

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1060 miles

20 hours

14 interviews

And one day to say everything I need to say.

How could I possibly, in a five minute presentation, communicate the nuances of the 14 conversations I had with fishers up and down the Oregon coast? How could I make sure that they weren’t being misrepresented by my words, since some voices would disagree with others? Would the audience–which I knew would mostly be comprised of people in the biophysical sciences–understand the relevance of this type of work? These were the doubts rolling through my mind leading up to Friday, August 17th–the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars Final Symposium and, coincidentally, my 22nd birthday.

Never before have I designed a scientific poster, let alone present my scientific work in front of people who weren’t my peers or professors. As a dancer, I have been on stage hundreds of times. I know that chemically in the body, the feelings of excitement and anxiety are essentially the same. Cortisol levels spike. Your heart races. The last thing you want to do is wait. The only difference between these emotions is whether you are interpreting the situation in a positive or negative light. These feelings are not unfamiliar to me, but they caught me by surprise last Friday. All thirteen scholars–who I have come to adore over these past 10 weeks–were coming together one last time. My work, which was shared and understood within a small circle, was finally going to take the stage. I was exhausted from traveling long distances and preparing my materials. And I had high expectations for myself on this significant day. But I would not have it any other way. Excited and shaky, I took the floor in front of a standing room only audience.

My final symposium poster, which provides an overview of the projects I have been involved in and their context within the Human Dimensions Project of the ODFW Marine Reserves Program. Click the picture to view the poster in detail. If you have any questions about my work, feel free to comment below or message me at mbrist96@uw.edu

I briefly explained the place of human dimensions research in environmental policy. In my words, it boils down to analyzing a particular situation through multiple social sciences lenses at different units of people. Economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology all contribute to a holistic understanding of the world. I explained how my research dealt with individuals rather than groups of people or geographical regions, and what that looked like. I remember hearing a few empathetic gasps when I said I reviewed 785 written responses to a well-being survey four times over. And exclamations of surprise when I showed them the complex framework I used to assess how people think and what they value. I explained that being trained to think this way set me up perfectly for what I was brought to Oregon to do in the first place: to interview fishers on their perspectives of the marine reserves. For if you can’t get to the root of what people care about, you lose all potential to find common ground.

Looking over Astoria–the northernmost point in my journey–toward my home state of Washington.

At this point in the presentation I felt myself balancing the need to stay on script for the sake of time with the desire to deviate into stories. I drove over 1060 miles this summer for interviews–which is the equivalent of driving the Oregon coast three times over. I conducted interviews from Astoria along the Columbia River to Brookings, which is nine minutes from the California border. Each and every person I talked to had distinct backgrounds and countless stories, and were more than open to talk about their lives as fishers, challenges related to fisheries management, conservation, and the marine reserves. I can honestly say that my perception of fishers has changed radically since coming to Oregon. They are highly satisfied with their lifestyle and are in tune with the natural environment that their business depends upon. Many of them wish to collaborate with scientists and managers to create policies that serve the greater good, so long as their input is not used against them. These insights are just a snapshot of what I ascertained from 20 hours of conversation.

But what I couldn’t tell the audience was about everything that happened in between these conversations. Moments punctuated by extensive beaches, meeting new people, and exploring the Oregon coast. Places referenced in interviews that I had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes. And the coastal cultures that my mentor Tommy introduced to me–I got to feel those firsthand. Traveling as a part of the Human Dimensions Project helped me understand the people of the Oregon coast more so than reading could ever do.

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, where I stayed for three days while conducting interviews on the North Coast.

For example, when I spent one weekend traveling to the North Coast, I was introduced to fellow Summer Scholar Dylan Rozansky’s work environment at the Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP). On Cannon Beach, a whole community comes together to educate visitors on the ecology of Haystack Rock and to ensure its protection for the future.

The Historic Bayfront of Florence, one of my favorite places on the Oregon coast. However, it’s a really hard call to pick favorites. I feel so lucky to have traveled the entire coast this summer, and to have been exposed to so many different, beautiful places.

On a sunny Saturday morning I interviewed a fisher in Florence–a quaint retirement community an hour south of Newport. I took the time to wander through art shops and happened upon a bead shop called the Waterlily Studio, whose products are based out of appreciation for the natural history of our planet and cultural uses of nature.  I loved everything about the shop, and then got into a conversation with the owner about the future of our world. Our fears with the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW’s) in the Puget Sound, and what we can do to save them. And I was more motivated than ever to take everything I have learned this summer–about engaging people in conversations and marine policy–to do something about this. When I return home to Seattle this Sunday, attending a public action meeting on the fate of the SRKW’s is one of the first things on my agenda.

