Episode 9: The Ocean’s Safety Nets: Marine Protected Areas
Discover how Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) protect our oceans and why California is home to the largest connected network in the world. In this episode, we sit down with Jamie Blatter, climate specialist and tribal liaison at the California MPA Collaborative Network, to explore how MPAs are created, maintained, and measured for success. Learn about the science proving their impact, the importance of community and tribal partnerships, and the role of MPAs in addressing overfishing and climate change. From grassroots engagement to global conservation lessons, this conversation highlights how collaboration, equity, and identity shape the future of ocean stewardship—and why optimism comes from action.
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Episode Guest: Jamie Blatter
Learn more about the California Marine Protected Area Collaborative Network
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Further Reading on Queer Ecology
Episode Transcript and more information on the Pine Forest Media website
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Hosted, produced, and edited by Clark Marchese
Cover art by Jomiro Eming
Theme music by Nela Ruiz
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Transcript:
Clark Marchese (00:11.438)
Hello there and welcome back to another episode of Oceanography, the podcast that dives deep into the science of our oceans, the latest in marine research, and the scientists working hard to better understand our blue planet. Today we are protecting some marine areas.
Clark Marchese (00:41.174)
All right, hello everyone. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Clark Marchese and this is the Oceanography podcast. And I am so happy to be having another discussion about the oceans. Now this is one of our episodes where science meets policy, meets ocean, meets governments, meets community, meets teamwork, meets ocean stewardship. I know that's a lot, but it's all gonna make complete sense and come together very nicely in just a moment when we speak to a representative from the California Marine Protected Area Collaborative Network. But before we start, what is a Marine Protected Area? Well, basically it's a section of the sea that policy makers have designated based on a series of considerations as a place where human activity is prohibited or limited in one or a number of ways. In this episode, we will refer to these Marine Protected Areas as MPAs.
Now, California happens to be the home to the largest network of marine protected areas in the world, but there are MPAs all over the world. Today, we're going to be speaking with Jamie Blatter, who's the climate specialist and tribal liaison at the California Marine Protected Area Collaborative Network, about how decision makers decide where an MPA should be, measurable good news about how impactful they are on the ocean, what goes into maintaining an MPA, because just saying it exists really is just the beginning of the work, not the end, who is involved in maintaining these areas and who needs to be, and we'll discuss the work of the California MPA Collaborative Network, both in a broad sense, and we'll hear about a handful of encouraging projects they're working on. We'll hear about Jamie's role there as the climate specialist and tribal liaison, and we'll talk about how identity, individual relationships with the ocean, and community building all fall together in effective conservation. All right, we are just about to welcome Jamie to the show, but just before we do, we would love to hear from you. A quick rating, a review, or an episode suggestion, wherever you're listening to, helps new listeners find the show and helps us spread science communication even further. And if you really think that the work that we do at Pine Forest Media, the only indie podcast network devoted entirely to environmental science storytelling, is important, we would invite you to join us on Patreon. All of the pledges there help us keep this show going and others like it. And we also make a pledge of our own.
Clark Marchese (02:55.116)
to reserve a portion of those proceeds to support other science communication and research projects that our Patreon followers will get to help us choose. Alright, grab your field notebook, settle in, and we'll see how community-powered conservation can outshine the challenges facing our seas.
Clark Marchese (03:15.326)
Okay, we are recording. Hello Jamie, I want to say welcome to Oceanography and thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. The first question I have as always is if you could just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do.
Jamie Blatter
Sure. Yeah. So thanks so much for having me. My name's Jamie Blatter and I am the North Coast and Climate Specialist as well as the Tribal Liaison for the Marine Protected Area Collaborative Network. As you'll see, I wear a lot of hats and I'm really into it. I currently live up in Northern California in what's now known as Arcata area in Humboldt County, which are the traditional lands of the Weyotte people. And essentially, I work at the intersection of civic engagement and ocean conservation. So for anyone who has no idea what that means, essentially we are focused on having grassroots level engagement in MPA stewardship and management throughout California. And we are a small woman led team doing a lot of different stuff. So my role includes supporting our four North coast chapters, which we call collaboratives. I also lead up our climate change initiative and our work collaborating with indigenous peoples and tribal nations. And I co-lead our justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and access work. So I know that's a lot. It's a lot for me, but I'll make sure to expand on all of it as we continue the conversation.
