Center for the Future of the Oceans: Priorities
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As of January 1, 2012, a new network of marine protected areas is in place along the entire California coastline, with the exception of the North Coast region where marine protected areas will be adopted later in the year. "We're working to ensure the long-term success of these marine protected areas through support for monitoring, research and funding.
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We're working with partner organizations and the state of California to improve ocean policy in California along the West Coast and at the national level.
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Through our Seafood Watch program, we're raising conservation awareness among seafood consumers, suppliers and purveyors (like restaurants, retailers and food service providers) to transform the seafood market in ways that favor ocean-friendly wild fisheries and sustainable aquaculture (fish farming).
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We're advocating for policies to protect and rebuild threatened marine wildlife populations along the California coast and in the northern Pacific. We're building on Aquarium exhibit and research programs that focus on recovery efforts for the southern sea otter and pelagic (open ocean) species such as sharks, tunas and sea turtles.
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Creating a Statewide Network of Marine Protected Areas
 Marine protected areas are designed to protect fish and wildlife in their natural habitats. The current California network includes ecosystems ranging from kelp forests to rocky reefs and other places that are home to sea otters, rockfishes, octopuses and myriad other creatures.
With your help, we played a leading role in creating the state's new network; now we're working to make it a success. We're helping establish long-term monitoring and enforcement and we’re mobilizing public support to sustain this underwater legacy—one as impressive as our state park system on land.
Learn about Marine Protected Areas
Ocean Policy Reform
 Two national commissions have addressed comprehensively the failure of federal ocean management and governance to protect vital marine resources in U.S. waters. The privately funded Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy both reached the same conclusion: U.S. ocean policy is woefully outdated and fails to protect ocean resources.
Four aquarium trustees—Executive Director Julie Packard, NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco, commercial fisherman Pietro Parravano and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta—served on the Pew Commission. Together, the reports and recommendations of the two commissions provided a blueprint for improving the management of U.S. ocean waters to protect ocean resources for future generations. In July 2010, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the country's first National Ocean Policy, which included many of the recommendations from the two commission reports. We played an important role in supporting the development of the National Ocean Policy. Now we are working to ensure that the Policy is implemented in ways that will improve ocean health.
In California, the state has made great strides toward putting the commission recommendations into practice through its Marine Life Protection Act and California Ocean Protection Act. We're working with Governor Jerry Brown and other state political leaders to make sure that California continues to lead the way as a model for ocean policy reform.
Related Links
Pew Oceans Commission Report
U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy
President Obama's National Ocean Policy
Sustainable Seafood
 Today, market forces encourage exploitation of global marine life by fishing fleets, and the growing demand for seafood is fueling an expansion of aquaculture that is having significant impacts on ocean wildlife and coastal ecosystems. If we want a future with healthy populations of ocean wildlife, the seafood market must be transformed to give an economic incentive to conservation. Since 1999, our Seafood Watch program has been a leader in the movement to promote seafood from sustainable sources.
We're pursuing two separate but related strategies. First, we’re helping raise awareness among individual consumers about the impact of our seafood choices on the health of ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems. Seafood Watch recommendations have reached tens of millions of people across the United States and the world, through pocket guides, a mobile website and smartphone apps.
Second, we’re giving high-volume seafood purveyors and buyers, including restaurants, retailers and food service providers, the information they need to shift their purchases to support sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. We've created training materials for their staff, and resources to help them find alternatives to unsustainable seafood items they're now serving.
As we raise awareness and concern among consumers, purveyors, distributors and producers, we'll help shift the U.S. seafood market in ways that build incentives for industry to support ocean conservation. Over the past five years, the Seafood Choices movement (of which Seafood Watch is a part) has made remarkable progress in raising awareness. Support is now growing rapidly among major buyers and in the seafood industry, where there had been significant opposition in the past.
Meanwhile, we are working to promote policies that create incentives for sustainable seafood and sustainable fishing practices. In 2009, we sponsored legislation that established California’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative, which helps fisheries in the state achieve sustainable seafood certification.
Related Links
Seafood Watch Program
Seafood Choices Alliance
California Sustainable Seafood Initiative
Protecting Ocean Wildlife and Marine Ecosystems
 California’s marine wildlife and ocean ecosystems show increasing signs of stress from human impacts such as pollution, coastal development and overfishing. We need new and effective marine conservation policies to reverse declines and to restore wildlife populations, species and ecosystems. In addition to our field research projects involving key species under the Aquarium’s care, such as sea otters, tunas and sharks, we advocate sound marine conservation policies that affect these species.
For the past several years we’ve helped raise awareness about the sea otter fund check-off on California state tax returns, which has now raised over $1.5 million for sea otter research and conservation efforts. We also sponsored legislation last year that will keep the tax check-off on state returns for another five years. The fund itself was created as the result of a legislator’s family visit to the sea otter exhibit at the Aquarium.
We're also working with state and federal agencies, and other non-profit organizations, to end the "no-otter zone," an area in southern California where sea otters are not permitted under a law created in 1984. We’re working to restore protections for sea otters throughout their range, with the goal of seeing the struggling sea otter population grow to the point that it can be removed from the endangered species list.
We're the lead sponsor for enacting legislation in 2011 that bans the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in California. The demand for shark fins (for use in shark fin soup) is driving unsustainable fishing for sharks around the world. We're working to end this destructive trade nationwide, and to protect sharks in domestic and international waters.
Related Links
Sea Otter Research and Conservation Program
Tuna Research and Conservation Center
Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) Program
White Shark Research Program
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