However, cooperative state–federal relationships were established to facilitate data sharing and formal federal staff participation in Initiative regional processes. For example, federal agency staff served on the SAT learn more and RSG for each of the four study

regions. The Initiative focused on one step in implementing the MLPA: planning the redesign of MPAs through four regional planning processes, which involved identifying “plausible” alternative MPA proposals that the Commission could designate through regulation ( Table 2). Full implementation requires much more, including (a) Commission action to designate MPAs in regulation, (b) many management steps required to communicate, selleck inhibitor educate and enforce the adopted regulations, (c) changed behaviors of private and public parties whose actions are relevant to effective implementation of the adopted regulations, (d) monitoring and evaluating progress in meeting the objectives of the Act, (e) adapting implementation in response to the monitoring and evaluation, and possibly (f) new formal policy making including adoption of new regulations, creating, modifying or terminating MPAs under existing law or new statutes. The redesign of MPAs in open

coast ocean waters is complete in California, but implementation of the management, monitoring and evaluation steps are only beginning. The success of public policy implementation should be measured by achievement of explicit legal objectives (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1989). In the case of MLPA, the primary legal objective is the establishment of an “improved” statewide network of MPAs designed to achieve specific goals (Table 1). Mazmanian and Sabatier (1989)

argue that successful implementation mostly depends on (1) tractability of the problem to be addressed, (2) features of the underlying legal authority and (3) several non-statutory variables, including political salience, availability of technology to assist with implementation, public support, attitudes and resources of constituency groups, support from those with formal authority (“sovereigns” in their terminology), and commitment and leadership aminophylline skill of implementing officials. The first two factors are generally discussed as “enabling conditions” elsewhere (Fox et al., 2013a). The legislation enacted to improve management of California marine resources relevant to the legal authority to create MPAs was identified above and features of the MLPA are further analyzed below. Political salience, availability of facilitating technology, public support, attitudes and resources of constituency groups are discussed in other papers (Fox et al., 2013b and Fox et al., 2013c; Sayce et al., 2013; Merrifield et al., 2013; White et al., 2013).