A blood red sun in the smoke of California fires. I stayed in Gold Beach on the Rogue River while conducting South Coast interviews.

I am feeling a lot of things in this present moment. It is bittersweet to leave this incredible slice of the world. And already, so many of the Scholars have moved on to the next chapter of their lives–whether that be school or jobs. And I wish them all the luck in the world. Of all the emotions in my heart, I feel grateful to have been entrusted with this work, to have had such supportive mentors, and to have met such an outstanding group of people.

So all I have left to say now is…

Thank you.

My people, my fellow Scholars. Oh how I will miss you. The marine science community is small enough, so I have faith our paths will cross soon enough again.

Differences of opinion and Oregon’s marine reserves

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It’s 6 am. We’ve just arrived at Cascade Head, which is one hour north of Newport. This is when the intertidal of this ODFW marine reserve is exposed to the marine mist. With sleep deprived eyes I witness one of the reasons why the reserves are in place–to preserve and study the rich biodiversity of the Oregon coast.

I have so many memories I would like to share with you. I feel lucky. It’s only been three weeks since I arrived at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, OR, but they have been filled with rich moments. Most of these I have shared with my fellow scholars in Newport (Taylor, Dani, Abby, and for just last week Alexa) immersed in the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. But I have also spent a significant portion of my time digging deeper into the psyche of those that call the Oregon coast home.

As described in my last blog post, I am working in the Human Dimensions Project of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Marine Reserves Program. This means that I am learning how to conduct research and think like a social scientist about environmental policies. For the past two weeks I have been hard at work coding nearly 800 open-ended responses to a comprehensive subjective well-being study conducted in part by my mentor Tommy Swearingen. This systemic survey captures how people think, their moral frameworks, their sense of place, personal and community resilience, and what people believe contributes most to their well-being, among other things. The robust data set also reveals how coastal residents respond to hypothetical changes to the community–such as an expansion or contraction of the marine reserves. The possibility of change prompted many respondents to voice their opinions.

The result was hundreds of insightful explanations into what constitutes a good quality of life overall. I had the privilege of looking at the world through the lens of people with disparate opinions than my own, and was surprised on more than one occasion by the complexity of their worldviews. For the most part, people get that balancing economic needs with the environment is a difficult trade-off to maneuver. Many of the towns up and down the coast rely on the commercial industries of fishing and logging to survive. People think on the scale of the individual to the community; often, when faced with these changes, they worry about their neighbors who work in these industries and might lose their jobs because of regulations. They fear the loss of their culture, their way of life. Some responded to the survey in all caps, telling the government to back off. History has disappointed them, and they prefer autonomy over future mistakes. People on the other side of the coin also fear. They are worried that we will further degrade our public lands, that their grandchildren won’t have access to a high quality environment. Most everyone is concerned about personal or community financial security. In this inflammatory age of politics, we often categorize people by the political party they stand behind, of which there are only a handful. What I realized when coding this response is that what is more important than ideology are the values that motivate it.  If we seek to understand each other on this level, we might start to feel for one another again.

I’m in the process of developing a technical backbone for social science coding though this work. But inadvertently, the empathy I hold for my fellow human beings is expanding the more I listen.

Firefighter training high above the rocky intertidal of the Cape Falcon marine reserve.

This is not the only work that I am poised to do during my summer scholar experience. In fact, it is secondary to my role as an interviewer of local fishers. However, as many projects go, our timeline did not proceed according to plan. Because this type of work has ethical considerations for human subjects, such as confidentiality, every detail of my involvement had to be cleared with OSU’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) within the Office of Research Integrity. I was left hanging, feeling like the firefighter to the right for a short period of time before knowing what might impact my involvement in this work. At the present moment, most worries have been smoothed over, and we are proceeding onward with the project. So fingers crossed that next time you read my post in a couple of weeks I will be speaking of an entirely new and exciting adventure!

Since my work revolves around the marine reserves, I have also made an attempt to see what they are about with my own eyes. Even if this required waking up at extreme hours to see the intertidal. My fellow summer scholar in the ODFW annex, Taylor Ely, has already woken up around 4 am to complete her work in the field, and will likely have many more mornings like this. But as far as I have seen, the reserves are worth it.

