Management Plan Review
Working Groups

The management plan review process calls for the development of Action Plans after priority issue areas have been identified. At the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the Sanctuary Advisory Council (SAC)and the staff identified a number of critical issues and then grouped them under 12 headings. For each of these topics, a working group to the SAC was established to help develop a suite of possible action plans to address these issue areas. These working groups met approximately five to six times between November 2003 and June 2004 as they developed their recommendations. A 13th working group, Zoning, was created in 2005 to address issues that were raised in several other groups.

Links from this page will bring you to the individual working group pages, each of which includes: a membership list, summaries of meetings, the working group Action Plan and the Sanctuary Advisory Council Approved Action Plan.

The MPR working groups to the SAC are:

• Site Characterization

• Ecosystem Alteration

• Ecosystem-based Management

• Compatibility Determination

• Vessel Strikes on Marine Mammals

• Behavioral Disturbance of Marine Mammals

• Marine Mammal Entanglement

• Water Quality

• Public Outreach and Education

• Maritime Archeology

• Administrative Capacity, Infrastructure
Development & Maintenance