Clark Marchese
Yes, it definitely does seem like you are wearing many hats, but I love it though. And we love to highlight interdisciplinarity on all of our shows, so I can't wait to see how all of those hats integrate into and complement one another. Maybe though, we'll start at the beginning. To have found yourself in a job like that, I figure you've got a pretty intricate relationship with the ocean. Can you tell me how your relationship with the ocean began?
Jamie Blatter (05:06.636)
Yeah, so I love that you are asking this question. And I love that you're choosing that term of relationship with the ocean because that's truly what it feels like is being in a relationship. So although I just lived about an hour from the ocean growing up, it wasn't until my early 20s that I really fell in love with the water. And I'm so grateful that I had a really sweet early childhood with loving parents and a lot of my early memories revolve around climbing trees and running through fields with my big sister. And I recall feeling really connected to the world around me at that young age. But at some point, I'd say around elementary school, I began losing that sense of inherent connection. I felt like I didn't fit into the mold that I was given, that I didn't know what alternatives were. And I think this is a really common experience in our culture. And looking back for me, I think a big piece of it relates to being queer, but I also think it was like this bigger sense of feeling like the boxes that I was put in were just like too small for my expansiveness. And I spent a lot of years trying to fit into these boxes while also rebelling against them. And they didn't really know what I needed or what I was looking for. And in my late teens and early twenties, I was blessed to live right near the ocean in San Diego and began spending pretty much all of my free time in or near the ocean. I would start every morning swimming in the saltwater. spent endless hours just out there floating on a board, past the break and soaking in the silence and expansiveness. And I feel like it changed my life. It started to really like fill that deep longing I had for communion with the world and with myself. And I remember thinking, how do I do this all the time? How do I make a career out of this? But because I was studying journalism at the time, I wasn't honestly ready to start a career. I didn't know how I would make a career out of this. And it was a long and winding road over a decade to get to where I am now. But I'm really convinced that like all of these winds in the road.
Jamie Blatter (07:27.096)
were just what I needed. And that's kind of who I am. My road's always gonna be winding. And I love that, that's how I learn.
Clark Marchese
Great! I'm glad that that long and winding road led you to where you are now. And I often think that our paths are not as linear as we thought they'd be sometimes, or that others might assume. So thank you for sharing. Now, getting onto the topic of MPAs, our acronym of the day, Marine Protected Area. Let's dip our toes in, you might say. Can you tell us simply what is an MPA for anyone who may be learning with us for the first time, and also why we need them?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, definitely. So marine protected areas are essentially geographic places in the ocean that have some sort of regulations limiting human behavior. And this is primarily through various fishing and collecting restrictions. And in short, we need MPAs because we've taken too much from our oceans and we need to provide sanctuaries for fish and other creatures to live with less interference. And if you look at the statistics on overfishing around the world, it's really bleak. I won't get into all of it, but essentially abundance, which is the amount of fish, and biodiversity, which is the diversity of fish species, have both been extremely impacted by modern fishing practices. And as I say this, I want to be clear that I'm not demonizing fishing or canceling it.
Jamie Blatter
There are so many threats facing the ocean and fishing is just one of them, but Marine protected areas are a tool to address this specific threat. And it's hoped that by removing some fishing pressures that fish and other species will have a better chance at facing all of the threats. And there is increasing evidence of this. And once again, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any fishing. know, some of us, so many of us are connected.
Jamie Blatter (09:21.538)
personally, culturally, spiritually, forgetting our food from the sea. And many people really rely on this as a major staple of their diet. But the goal is to prevent overfishing so that we can continue to coexist with and consume sustainably the creatures of the sea.