My first encounter with one of the reserves was Otter Rock. It is the smallest reserve and is situated just outside of Newport. Once the sun broke over the cliffs, rays of light were punctuated by fantastic rock formations. At low tide anemones dripped from the rocks reaching toward the water, and we could walk right into Devil’s punchbowl–which is a churning mass of water when the tide rushes in.

Sun breaking over the cliff at Otter Rock

Otter Rock in the distance behind a wall of dripping anemones.

Cascade Head was equally as impressive. Biodiversity filled each and every cranny, and at one point while helping the ecological team survey starfishes, we found over 170 sea stars (predominantly Pisaster ochraceus, but also the six-legged sea star Leptasterias) in a single transect! That was within an area no larger than a typical living room.

Me at center within the rocky intertidal of Cascade Head. At points we were down on our stomachs face first in invertebrates such as starfishes, anemones, and the occasional nudibranch.

The rocks at Cascade Head. Though we were conducting survey work with ODFW, we were not the only people exploring the rocks at daybreak. Recreation is an important past-time for people living on or visiting the coast–both for enjoyment and as a key part of the modern economy.

The little Leptasterias starfish that I found. It was the first and only one of the day!

Though I still have Redfish Rocks and Cape Falcon on my bucket list to visit, I have most recently explored Cape Perpetua–and from an entirely different view. Instead of viewing nature through a macro lens, up close and personal, I took a step back. Within the easily accessible old growth forest there are a multitude of trails. We took one that led to a 550 year old Sitka spruce, and another that gave us a sweeping view of the shoreline. It was worth the effort of climbing 800 feet above sea level to see the land (and even a resident gray whale). Cape Perpetua is also where you can watch the spouting horn and Thor’s well, which in action convinces the viewer that the ocean is breathing. With each ocean swell the divot in the volcanic rocks fills with water only to expel it in a massive exhale. Breathing in, the water recedes from Thor’s well, exposing thousands of mussels which cling to the water’s edge. And this repeats, indefinitely.

The land and the ocean are violently alive. And the people–they are right here to endure it all.

700 feet above sea level and counting. Cape Perputua down below.

Thor’s well on a mild day.

The Human Dimension of Marine Reserves

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Mission:  To inherit the knowledge of every place and people I call home. 

 

There’s a first for everything. First job, first road trip, first time meeting the people you now cherish. Being a Summer Scholar promises to be full of firsts: this will be the longest that I have been away from home (Seattle, WA), is my first time doing human dimensions research, is my initiation into the world of working for the government and policy-related work, and is my first internship. I am incredibly grateful that the Oregon Sea Grant in association with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife trusted me to do this work and brought me to where I am today.

Also, thank you mom, dad, loved ones, and my extended family at the University of Washington for all you have poured into me.

Me on Nye Beach at sunset

Image result for marine reserves odfw

For the next ten weeks I will be working with the ODFW’s Marine Reserves Program on the Human Dimensions Research Project. This type of work is fascinating, but ultimately I selected this project because of who would become my mentors.  Tommy Swearingen is the project leader and is a one man show of expertise, initiative, and charisma. He oversees at least 15 different studies that assess the socioeconomic impacts of marine reserve implementation. He has had a Summer Scholar under his wing every year since he was brought onto the team. Being a mentor to him means more than just supplying interns with work–he wants to understand where they come from, and how he can best help them become fully immersed in the work and contribute to their future goals. He is a researcher, but also a teacher. In only the first week under his tutelage, I have gained a comprehensive understanding of the history of Oregon’s coastal communities and of the scope of the Human Dimensions Research Project.

Fishing vessel at dusk approaching the Yaquina Bay Bridge

To ensure the marine reserves are not adversely affecting coastal residents, Tommy and his associates have collected socioeconomic data on the scale of communities to individuals. Seeing as the reserves only make up 3% of Oregon’s coastal area, these effects are difficult to disentangle from larger trends. This is where studies on the individual level–specifically of well-being, world view, and feelings–become crucial. For this, you need an anthropologist.

Specifically, you need Elizabeth Marino. Beth is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at OSU-Cascades, and every now and then she will be driving down from Bend, OR to conduct interviews on fishers and to mentor me. I am inspired by her outlook, knowledge, empathy, and dedication to her work. Just to give you an idea of her background, Beth is the author of Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska. This documents her decade-long research on some of the first climate refugees, the Iñupiaq people, who are running out of time while their home is engulfed by the sea. Needless to say, her work has real-world consequences.

