16 U.S.C. § 1431 — Findings, purposes, and policies; establishment of system

(a) Congress finds that the Nation has historically recognized the importance of protecting special areas of its public domain, but has directed those efforts almost entirely to land above the high-water mark. Congress also finds that some marine areas have conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, scientific, educational, cultural, archeological, or esthetic qualities giving them special national, and sometimes international, importance. Laws aimed at particular resources cannot always provide a coordinated and comprehensive way to conserve and manage special marine areas. A Federal program establishing marine areas with those special qualities as national marine sanctuaries managed as the National Marine Sanctuary System will: (1) improve the conservation, understanding, management, and wise and sustainable use of marine resources; (2) increase public awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the marine environment; and (3) preserve for future generations the habitat and ecological services of the natural group of living resources in those areas. (b) The purposes and policies of this chapter are: (1) to identify and designate marine areas of special national significance as national marine sanctuaries and manage them as the National Marine Sanctuary System; (2) to provide comprehensive and coordinated authority to conserve and manage those marine areas and activities affecting them, in a way that complements existing regulatory authority; (3) to maintain natural biological communities in the sanctuaries and, when appropriate, protect, restore, and improve natural habitats, populations, and ecological processes; (4) to enhance public awareness, understanding, appreciation, and wise and sustainable use of the marine environment and the natural, historical, cultural, and archeological resources of the National Marine Sanctuary System; (5) to support, promote, and coordinate scientific research on and long-term monitoring of the resources of those marine areas; (6) to facilitate, as far as compatible with the primary objective of protecting resources, all public and private uses of those marine resources that are not prohibited under other authorities; (7) to develop and carry out coordinated protection and management plans for the areas with appropriate Federal agencies, State and local governments, Native American tribes and organizations, international organizations, and other public and private interests concerned with the continuing health and resilience of those marine areas; (8) to create models of and incentives for ways to conserve and manage those areas, including innovative management techniques; and (9) to cooperate with global programs that encourage conservation of marine resources. (c) The National Marine Sanctuary System is established. It consists of national marine sanctuaries designated by the Secretary under this chapter.