Clark Marchese
I always like to hone in on good news wherever we can find it, so can you tell us about some of the increasing evidence that these NPAs are effective?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, so there is a lot of science and a lot of emerging science. know, relatively, MPAs, especially in California, are relatively new and haven't lived out their full cycle to the point that we'd be seeing as many benefits as marine protected areas that have been around a lot longer. We are just over like a decade since they've been established in California. And the science is starting to come through showing that there is more biomass and more biodiversity within marine protected areas. But it's kind of complex because there's so many other factors. But I will say across the world, there is a large body of evidence that is showing the same thing as I was just saying, increased biomass and increased diversity of species.
Clark marchese
Okay. I love to hear it. And I know that there are marine protected areas all over the world. We learned this on South Pole, which is another one of Pine Forest Media's podcasts about Antarctica. And oftentimes we find ourselves talking about the Southern Ocean. So they are a global phenomenon. But today we are learning about the marine protected areas in California that sort of all work together or collaborate. Can you tell us about the MPA landscape in California and about your organization, the MPA Collaborative Network?
Jamie Blatter (11:04.878)
Yes. So California actually has the largest connected network of MPAs on planet Earth. And in 1999, the Marine Life Protection Act was passed in California, which essentially mandated the creation of MPAs. And by 2012, California had 124 of them.
And they're managed primarily by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. And there's different types of MPAs. And this might get a little jargony. No one needs to remember this, but I just want to give a sense of the variety. So there's MPAs called state marine reserves, where there's no fishing or collecting of any type in those boundaries. There's state marine conservation areas, which have some limitations but maybe allow for other things to happen. So for example, maybe certain types of commercial fishing is not allowed, recreational fishing is allowed. And then there's state marine recreational management areas, which are usually found in estuaries, which is where the river meets the sea. And these don't allow for anything except hunting waterfowl. And then the last category are special closures. And these are unique because they're the only MPA type that actually prohibit any human access. And these were made to protect really special and sensitive areas such as rocks that are really vital for birds or marine mammals, such as where they nest or where they have their pups. But I do want to say that besides special closures, it's important to note that all other MPAs in California do allow for human access and recreation so that people can continue to enjoy and have connection with these spaces. And later we'll get into why this is so important. I will note that the designation process in California to create the MPAs was designed to involve communities and stakeholders. It was not a perfect process and there were definitely voices left out, but it was pretty groundbreaking in that it involved extensive stakeholder engagement.
Jamie Blatter (13:21.078)
which is why it was like a 12 year process to actually go from passing the Marine Life Protection Act to having all the MPAs. And this is really where we come in now. You know, after this long process finished, we knew we needed to keep bringing people back together and diversifying who's involved in managing these areas. So after the MPAs were created, our executive director went around the state and established our 14 collaboratives one by one to be a grassroots structure where diverse voices can come together around the shared goals of Ocean Health. And we now have over 1,700 members from over 450 organizations, which is pretty amazing. And we work really closely with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, both as an ally to them, but also as a voice pushing for progress. Because as a nonprofit, we don't have all the same limitations as the governing agency.
Clark Marchese
Okay, well, congratulations. There's a lot of really good work going on. One thing I was reflecting on as you were teaching us about that is that not one size fits all when it comes to the different types of MPAs and it's good to know that local environmental factors are taken into account. So I also have to assume that despite the hard work that goes into establishing an MPA, that it's also not sort of a one and done. So can you tell us what goes into the work of your work of maintaining an MPA?
Jamie Blatter
So great question. And you're exactly right. And it's so important to talk about this because there's a well-known term in the conservation space called paper parks, which essentially means when there's lines drawn on a piece of paper, but in reality, nothing is necessarily managed or enforced or there's not community engagement or buy-in. And we know that paper parks are not effective. There's the Department of Fish and Wildlife themselves, which has, you know, they're enforcement officers that patrol the areas and respond to reports of poaching. They have a management team that does education outreach, research, permitting, policy, or they work with the Fish and Game Commission to create policy. And then a huge part that both the department and the collaborative network are doing is awareness building. You know, there are many people that don't know what marine protected areas are or where they are.