I am humbled to be working under these incredible researchers and people. By the week’s end, I now know where I fit into the Human Dimensions Research Project:

  • First and foremost, I will be conducting interviews of fishers on their knowledge of the local ocean–which can span back five generations–and on how marine reserves might be affecting their livelihoods. Giving them a voice just might reveal effects that quantitative data fails to do alone.
  • Secondly, I am already in the process of coding (aka categorizing) open-ended responses of a well-being survey of coastal residents. This converts qualitative responses to quantitative data, which could reveal how geography, community culture, and economic well-being all correspond to people’s feelings. It also speaks to what people value and how much they are willing to give up for these values.
  • Lastly, I will be trained on how to maintain an ongoing database of the economic status of coastal communities.

I am beyond excited to see where this work takes me.

Other snapshots from my first week in Newport, OR, my home for this summer:

(Almost) every OSG Summer Scholar working at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. From left to right: Me, Abby Ernest-Beck (EPA), Dani Hanelin (ODFW), and Taylor Ely (ODFW-Marine Reserves). Not pictured + photocreds: Anna Bolm (USDA).

The expanse of Nye Beach, the first beach I visited upon arriving in Newport, looking at Yaquina Head.

A lush beach-side cliff of salal. Coming from a background in both terrestrial and marine science, I am seeing from daily excursions how the ecology of coastal Oregon is not very different from that of western Washington. It feels like home–except with massive beaches of soft sand.

Some of my new friends on the Sea Lion Docks in South Beach.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, which we visited the very next day.

Silhouette at sunset. Each day is full here.

 

 

Have a Goal in Sight? Throw Yourself at it.

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I don’t want to resort to the old cliché, “the mountains are calling and I must go,” but I answered that call this weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve spent much time rolling ankles over stubborn roots and scrambling over precarious rocks. Despite the fact that I couldn’t find a hiking buddy, I still found it easy to justify a weekend among the peaks where John Muir felt most at home.

Hitting the trail early with a goal in view.

Back in the East, I tackled mountains every weekend I could. I come from the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, where a two-hour drive to the highest peaks in New York State coupled with a breakfast of gas station coffee and a banana is a regular Saturday routine. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I live for the 4am mornings, finding my way on the trail under headlamp, but I’ve become so accustomed to that groggy early-morning feeling that it’s almost nostalgic.

Early morning wake up with headlamp.

Once I did some research on the Cascades of Oregon and heard you could summit Oregon’s third highest peak in a day, I was up for the challenge. My tent was already in my car so I smeared some peanut butter and jelly on bread, called it a dinner and hit the road. That night, I tossed and turned on my inflatable sleeping pad, anxiously going over the hike in my mind as if it were a documentary film.

Looking down of Teardrop pool, Oregon’s highest lake, from the loose rock trail.

Now is probably a good time to acknowledge the fact that this is my first time ascending to 10,000 plus feet of elevation on-foot, not to mention that I drove from sea-level. I’ve hiked a similar prominence before, but never to an altitude this high. My body wasn’t exactly thanking me for the elevation change as my lungs panted for air and my head pounded with an unforeseen headache.

Farther than it looks, the summit looms over this steep scramble.

Like most hikes, I had reached that low feeling on the climb where I questioned if I could persist to the summit. The strangest part for me was that I could see where I was headed throughout the entire hike, but never really had a sense of how long it would take me to get there. I’m so acquainted with hiking through dense forest until the trail spits you out above the tree line just a few hundred yards from the summit. This was different.

The final steps to the summit of South Sister.

Perception is a funny thing. On a mountain, it can take your senses for a wild ride. Unsure of when the steep, scree-scrambling climb would end, I focused my eyes on my feet, switched to autopilot and let faith take me the rest of the undetermined distance to the summit. Then, as quickly as the questionable feelings set in, I was confident and pulsing with adrenaline as I lifted my eyes. The summit view was indescribable and clear enough to see as far as Mount Rainier. My head was clear too and I questioned why I even questioned myself in the first place.

Mission accomplished!

In that moment, the summit is the quite literally the peak of the experience. But in the end, it’s about the journey and the people you meet. I was fortunate enough to make friends with a couple from Australia who became my hiking buddies as we followed the loose-cinder trail back down the south side of the volcanic peak. There’s something to be said about a cooperative crew of people on the same path with the same goal in mind.

Stopped for a swim at Moraine Lake after descending.

