In the wake of the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s recent historic $71 million award, a look back at the first National Oceans Conference.
By Eric Johnson
Aug. 13, 2024—Working as a journalist, once in a while, you might get to witness history being made (it almost makes up for the shoddy wages). That happened for me last week, when I got to interview the director of a Santa-Cruz-based nonprofit that was just awarded the biggest grant ever given to a California NGO. And that experience harkened back to another historic event, in June of 1998, at the first-ever National Oceans Conference in Monterey.
The United Nations had proclaimed 1998 the International Year of the Ocean—so the US Department of Commerce and the Department of the Navy co-hosted this three-day event bringing together stakeholders including government, business, academia, environmentalists, and other nongovernmental organizations.
It was a big deal. Pres. Bill Clinton showed up, and surprised many in attendance by bringing substantive proposals. Hillary Clinton introduced the legendary ocean scientist Dr. Sylvia Earl, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and at the time Explorer in Residence for the National Geographic Society.
Prior to the event, ocean-loving environmentalists were not impressed. On the conference’s first day, a full-page ad appeared in the New York Times, placed by the Earth Island Institute and distributed at the event, attacking seven Clinton-administration "ocean policy disasters."
Representing conservationists’ interests, Earl pointed out that the government spent 30 times more on space than oceans, and she and others called for increased spending on research and enforcement.
I attended the event as news editor of Metro Santa Cruz (which is now Good Times) and today dug up the piece that was published just over 26 years ago.
By the end of the day, environmentalists were warming to the idea that the U.S. government may, for the first time, be getting serious about ocean ecology.
When the president announced that he would sign an executive order extending a temporary ban on oil drilling off the California coast, the crowd went wild. Cheers also erupted when he pledged a $224 million initiative to study fisheries, and when he called on Republicans in Congress to pass his $3.8 billion Clean Water Act. But the biggest applause-getter (behind homeboy Rep. Sam Farr, who initiated the conference) was a ban on the sale of undersized imported swordfish.
Apparently, the professionals in attendance are acutely aware of a little-known fact: swordfish populations are plummeting worldwide. Several other populations of fish are also “crashing.” Even in the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, salmon numbers are down and otters have begun dying off. Nobody knows why any of this is happening. In fact, nobody knows much at all about what's going on in the ocean. But many of the speakers Friday used the word “crisis.”
Hard to recall, but back then, a bunch of experts meeting to announce that the world’s oceans were in crisis was news.
Clinton Wasn’t Bullshitting, and Biden Comes Through
A couple weeks ago, we saw evidence that the US government’s commitment to the ocean and the environment in general is real. Over on California Local, you can read my Q&A with Robert Mazurek, director of the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation, who just orchestrated a campaign that will bring $71 million to the region to complete some work that began more than a quarter century ago.
Category:
