Policy Solutions: Fact Sheets

All Fact Sheets Tagged whales

America’s Underwater Parks
The Marine Life Protection Act Safeguards Our Special Undersea Places

Fact Sheet

More than 130 years ago, the United States began to protect our most treasured areas on land by creating National Parks. It is now time to extend that same crucial protection to special marine areas by creating parks and wilderness reserves, called marine protected areas, in our oceans. The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is creating a network of marine protected areas off California’s coast to sustain and revitalize the rich web of ocean life. Get document in pdf.

Cabo Pulmo: Protecting Baja California's Thriving Coral Reef from Massive Tourism Development

Fact Sheet

Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, is home to the only living hard coral reef in the Gulf of California. Teeming with marine life, it is one of the healthiest marine reserves in the world. But Spanish developer Hansa Urbana plans to build a colossal tourism and real estate complex right next door, which would devastate the park's fragile ecosystem. To protect the reef and its marine life, NRDC is partnering with local and international groups in a multi-faceted campaign to stop Hansa Urbana and create a sustainable, long-term development plan for the area. Get document in pdf.

Boom, Baby, Boom
The Environmental Impacts of Seismic Surveys

Fact Sheet

For offshore exploration, the oil and gas industry typically relies on arrays of airguns towed behind ships. Although most of the energy from these acoustic “shots” is intended to search downward for evidence of oil and gas deep beneath the seafloor, a significant amount of the energy travels outwards and can be heard throughout vast areas of the ocean. The environmental problems created by these noise invasions are not fully understood, but we do know that these intense sounds threaten the habitats of endangered whales and commercial fisheries. Seismic surveys have been shown to disrupt essential behavior in endangered whales and cause catch rates of some commercial fish to plummet. To mitigate these impacts, NRDC recommends that airguns be kept out of sensitive areas and that greener alternatives be promoted, some of which are already well into development and could be made commercially available within a few years.

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The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas
Protecting America’s Arctic

Fact Sheet

Aggressive government interest in leasing areas to the oil and gas industries in the zone referred to as the “Arctic Ring of Life”—home to millions of migratory birds, polar bears, beluga whales, endangered bowhead whales, and thousands-year-old Inupiat (Eskimo) culture—threatens the sustainability of this ecosystem and the livelihood of Alaska Native communities. Get document in pdf.