In Full Swing

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Somehow, we’re already halfway through the summer. After weeks of preparation and design, this was my first week in the field conducting surveys. Aside from this being a short workweek following the July 4th holiday, the days sure seemed to fly by much quicker than usual. Of course it helps when your office is the Oregon coast and your job is talking to new people. Additionally, I spotted 8 whales off the coast while sampling… my favorite marine animal!

Enjoying the view while conducting surveys at Otter Rock.

This first round of surveys proved successful, without too many visitors reluctant to participate. Surprisingly, the rain and wind doesn’t stop visitors from exploring Oregon’s many coastal attractions. Along the central coast, I met visitors from Germany, Italy, Brazil and Canada. In the coming weeks I will have a change of scenery as we begin sampling on the North and South coast, which I have yet to explore for myself.

Rainy day sampling in Yachats.

Living on the central coast has given me an advantage when answering questions that visitors have while they are filling out their ocean awareness survey. As we expand our sampling range, I will be seeing new places for the first time, along with some of the coastal visitors. If all goes according to plan, I will have traveled the Oregon coast from North to South six times in total by the end of this summer. That’s a lot to pack into the few remaining weeks, but that’s not all I have on my agenda when it comes to exploring Oregon.

Planning a fishing trip “on the fly.”

As time flies by, I’m taking every chance I can to slow down and take it all in. This weekend, I went exploring “on the fly.” Despite some stormy weather that inhibited my prior weekend plans, Sunday shaped up to be fairly nice and I grabbed my fly-fishing rod and took a dirt road into the Siuslaw wilderness to unwind. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. Fly- fishing generally takes a little more effort and planning, but once you find your spot, it can be one of the most meditative ways to refresh your mind in nature. Of course I’m biased, but there is compelling evidence to support that fly-fishing is truly a natural stress reliever.

Resident cutthroat trout I caught (and released) in the Oregon wilderness.

As my previous blog alluded to, there is good reason to spend our free time out in nature, rather than indoors and in front of a screen. The only trouble I’ve found with spending time in the outdoors is that the more you seek new places and adventures, the more you find you’re missing out on. Oregon is loaded with more opportunities than ten weeks can fulfill, but it’s a matter of making the best of every opportunity as it comes.

 

Survey Count: 145

Whale Count: 8

Tide Poolers

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Tide pools are the wildflower bloom of the marine world. If you time it right, the colorful array of life is revealed from beneath the ocean cover for a brief, yet exciting period of time. Some of the marine life in tide-pools lives between two worlds, spending half of their time fully submerged under seawater and the other half in the air we breathe. I think tide pools are one of the most intriguing ecosystems that exist on this planet.

purple urchins in the tide pools at Yaquina Head

Why is it that these creatures, that become exposed when the tide goes out, can flaunt such vibrant colors and shapes? Wouldn’t they all want to camouflage themselves as rocks to avoid getting eaten? The sun-orange sea stars, huckleberry-purple urchins, seafoam-green anemones, and assorted hermit crabs (to name a few) sport their colors loud and proud. For some of these organisms, it is still not known for certain what the purpose of their vivid coloration is, but one thing is known for certain: this attractive marine life display draws eyes from across the globe to the coast of the Pacific Northwest.

Sea stars and anemones at low tide

This past Saturday, June 25th, we were lucky enough to have a negative-low tide, which (as the name implies) means the lowest tide retreats to a negative number of feet relative to average sea level. For tide-poolers, that means there is a very good chance of seeing the unique marine life that resides at the farthest edge of the low-tide water line. Of course, I am just one of many tide-pool chasers. For many coastal residents and marine enthusiasts alike, tide-pools are an important place. A recent study in 2013 found that exploring tide-pools was among the top three most common activities for Oregon’s marine reserve visitors. While it is encouraging to a conservationist for there to be so much interest in this natural resource, too many visitors can be harmful to such a fragile environment. I’m sure the tide pool residents wouldn’t be pleased to have an army of land-dwelling visitors tromping all over their property.

Purple urchin at negative low tide

In the coming weeks, as I finish up some prep work and solidify my work schedule, I look forward to exploring more of the unique places along the coast, but also learning about the people who use them. As part of my work this summer, I hope to find out how informed coastal visitors feel about issues related to marine areas in order to better inform ocean managers about any potential knowledge gaps or concerns from the general public about our oceans. While I haven’t been able to immediately work out in the field, the work I will eventually be doing along the coast is a crucial element to bettering our understanding of marine reserves. Until then, I’ll continue to familiarize myself with new places in Oregon during my free time!

Angus exploring the tide pools