Jamie Blatter (15:47.448)
They just don't have the same sort of awareness level as say a national park or a state park. And it's really important that there is community engagement and leadership because it's well documented that without that local buy-in, that protected areas are much less impactful. So that's really where the collaborative network comes in. And the last thing I wanted to mention about how they're managed from this bigger level that I think is important is that the Department of Fish and Wildlife is required to do something called adaptive management, which basically means that they need to change regulations or management structure if they see that what they're doing isn't working and meeting the goals. And that's so important. And every 10 years, there's this big process called the Decadal Management Review, where they pull together all the research and stakeholder input, and they give a report on how the MPAs are or are not meeting goals. And then they provide recommendations for what kinds of changes need to happen. And that then guides, you know, the next decade of work. So it's kind of a lot and it never ends this kind of reevaluation and making sure that it's actually meeting goals.
Clark Marchese
I think that's really important and I like the reactive element of it because we've talked to a couple of scientists investigating the way that climate change is impacting ocean ecosystems and how those ongoing changes need to be considered or reflected in policy decisions in an ongoing way. I know that there are probably other changing elements to the marine protected areas than just climate change, but I think it's always sort of important to be on top of emerging knowledge and have that reflected in policy.
One thing I want to dig into further from what you mentioned is the importance of local buy-in and that it's documented that MPAs are more effective when that is present. Can you explain what local buy-in might look like and also why it is that they're more effective when we have it?
Jamie Blatter (17:45.258)
Yeah, so I mean, at a very basic level, you can only do so much enforcement and there's not simply enough resourcing for the department to be ensuring that every citizen is following all the rules of these places. And so people need to know about them, feel that they matter and are impactful, feel like they're benefiting from it, feel like there's a reason to adhere to the rules. Out and feel personally invested in it. And so I think that, you know, often people feel like these decisions are being made on their behalf rather than with them or for them. And if that's the case, I mean, this is just like a kind of a psychology concept too, is that we need to be internally motivated in order to actually take action rather than being kind of told externally and rules and regulations are important, but we need people to care and want to participate in the process.
Clark Marchese
I'm having a vision of Leslie Knope at a town hall meeting trying to get people to care, but I know that the public is just one actor in all of this management. And you mentioned that your organization facilitates exchanges between a lot of the different actors. So can we do a rundown of who all is involved when it comes to MPAs and how all these actors should interact?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, as mentioned earlier, we have over 1700 members from over 450 organizations. And this includes government agencies, NGOs, which are nonprofits, recreational and commercial fishers, indigenous peoples and tribal nations, community members and volunteers, researchers in academia, ocean businesses, elected officials, et cetera. And they all have a role to play.
Jamie Blatter (19:40.98)
And these sectors are each doing incredible work, but they're often working in silos. And we know it's much more impactful when we're working together so that we can fill gaps and learn from each other and not be duplicative. So what we're doing is trying to facilitate discussions within communities, but we also do really tangible projects together. So this might involve creating signs and brochures and videos that have locally relevant information. We host trainings and docent programs, presentations, workshop series. And our model as far as facilitating this is really for each collaborative to be locally driven by their own needs rather than be uniform across the state. So each one has its own flavor and its own structure. And then our staff team is here to kind of provide the capacity and support to keep things running. And we also work to connect the dots at the statewide level and we're constantly learning and adapting. I think it's really something I love most about it is that it's really responsive to what our community's needs are and always evolving and progressing. It's the structure of grassroots civic engagement and kind of shifting this paradigm about how we manage marine protected areas.
