Volunteer discovers urchin unkown in Mariana Islands!

The image to the left was taken by Capt. Carl Brachear while snorkelling in Saipan Lagoon. His discovery is the first certain record of the sea urchin Asthenosoma varium in the Mariana Islands! Thanks go to Capt. Carl for sharing this image and providing interesting reports about some other rare species in the lagoon. If you have seen something unusual during a dive or snorkel, feel free to contact CRM to report it: 664-8300 or consider joining the BioSearch Program described below.

MMT Students... still going strong

Summer intern and Northern Marianas College student Andrew Moses has stayed with our program as a work-study student. Andrew will be continuing a population study of the intertidal clam Atactodea, assisting with a collaborative project to understand heavy metal concentrations in bivalves in Saipan Lagoon.
He will be also be helping with an ongoing project to map water quality in Saipan Lagoon. The water quality project recently received support in the form of of a YSI6600 multi-parameter water quality sonde provided by the NSF-ATE programPartnership for Advanced Marine and Environmental
Science Training for Pacific Islanders  through NMC's science and mathematics department . Thanks go to both of these programs for supporting CNMI's marine monitoring program.

CNMI's Interagency Marine Monitoring Team celebrates 10 years of marine research

Formed at the behest of DEQ in 1997 to address concerns over sediment erosion from an illegal land clearing in Lau Lau Bay, the MMT has expanded surveys assessing and monitoring reef conditions throughout the Marianas.  Actively supported by Coastal Resources Management, the MMT has had participation from Division of Fish and Wildlife, Northern Marianas College and a large number of volunteers since itt inception. An article on the MMT was featured in NOAA's National Coastal Program News in April of this year. Click here to download a copy of the .pdf  article>> MMT Article