Noaa Coral Reef Conservation Program Project Progress Report

This brief report summarizes the progress of NOAA CRCP's Maki Watch Ka'anapali, a project intended to train local volunteers to engage in coral reef monitoring and conservation activities in Hawaii.

This document provides a concise summary of the final outcomes of a NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program project intended to mitigate fire hazard and reduce soil erosion in Hawaii's West Maui watershed.

In December 2003 the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program released a report to Congress on the implementation of the Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program. Progress Report: The Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program provides an overview of the program since its establishment in 2002. It also highlights the achievements of the program in each of the topic areas and provides specific geographic and substantive information on all 83 grants awarded in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. To receive a hard copy of the report, email name and mailing information to [email protected].

"In 2005 the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (DMWR) initiated a comprehensive long-term monitoring program for the reefs in American Samoa, the American Samoa Coral Reef Monitoring Program (ASCRMP). Funding was provided through the Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Ocean Services (NOS). Although there have been previous monitoring surveys in American Samoa covering a variety of spatial and temporal scales, the ASCRMP represents the first attempt to annually monitor representative reefs in American Samoa, starting initially around Tutuila and eventually in the Manua islands and the two atolls, Rose and Swains. The program has been set up with long-term government funding, and is therefore capable of accumulating long-term data sets annually over a larger geographic scale. The primary objectives of the American Samoa Coral Reef Monitoring Program are to: (1) Monitor the status and trends in the distribution and abundance of reef biota on reefs in American Samoa, and (2) Provide environmental managers, as well as other decision makers, with information that is pertinent to managing coral reefs in the territory. As a monitoring program, ASCRMP's goal is to document change - i.e. where, how much, and what kind of changes take place at the various monitoring sites. The ideal is to resolve change at scales which will allow judgments to be made as to which changes are within normal, natural variability, and which are outside it. The project is coordinated by two staff members that are funded by the program; during FY2011 and FY2012 the Coral Reef Monitoring Benthic Ecologist position was filled by Dr. Doug Fenner and the Coral Reef Monitoring Fish Ecologist position was filled by Ben Carroll. During the last quarter of FY2012. Mr. Benjamin Carroll’s contract was not renewed by the then director Ufagafa Ray Tulafono. The DMWR’s Chief Fisheries Biologist filled in Mr. Carroll's duties, where possible up until the end of January 2013 when the position was filled part time by DMWR fisheries supervisor Alice Lawrence and part-time by DMWR fisheries technician Saolotoga Tofaeono. The position was filled full-time by Alice Lawrence from the end of January 2014 until the present time. The program utilizes the DMWR Boston Whaler vessel to access survey sites around Tutuila, however the boat was out of action between January 2012 and October 2012 and between January 2013 and October 2013, and again between January 2014 and November 2014. There were attempts to utilize local fishing boats to conduct surveys with varying success, due to problems with late payments, safety issues and logistics related to the smaller and slower engines used by the local fishing boats"--Project Background.

"Ecotrust received a one-year grant of $75,810 through NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program for a project through our Marine Consulting Initiative to develop, deploy, and fieldtest an integrated technical design solution for trip ticket forms. In the fall of 2013, Ecotrust’s Marine Consulting Initiative was launched as a separate but wholly-owned subsidiary entity, Point 97, driven by the same mission: to deliver technology solutions and engagement strategies for coastal and marine planning that better connect people with place, bridge differing perspectives, and implement management decisions in an inclusive and transparent way. Point 97 works towards this mission in regions around the world through consulting, contracted services, and high-tech product development. All existing grant-funded projects will be accomplished as planned, and Point 97 will continue to partner with Ecotrust and other collaborators in future grant-funded work. With the support of this one-year NOAA CRCP award, the project team accomplished a needs assessment for an electronic catch reporting system in the Caribbean, designed the initial product, implemented three major updates to the product, and received feedback from partners to consider through the stages of development and implementation. The number of participating fishers and their submitted reports demonstrated the success of the electronic reporting system; we collected over 600 electronic catch reports from 27 fishers in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) and Puerto Rico (PR) over a period of nine months. The final Digital Deck electronic catch report system included a catch report application (mobile and desktop) and dashboards for both the fishers (mobile and desktop dashboards) and the agency fisheries managers (desktop dashboards). Throughout the project we coordinated with fishers, agency fisheries managers, and regional data managers via in-person meetings and phone conferences. Initial onsite visits enabled the project team to recruit and train cooperating fishers in collaboration with agency partners. The project team continued training and support for fishers through later site visits and regular remote communication, and worked with both fishers and agency partners to ensure that the final product fit technology preferences and data requirements. This final report details the progress made during the grant period towards approved objectives and the project results. Final grant financials have been submitted separately through the NOAA Grants Online portal, according to reporting guidelines"--Executive Summary.

NOAA Technical Memorandum CRCP 11. Identifies goals, objectives, and approaches to guide NOAA's research, management, and international cooperation activities on deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems for fiscal years 2010 through 2019. Integrates research and conservation needs and is intended to be a flexible, evolving document that allows NOAA and its partners to address new management challenges and priorities as appropriate. The primary goal of this Strategic Plan is to improve the understanding, conservation, and management of deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems.

"The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) is a matrix program operating across four NOAA line offices: National Ocean Service (NOS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), and Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and is administered by NOS. The program supports coral reef regions of the United States (U.S.), has an international component, and is integrated with other federal agencies, states, territories and commonwealths, and local governments. Recommendations from a 2007 external program review, along with the subsequent planning process (the 'roadmap') and a change in leadership in 2011, have shaped the recent history of the CRCP, including the genesis of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan (NCRMP), the Coral Program's 'national status and trends' monitoring program. The Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) has been a leader in coral reef conservation science since 1978. Congress passed the Coral Reef Conservation Act in 2000 and SEFSC dovetailed its management-relevant coral reef science with the fledgling NOAA CRCP. SEFSC maintains a strong coral reef science program and continues to deliver high-caliber, peer-reviewed science in support of coral reef conservation and management and other NMFS mandates to conserve the nation's fisheries, essential fish habitat, and protected species. The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (2006) puts a heavier burden on data quality in many coral reef ecosystems. Additionally, the listing of two Atlantic corals as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2006, and a petition to list an additional 83 species of coral in 2009, underscores the importance of NMFS as a critical regulatory authority to effect change in coral reefs"--Introduction. (doi:10.7289/V5HD7SKP (http://dx.doi.org/10.7289/V5HD7SKP))