Clark Marchese
It's interesting, collaboration is emerging as a central theme of oceanography. On our first episode, actually, we spoke to Megan Amico from the NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, about a program where a team of researchers are designing equipment to reduce bycatch. But she was telling us about the collaboration that is involved with the fishermen because if you don't have them involved, then it doesn't work. So it seems like your work is focused on facilitating those relationships. You know, speaking of cooperation and stakeholders and the many hats that you wear, one of your main roles at the MPA Collaborative Network is as the tribal liaison. So can you speak to the role of tribes as a stakeholder and also tell us a bit about the work that you do in that position?
Jamie Blatter (21:50.102)
Definitely. I'll start off by saying that we believe that it's essential that all of our staff is engaging with local tribes and Indigenous peoples. And then my role is to support them in that and help move our work along at a statewide level. And a big part of the role is working to build relationships, which takes a lot of time and investment and resources. And we also offer our platform which can involve hosting webinars for tribal partners that want to share their perspectives or helping arrange meetings between tribal partners and other partners. And I'll give a couple examples of types of projects to kind of make it more tangible. So one thing that we just completed this past year in relationship with one of our tribal nonprofit partners was creating a coloring and activity book on indigenous relationships to California's MPAs. And it was so amazing. included participation from more than 20 indigenous artists and storytellers and culture bearers. And what we do is kind of sit in the support role. So under their guidance, we wrote the grant and provided administrative support throughout the project. We used our existing network to distribute 30,000 copies throughout the state, but all throughout it's partnering to support and uplift because we realize that we have resources and capacity and that many of our tribal and indigenous partners are still facing excessive amounts of barriers and burdens and so much competing needs. And I'll just say another project example is marine protected area signage. So a couple years ago, some of our travel partners were saying that MPA signs have to mention whose lands and waters that they're on. So a current project is using state government funds to create over 100 new MPA signs throughout the state and ensuring that there's localized landing engagements on all of them. And a part of this being a good partner is making sure that we're advocating for longer grant timelines to make sure that things can happen in a way that respects our tribal partners timelines and processes, ensuring that there's funds available in all these grants to
Jamie Blatter (24:12.814)
actually offer reciprocity for the time and labor that they're investing into the collaboration. So, you know, it's a really big topic, but it's just about using our resources to support advancing this work. And honestly, just maintaining humility and willingness to learn as we go. I, one more thing too, about your question regarding, you know, why is it important as stakeholders? And one thing that we've learned is that not even using the word stakeholders because their relationship to these places goes much beyond what this term stakeholder can encompass. And one thing really interesting we saw when the Marine Protected Areas were being created was that there was a tribal resistance and even protesting in some areas about having their rights taken away to continue to commune with Marine Protected Areas or the ocean in general. Thankfully, the State came up with a process to allow for some tribal exemptions so that tribes could continue their traditional and ancestral harvest practices and their cultural practices. So it's just so crucial to have them involved right from the get-go.
Clark Marchese
I'm very glad that those exemptions did not become an oversight. I'm curious, is there anything that we can learn from the ways that the tribes you have worked with continue to engage with the areas in terms of informing sustainable practices or how these areas should be maintained?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, so I mean, that's such a good question. And I will say that one thing of interest is that even when there are exemptions that mean that the tribal members are no longer required to follow the same regulations, and they essentially are not regulated through the marine protected areas, that there's still sometimes tribal law that happens by the tribe.
