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07/19/2007: "CC Endorses Marine Stewardship Plan"

( Kit Rawson, Chair of the Marine Resources Committee, address the County Council)

At their regular Tuesday meeting, the County Council voted to endorse a Marine Stewardship Plan designed to protect and restore marine resources in the San Juan Islands.

The Marine Stewardship Plan identifies a list of strategies for tackling threats to the marine resources in the San Juans. Among these strategies, the Committee identified a few it will begin working on right away, including to foster a marine stewardship ethic, better manage upland and nearshore activities, reduce the risk of large oil spills, and preserve and manage public access to natural shorelines and marine views.

Recognizing a decline in healthy marine life, including resident killer whales, rockfish, and migrating wild salmon, San Juan County declared itself a Marine Stewardship Area ; this was done in January of 2004 by county commissioners John Evans, Rhea Miller, and Darcy Nielsen.

In response to a resolution, the Marine Resources Committee partnered with the Nature Conservancy and the Northwest Straits Commission and embarked on a conservation planning process to establish why the resources were in decline, and what the community could do about it.


County Commissioners Tom Cowan, John Evans and Tom Starr created the Marine Resources Committee in 1996. County Councilman Kevin Ranker was one of the members of the Committee when the Marine Stewardship Area was signed into existence by Evans, Miller and Nielsen. Ranker has called the Plan "a model in Ecosystem-based Management. The Plan lays a roadmap for protecting not just one species, such as Chinook salmon, but the entire system in which Chinook rely, including critical nearshore habitat, water quality and prey species.”

According to recent reports from the Pew Commission and the US Commission on Ocean Policy, ecosystem-based management is essential for the long-term health of coasts and oceans. Agencies, such as the newly created Puget Sound Partnership, are investigating how to implement ecosystem-based management..

Kit Rawson, Chair of the Marine Resources Committee and fishery resource manager for the Tulalip Tribes worked hard to engage numerous interests in developing the stewardship plan. “The Marine Stewardship Plan brought together local businesses, interested citizens and scientists who all put their heads together to identify actions necessary to preserve the richness in marine life in the San Juan Islands.

In addition, managers from the tribes, the federal government, the state and local government participated. Some of the actions may require hard choices and greater awareness on all our parts, but because we worked together to identify these actions, I believe there is greater commitment to making them happen,” said Rawson.