National Marine Sanctuaries are the water based equivalent of National Parks. Under NMHA's mission statement of "Discover,Engage,Sustain", NMHA has started a project that investigates whether it will benefit the community at large to create the Sandy Hook Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

The Sandy Hook Bay NMS would be a capstone designation for the very special characteristics of Sandy Hook Bay and the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers and, if it can meet all our goals, will be a gift from us to our children.

At present, the Sandy Hook Bay NMS is envisioned to start at a line between the tip of Sandy Hook to the tip of Earle Weapon Center and to extend upstream into the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers including tributaries such as the Swimming River. In effect, the Sandy Hook Bay NMS will add more than 12,500 acres (almost 20 square miles) of public use parkland to Eastern Monmouth County.

An NMS is a special area with special goals unique to each NMS and the public gets to set the goals for the sanctuary and to propose the sanctuary designation to congress. 

At this still early stage we are considering the following goals for the Sandy Hook Bay NMS:

1. Serve as a laboratory and thought leader for integrated man/nature interaction in a rich, complex, diverse, and culturally developed environmental setting
   
2. Provide local sustainable resource management and improvements to maintain fisheries, recreation, habitation and hunting
   
3. Provide a setting that integrates the water with adjoining land based parks and public access points.
   
4. Provide the citizens living along the sanctuary with a common resource to benefit all, and to serve as a focal point in their ability to co-exist with nature
   
5. Provide a setting for exploration and education with regard to man/nature interactions and best combined land based and water based practices.
   
6. Extend the National Park Philosophy, America’s Best Idea, to the water for the benefit of all, in perpetuity.
   
7. A general effort to avoid the creation of new regulations and, instead, to consolidate and streamline regulations where possible.
   

This will be a very large community project that will need support and input from all stakeholders and we look forward to assistance and input from all. 

Contact Rik van Hemmen if you are interested in getting involved.

The below links provide additional information.

Scheduled Community Presentations on National Marine Sanctuaries

So Just Give me the Elevator Speech

What is a National Marine Sanctuary?

What is the Process of Creating a National Marine Sanctuary?

The Look and Feel of Sandy Hook Bay NMS

DISCOVER ENGAGE SUSTAIN