The National Marine Sanctuaries

Reminding you: The Earth is blue.

By Craig Collins

To many Americans, the words National Marine Sanctuary evoke images of vibrant coral reefs and teeming kelp forests – and these ecosystems feature prominently in America’s inventory of protected undersea areas. But the National Marine Sanctuary system began with the discovery of a wreck.

When the ironclad warship USS Monitor, a long-lost icon of the Civil War, was discovered off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in 1973, there was no legal mechanism to ensure its protection. Congress had to invent one: the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The system of underwater national parks that has since evolved includes 14 sanctuaries and two marine national monuments: Papahānaumokuākea, in Hawaii, and Rose Atoll in American Samoa.

Altogether, these areas protect more than 600,000 square miles of ecological, historical, and cultural treasures. The latest addition to the system, designated in 2019, is the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, which protects and interprets more than 100 World War I-era wooden steamships.

A diver inspects the wreck of the New Orleans at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

By welcoming visitors, said John Armor, director of NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), the national marine sanctuaries help to stimulate ideas and discussion about conserving the nation’s submerged resources – and these discussions are, since 2000, no longer limited to the saltwater realm.

Students learn about local species and history at the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary.

When the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve (TBNMS) was designated off the Lake Huron coast of Michigan, it injected new life into the port city of Alpena, on the Lower Peninsula’s northeast shore. By the 1990s, as much of Alpena’s economic base – mining, fishing, and manufacturing – had begun to erode, people started moving away.

NOAA oversees 14 national marine sanctuaries and two marine national monuments.

But Alpena has something unique: Shipwreck Alley, a graveyard of more than 70 shipwrecks within the vicinity of Thunder Bay alone. The state of Michigan had always worked to protect and preserve these historic wrecks, but as Alpena’s economy faltered, the governor, in partnership with NOAA, redoubled efforts to designate the area a national marine sanctuary. Now more than 4,300 square miles in size, the Thunder Bay sanctuary protects one of the nation’s best-preserved and nationally significant collections of shipwrecks.

Alpena, as the host city to visitors eager to learn about and explore these wrecks, has transformed into a more diverse, dynamic economy. It’s still unmistakably a manufacturing and mining town, but many downtown businesses, including tour operators who offer interpretive glass-bottom boat trips above the wrecks, directly target visitors to the sanctuary and the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center. In 2018, TBNMS’s visitor center, the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center (GLMHC), had more than 80,000 visitors. Out-of-town visitors to the GLMHC and Alpena’s Shipwreck Tour spent more than $28 million, supporting more than 400 jobs. Nearly half of the visitors reported that either the visitor center or the shipwreck tour had a lot of influence on their decision to visit the region.

Armor credits this economic turnaround to the people of Alpena, who realized the need to welcome new businesses. The sanctuary, he said, “was definitely a catalyst that helped give that community the confidence to turn around.”

A spotted cleaner shrimp on pink-tipped anemones at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

In addition to the often staggering economic gains associated with these protected areas (a 2019 study of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary found that it contributed $4.4 billion to the state’s economy), Armor said the sanctuary system’s community partnerships yield less tangible benefits. “I really believe national marine sanctuaries bring people together to tackle the most pressing issues facing the ocean,” he said. “They have become local community venues for people to sit around a table, many of them stakeholders who wouldn’t otherwise talk to each other, to think about creative solutions.”

Much of the ONMS’s work is devoted to conservation and monitoring efforts, and in promoting scientific inquiry – from NOAA scientists and other investigators – that will help NOAA and its partners make smart decisions about how to protect these places. Armor describes resource protection as an effort that brings together federal, state, and local officials: “To make sure we’re not focused on a single resource or a single human activity, but instead we’re looking at the place as a whole – helping to coordinate fishery conservation with oil and gas regulation, for example.”

To Armor, the word “sanctuary” may be a bit of a misnomer: NOAA isn’t building invisible fences around these areas to keep people out. The more people visit the sanctuaries, he said, the more likely they’ll want to advocate for and contribute to their management and protection. The program partners with zoos, aquaria, and schools to promote the values of the national marine sanctuaries, and it actively encourages Americans to have a look for themselves with its “Get Into Your Sanctuary” campaign.

“These are places where sensitive resources deserve additional protection,” Armor said, “but they’re also areas where people are living and recreating, fishing, conducting science. All kinds of things are happening. We want people to experience and to enjoy them, and our job is to make sure they enjoy them sustainably, and that they understand the responsibility they have for these national treasures in their backyards.”