Jamie Blatter (26:08.174)
creating their own laws and they're still often required to follow other laws that have been state, set by the state of California, such as fisheries closures, et cetera. And these exemptions also only apply to certain federally recognized tribes. So I just kind of wanted to give that a little bit of additional context as well of it's just an exemption from specific Marine protected area regulations. But there's so much that can be learned and I am grateful to see that throughout the country and the world really, that this is getting kind of a lot of attention is turning towards tribal peoples and indigenous partners and asking for their guidance. And some of the examples related to this conversation would be, for example, the Halawa Dini Nation up in Northern California and Southern Oregon is really involved in their local marine protected area. And they still have their traditional fish camps where they go out and harvest surf smelt every year and they stay out there camping and do their drying on the beach. And this species is of huge importance to them culturally. And they're actually working to increase the regulations around who can take smelt. And that's like an example of, you know, working with tribes. know, they know these species very intimately, they're seeing changes on the ground and they are asking for more protections. And it's yet to be seen if the state is going to give those regulations or not as requested, because even if they are gathering sustainably, their tribal law cannot be enforced for non-tribal peoples. And so we need to find ways to help expand their knowledge and wisdom and suggestions beyond tribal law to actually impact the larger population.
Clark Marchese (28:06.894)
That's a really good example. One thing I often hear and even say myself is that science needs to inform policy, but science is something that often takes a lot of time and is underfunded and hyper-specific, et cetera. So if there are tribes that have some suggestions for us now, we surely should listen. We also just recently spoke to Alison Claussen, who's the deputy global coordinator of the UI Notion Decade on an episode a couple of weeks ago. And one of the things that she emphasized in that conversation was the importance of relying on really and learning from various knowledge systems including that of local and traditional leaders. So that's great. One of the other hats that you wear at this organization is as the climate specialist. Can you tell us about that sector of your work?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, I would love to. So, you my perspective, climate change has become the defining challenge and opportunity of our time. And I'm not going to dive super deep into the ocean science or climate science, but essentially the ocean is both impacted by climate change and has the opportunity to be a climate solution. And the impacts of climate change on the ocean are endless. know, ocean heat waves, wiping out kelp forests and leading to disease. Rising temperatures causing shifts in where species live and their migration patterns causing shifts to the currents. Ocean acidification, which erodes hard structures such as shells, coral bleaching, sea level rise. The list goes on and on. Let's just say the ocean is facing a lot of challenges.
Clark Marchese
Listeners, stick around because oceanography is going to dive into the science of all of those things and more.
Jamie Blatter (29:41.038)
As I mentioned earlier, MPAs have the opportunity to provide one less pressure to ocean species that are already being impacted so much by climate change and other threats. So by lessening fishing pressure, it gives them a better chance at survival amidst all these other challenges. And then there's also increasing evidence that MPAs offer climate mitigation benefits. And there's a couple great examples of this. So the ocean floor, holds massive amounts of sediment, which holds a lot of carbon. So protecting it from fishing methods, such as trawling that drag net along the bottom of the ocean and release all that sediment. So preventing that helps keep carbon in the ocean floor. And MPAs can also protect blue carbon ecosystems, which are essentially ocean ecosystems that store carbon, such as kelp forest, mangroves and sea grasses and one of the things we do is help to educate about these intersections. And we also are right now implementing micro-grants for climate and MPAs. So we have a project that's conducting vulnerability assessments on two MPAs to see how ecosystems and species in the MPAs might be impacted by climate change. and then making recommendations to managers about what they can do about it. And then another project we're funding is studying seagrass restoration in an MPA to see how fast restored seagrass can start storing carbon, which is going to help us understand timelines and hopefully justify more restoration of seagrass as part of climate action.
Clark Marchese
Okay, all of this is incredible and really encouraging. The oceans are so vast and climate change can be such an overwhelming issue that it could be easy to, you know, I don't know, get sort of overwhelmed by some of the challenges that you've outlined. But those microgrants are a great example of impactful action. Breaking it up into tiny chunks sort of makes it feel a bit more achievable. And I think that, you know, optimism is something we have to actively fight for in this space and optimism comes through action. So that's great to hear. And it also seems like with the...
Clark Marchese (31:46.402)
you thousands of partners that you have and the many hats that you wear. We could go on talking about marine protected areas for hours, but I want to turn the conversation to you, if that's okay. I'd love to ask you if you have anything that you'd like to share about your experience in this space of conservation and how your identity shapes the way that you move through this field.
