Secretary Recognizes Ocean, Coasts and Great Lakes Activities Team with Partnership in Conservation Award

For Immediate Release

News Media Contact: Drew Malcomb (202) 208-6301

September 12, 2011

Interior’s Ocean Team Honored with Partnership in Conservation Award

WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today recognized Interior’s Ocean Team with one of the department’s 17 national “Partnership in Conservation” awards.

“The Partners in Conservation Awards demonstrate that our greatest conservation legacies often emerge when agencies and citizens from a wide range of backgrounds come together to address shared challenges,” Secretary Salazar said at the ceremony in Washington.

The Interior Ocean Team consists of nearly a hundred Interior staff members from multiple bureaus who have worked with 27 federal agencies and tribal, state and local partners in implementing the President’s National Ocean Policy.

Under the National Ocean Policy, extensive work is going into developing and implementing a set of overarching guiding principles for management decisions and actions toward achieving the vision of “an America whose stewardship ensures that the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are healthy and resilient, safe and productive, and understood and treasured so as to promote the well-being, prosperity, and security of present and future generations.”

The Interior Ocean Team includes representatives of all the employees carrying out Interior’s extensive ocean, coastal and Great Lakes responsibilities, which range from coast to coast and beyond-- including all 50 states and territories, watersheds, coastlines, wetlands and open ocean areas in the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean.

These Interior responsibilities include:

• More than 35,000 miles of coastline 34 million acres in 84 marine and coastal national parks  (managed by the National Park Service)
• 180 marine and coastal national wildlife refuges (managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
• 1.7 billion underwater acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (managed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement)
• 1,100 miles of coastline of the California Coastal National Monument (managed by the Bureau of Land Management) Hundreds of thousands of square miles in marine national monuments managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service including the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (co-managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
• NOAA and the State of Hawaii) Extensive ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes research and mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey and other Interior agencies.
• Extensive ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes research and mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey and other Interior agencies.