Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan) introduced a bill last week to authorize the Department of Lands and Natural Resources to assess fees on tourists visiting marine protected areas in order to fund conversation efforts under the department.<\/p>\n
H.B. 19-105 makes DLNR responsible for the development of a system of assessing fees for entry and usage of marine protected areas, or MPAs, in the Commonwealth. Fees will only be assessed on nonresident visitors to conservation and protected areas.<\/p>\n
Collected fees will be transmitted and deposited in a Marine Conservation Revolving Fund, according to the bill.<\/p>\n
The bill states that lack of funding for a Marine Conservation Section, as mandated by Public Law 12-2, has prevented the implementation of much needed management practices. Public Law 12-2 is an \u201cunfunded mandate,\u201d the bill says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Legislature finds that the imposition of a marine conservation fee to be paid by tourists entering marine conservation areas is a reasonable, necessary, and worthwhile means to generate the necessary management funds.<\/p>\n
Noting similar fees in other districts, the bill states that Hawaii currently charges $47.05 for entry into its Hanauma Bay Marine Life Conservation District, the Republic of Palau requires visitors to pay $50 departure tax\/green fee upon exiting the republic, and a $100 permit for entering its protected jellyfish lake, among other countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan) introduced a bill last week to authorize the Department of Lands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[346,7912,391,1275],"class_list":["post-213571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dlnr","tag-marine-conservation-section","tag-mpa","tag-public-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}