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, definitely. And thanks for asking that. So I'll start by saying again what I said at the beginning, which is that I really feel like my relationship to the ocean is profound precisely because of the struggles I went through with my identity and the way that the ocean helped me feel connected to life. And professionally, I think that Western culture has adopted this mindset that it's important to leave our quote unquote personal lives out of work, especially if our personal lives might make other people uncomfortable. And for me, I really try to make the many different aspects of my identity and values central to my work. And one reason this is important to me is because of what we were just talking about, which is representation. And I truly believe that if I had heard about and seen queer people valued in all aspects of culture when I was young, that my life would have been really different and I wouldn't have struggled so much as an adolescent and young adult. And we've come a long way with representation and I'm passionate about doing my best to ensure that young people feel that who they are is not only acceptable, but something to be embraced and celebrated. And there are also so many other parts of my identity. For example, I don't identify as a scientist. Although I have a master's degree in climate science and solutions, I didn't do a thesis and my eyes glaze over when I get too deep into scientific papers. I identify more as a storyteller and a connector and I do way better thinking about big picture than I do with data. And so many people don't identify as conservationists because they don't think their unique skill sets and passions fit into this conservation movement.
Jamie Blatter (33:50.434)
But the truth is that we need out of the box thinkers and bridge builders and creatives really more than ever. And we need an interdisciplinary approach to tackle the challenges that lie before us. And the last piece of identity that I'll mention is the role that gender plays in conservation. And you I will often attend meetings full of conservation nonprofit employees. And I kid you not, sometimes there's not a single male in the room. And very often it's 80 % or more women. And in many ways, this is amazing. I love working with the woman Earth Guardians. But if we kill back the curtain a bit, we see the more insidious parts of the story, which is that, you know, women are often expected to take caregiving roles and men are often more expected to have high pain roles. And it's absolutely okay for women to be caretakers if that's what's meaningful. But we also need to give men the permission to be caretakers and help break down the tight gender roles that they have been confined within. So this identity piece is really big and intersectional. And I could talk about so many more pieces of my identity that comes into play. And I think it's important for all of us to kind of think about these pieces of our identity and how that's shaped our personal and professional lives.
Clark Marchese
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I really relate to what you're saying about sort of making an effort to bring the elements of your identity to your work. I try and bring my queerness to this podcast as well, wherever I can. And one way I do that, I don't know if I told you this when we were trading emails, but in fact, the way I came across your work was through this website called 500 Queer Scientists. If listeners haven't heard of this, I'll put the link in the show notes. It's a really great resource, but yeah, a number of the guests on this show so far have come and will continue to have come from that resource. Yeah. just wanted to share that with you. Maybe, since we're on the topic and if you're comfortable, I can ask if you have any reflections about queerness in the space of environmental justice or marine conservation in regards to challenges or opportunities or anything that you'd like to share.
Jamie Blatter (35:54.934)
Yeah, so I mean, honestly, I have the privilege to say that personally, today, I don't face many major challenges on a daily basis as being part of the queer community. You know, although I'm still working through some of the residual impacts of struggling with this piece of my identity when I was younger, and a lot of the queer privilege I have now has to do with living in a progressive California town. I also work for organization that really values me bringing my full identity to the workplace. And I also have a lot of privilege of being cisgender and my sexual orientation is not necessarily something that you can see at first glance. And I know that many people in the queer community, especially trans people, are in a completely different reality now where they feel much less safety than I do in my day-to-day life. know, especially people living in certain parts of the country or working for organizations or agencies that are taking direct actions against queer people. And many queer people don't feel safe outside where they could be subject to hate crimes. And I feel like my relative queer privilege comes with a responsibility to be vocal and advocate. And I try to do this by being very open about my queerness in professional settings to increase visibility. For example, you found me on 500 Queer Scientists. I mentioned it in my online staff bio. I even put it in my cover letters for job applications, which, you know, in a way is a risk. But one, I don't want to work for organizations that would not interview me because of that. And two, once again, I feel like I have this certain level of responsibility to increase visibility where I can. And I will say, though, that, you know, despite those challenges that a lot of people face, I do think there are a lot of opportunities in this place for healing. And firstly, I'll point out homophobia and environmental degradation, both stem from the same sources, which are primarily colonialism and patriarchy and capitalism. And so I think that there's much opportunity to be had by having intersectional movements where we address the source of so many of these problems we're facing today, rather than treating them as individual and separate symptoms. And there's so many ways.
