New England Aquarium
Student Ocean Conference

Student Comments

In general, all the stakeholder groups determined that there should be some level of protection in the National Marine Sanctuaries.

Specific recommendations include:

• Get the marine-conservation message out to kids at a younger age, so that they grow up knowing the importance and fragility of those ecosystems
• Educate the public - this will help them to understand, care for, and protect the oceans!
• Work with the user groups, such as whale-watchers and fishers; they want to preserve the resources too, so let's use their expertise and voluntary cooperation
• Allocate space in the sanctuary as "off-limits" to fishing, to provide a refuge for fish
• Control interactions with whales through regulations or guidelines - can or should be self-regulated by the industry
• Allocate more tax money for 1) research on fishing gear effects on bottom-communities, and 2) public education n Implement a user fee for whale-watching to be used for education, research, and enforcement