MPA Watch: Neighbor to Nurture

On a sunny afternoon along the Orange County coastline, most visitors run, walk, surf, or enjoy the view. However, some people are there for another reason: to watch.

Through a program called MPA Watch, trained volunteers observe human activity in and around Marine Protected Areas, or MPAs. Holding a clipboard, a sheet of paper, or even a phone, they record everything they see along the coast: fishing, boats, tidepooling, wildlife viewing, or even simply reading a book. The work may seem simple at first. However, these observations play a critical role and serve as key data that support the health of marine ecosystems.

To understand the importance of MPA Watch, it is important to understand what an MPA is. Marine Protected Areas are sections of coastal, ocean, or estuarine regions where human activities are restricted for conservation purposes. Within MPAs, there are 3 main types: State Marine Reserves (SMR), State Marine Conservation Areas (SMCA), and State Marine Parks (SMP). State Marine Reserves are MPAs where it is completely illegal to injure, take, damage, or possess any resources from the area. Next, State Marine Conservation Areas are MPAs where injury, damage, take, or possession of resources is illegal except for species that are allowed for recreational and/or commercial take. Lastly, although there are none in Southern California, State Marine Parks are MPAs that allow recreational fishing but prohibit commercial fishing.

Although these MPAs exist, creating protected areas doesn’t guarantee protection. Many violations can happen unconsciously. Lots of people may not know where the MPA begins or what activities are restricted in certain locations. Others may not understand how small actions like taking rocks from the shore can affect a larger marine ecosystem. Therefore, this is where MPA Watch becomes crucial to better guarantee this protection.

In Orange County, where beaches are crucial to local life, tourism, recreation, and identity, MPA watches are much more meaningful. However, the goal of MPA Watch isn’t simply to catch people breaking rules and enforce punishments. Rather, the program focuses on observation, education, and promoting awareness. If data shows that many people are fishing in a protected area, that might suggest a need for better signs and more outreach. On a bigger scale, if data from MPA watches show heavy activity in certain locations and groups of people, that information can help environmental groups and legislators work towards passing laws for areas that need more attention.

For students, MPA Watch offers much more than volunteer hours. It provides a direct connection between environmental issues and real-world actions that they can immediately take and have an influence. There are indeed many classes that teach students about pollution, climate change, and biodiversity, but the MPA watch allows the students to step out into the real world and participate actively to solve the exact issues that they learned about.

As climate change and pollution grow into global issues, programs like MPA Watch are what remind communities that marine protection does not only happen in fancy laboratories or government offices, but rather from a normal neighbor quietly standing on the beach, observing. Through MPA Watch, ordinary community members have the chance to make a change to the coast. MPA Watches empowers everyone to be observers, advocates, and guardians of the ocean.