Human cultures are defined by the biological and physical environments in which they live. This newsletter examines—through case studies in Belize, Brazil, Fiji and Panama—the marine managed areas developed for the sustainable use of these environments and resources.

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Encouraging local marine resource users to adopt sustainable practices that conserve biodiversity and habitat is the challenge faced by all marine managed areas worldwide. Using three different approaches to motivating behavior changes, 27 case studies were selected for review. This newsletter focuses on the design and success of those approaches as they were employed in three locations: Morro Bay, California; Laguna San Ignacio, Mexico; and Kubulau, Fiji.

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This newsletter summarizes the report by the same name that represents the climate change vulnerability assessment project conducted by Conservation International in the Verde Island Passage in 2009. It reviews the multiple impacts that threaten the natural resources of this area, while focusing on climate change effects in particular.

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Nitrogen pollution has been a primary cause of a degraded Chesapeake Bay ecosystem for over a century. Since the Clean Water Act of 1972, Bay monitoring programs have measured the amount of nitrogen coming from human activities and on land (urban, suburban, rural, and industrial) and from natural cycling in the water column. This information is used to evaluate management actions for nutrient reduction.

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Conceptual diagrams are an excellent means of providing synthesis, visualization, and appropriate context to science communication, an essential component of environmental problem solving. The creation of conceptual diagrams provides an interface for engagement of various stakeholders, including scientists, managers, and wider public partners.

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A variety of organizations, both government and citizen-led, monitor the health of streams, rivers, and other waterbodies in the mid-Atlantic region. Recently, a number of groups concerned with the health of watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay region have begun to produce ecosystem health report cards much like EcoCheck’s annual Chesapeake Bay report card.

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Harmful algal blooms (HABs) have increased in abundance and severity around the world in recent decades. Among coastal HABs, benthic cyanobacteria blooms, particularly Lyngbya spp., are becoming more numerous and persistent in tropical and subtropical environments. These species have become increasingly problematic in the near-shore waters of Florida, and it has been suggested that this may be in part caused by nutrient enrichment resulting from highly developed coastal habitats.

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Fisheries research funded by the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office (NCBO) provides science and information to enable natural resource managers to make informed decisions. The NCBO Fisheries Science Symposium is a chance for fisheries scientists in the Bay area to present their research findings and create collaborations. This document is an EcoCheck/NCBO collaboration and summarizes some of the key topics presented at the 2009 symposium.

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The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is developing a new transparency standard for marine waters that will protect the seagrass species found throughout the state. The current transparency standard does not sufficiently protect seagrasses, and the new standard will help DEP identify waters in which transparency is too low for healthy seagrass beds.

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The Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners developed an improved stream health indicator that provides a regional assessment of benthic (bottom-dwelling) macroinvertebrate community health. Benthic data collected in different ways by various natural resource agencies were incorporated into a Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity that rates stream health across the entire 64,000 square miles of watershed that drain into Chesapeake Bay.

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