Does Your Public Comment Count? Two Ocean Wins Show How

Podcast: How To Protect The Ocean · Andrew Lewin

Opublikowano: 2026-09-25

Earlier this year, about 65,000 people submitted comments on a federal deep-sea mining proposal near the Northern Mariana Islands, most of them opposed. The area under consideration nearly doubled anyway. So why should anyone show up to a public meeting about the ocean? Andrew Lewin makes the case with two marine protected area processes that earned broad public support by design. The first is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park's Representative Areas Program, which rezoned the entire park between 1999 and 2004. Two formal community participation phases, one before any draft existed, drew more than 31,000 public submissions, while standing local...