Pledge About

Paul Ortiz

Senior Enforcement Attorney, NOAA Office of General Counsel

Presentation: Rewards and Challenges of Enforcement in the Pacific

This presentation will provide an overview of Paul's experiences with protecting the various MPAs under NOAA’s authority in the Pacific. The presentation will include a discussion of agency partnerships and the advent of new technologies to aid enforcement, the application of various sanction models to MPA enforcement, and the overall effectiveness of NOAA’s enforcement efforts in various types of MPAs.

Biography:

Paul Ortiz is the Senior Enforcement Attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of General Counsel, Enforcement Section (Southwest Region). For 18 years he has been responsible for prosecuting all federal administrative violations under the various laws protecting the nation's ocean resources in the Southwest Region (encompassing California and the Eastern Tropical Pacific), with extensive experience in the Central/Western Pacific and Southern Oceans. His areas of expertise include marine protected areas for fisheries and National Marine Sanctuaries, vessel monitoring systems and related enforcement technology, High Seas Driftnet Act violations, port state enforcement laws and catch documentation schemes as applied to trafficking of illegal marine products, Monitoring Control and Surveillance issues in international treaty negotiations, and the Endangered Species Act. Mr. Ortiz is the recipient of numerous awards for his enforcement work, including the U.S. Department of Commerce Attorney of the Year Award.

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