Eyes on the Coast: How Volunteers Inform Ocean Management

October 10, 2025

 By: Skye Porter

What is an MPA?

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are underwater parks that conserve marine life, habitats, and cultural resources while still supporting recreational activities such as swimming, surfing, or tidepooling. By protecting ocean and coastal ecosystems, MPAs allow marine life to thrive and create a healthy ocean for everyone to enjoy. They’re not one-size-fits-all, there are various types of MPAs within California, each adapted for the individual goals of its site. 

Meet the MPA Watch Program

MPA Watch is a statewide network of community science programs that support healthy oceans by collecting human use data in and around our protected areas. Valuable insights for managing, enforcing, and studying California’s MPAs are gained by monitoring over 115 sites along the coast, including areas outside the MPA network for comparison. 

MPA Watch volunteers from each partner program are trained in standardized data collection methods and given information about each of the sites they will be surveying. Every training consists of a classroom and a field portion that teaches them how to collect unbiased data as they walk beaches to record human activities. The long-term data is compiled in a statewide database and reflects changes in resource use over time. 

To date, over 56,000 surveys have been collected by volunteers across 12 partner programs!

How MPA Watch Data Makes a Difference

MPA Watch volunteers observe and collect important data on the use of coastal and marine resources. Both consumptive (e.g. recreational or commercial fishing) and nonconsumptive (e.g. swimming, surfing, tidepooling) onshore and offshore activities are recorded. Partner organizations review the data before it is shared with a larger network. By practicing community science, MPA Watch allows the general public to become involved, giving them a hands-on role in conserving their local environment. This data has real impacts, helping analyze MPA site trends and providing key information for the management of California’s MPAs and ocean resources. 

Partner organizations include:

• Bleu World
• California State Parks
• Eagle Eyes of False Klamath Cove
• Environmental Action Committee of West Marin
• Greater Farallones Association
• Heal the Bay
• Los Angeles Waterkeeper
• Orange County Coastkeeper
• Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
• Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
• Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation
• WILDCOAST

Want to get involved? The statewide coordinator for the MPA Watch Network is WILDCOAST. For general information, data access, or reports, please contact the MPA Watch Statewide Coordinator (mpawatch@wildcoast.org). To get involved with a program near you, visit mpawatch.org to find your local manager!

Note: In San Diego, we are limited in our availability to onboard new volunteers at this time, but more opportunities may open in the future! If you’re interested, please fill out the form linked here. To get involved outside of San Diego, please email mpawatch@wildcoast.org to be connected with your local program, or visit mpawatch.org/get-involved/.