Jamie Blatter (38:10.688)
that we can have a better understanding of nature by deepening our understanding of queerness. There is a movement called Queer Ecology, which aims to change how humans relate to nature by highlighting the infinite complexity and fluidity of nature. Queerness exists everywhere in nature. And in many ways, we try to force nature and humanity into these boxes that are so limiting. So I think there's an opportunity in this bigger way to make more space for both nature and ourselves by allowing ourselves to exist in this infinite complexity and uniqueness into intersectional environmental movements.
Clark Marchese
Further reading about queer ecology can also be found in the episode description. It is a fascinating topic and I want to thank you for sharing each and every one of those points. However, we are going to start to round out to the end of the conversation. And as I mentioned earlier, I think optimism is something we have to seek out actively. So before we close, I want to ask if there are any recent success stories or a piece of recent good news within the MPA Collaborative Network that you can share with us?
Jamie Blatter
Sure. So coming back to the concept of representation and removing barriers, as I mentioned earlier, we currently have three affinity groups that are aimed to facilitate hubs and resources for historically underrepresented communities to come together around a shared interest in the connection with ocean justice. So specifically we have Black, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Latina affinity groups that provide a platform for communities to share about their experiences, perspectives, cultures, concerns, and solutions. And they also, we provide them with funding to create projects of their choosing, to meet whatever their determined needs are and advance opportunities for their communities. And it's been awesome to be a part of that process and.
Jamie Blatter (40:07.2)
Most recently, the Asian American Pacific Islander Affinity Group launched a scholarship program and was able to award three Asian American Pacific Islander youth with scholarships to pursue their passions and careers related to the ocean. And it was so cool to read their stories. Two of the youth are working on scientific diving certifications. And then one of them is trying to get a drone pilot license to conduct aerial surveys of the ocean. And it's just, that's so inspiring to me. And we're just like really honored to support that work and excited to, it makes me feel optimistic when I see how many young people are so passionate and so engaged. And I think it's our responsibility as the generations ahead of them to do everything we can to resource them and remove barriers and support them because it's a lot that they're up against.
Clark Marchese
Well, that's another very encouraging thing I've heard today. So thank you for sharing. And maybe with that, the final question I can ask you is where can people find you and follow all of this work that you and your organization are doing?
Jamie Blatter
Yeah, so on our website, we have the, I'll probably give you the link to put into the notes, but in general, I would say people can find us on social media and our website by looking up the MPA Collaborative Network. And we've highlighted these scholarship awardees. And you can also see other stuff that the affinity groups are doing as well as our climate initiative and everything else that we've talked about today. All right.
Clark Marchese
Thank you so much. will make sure that those get included. And this is the part where I say thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for teaching us about MPAs and also for your very important work in this area.
Jamie Blatter (41:55.286)
Awesome, thank you.
Clark Marchese
You have been listening to Oceanography. Just a reminder for anyone interested in helping us reach more people and share scientific research like this, written review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening is a really great way to help more people find us.
Clark Marchese (42:14.464)
Oceanography is a Pine Forest Media production. You can find more information about the podcast and this week's guest in the episode description. Cover art for the show was done by Jomero Emming and the music you're listening to was done by Nila Ruiz. This show was hosted and edited by me, Clark Mercasey. You can find more information about Pine Forest Media and our other science podcasts at pineforestpaws.com or follow us on social media at pineforestmedia. All right, that is all I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining us and I'll see you right back here next week.
