The National Marine Protected Areas Center has received the second round of nominations for existing MPAs to join the national system of MPAs, based on a call for nominations from August 2009 through November 2009. This list of nominated sites has now been published in the Federal Register for a 45-day public review period ending February 22, 2010. More detail about the nominated sites is available at www.mpa.gov. The group of 32 sites includes 21 National Parks, seven National Wildlife Refuges, and four sites managed by coastal state and territorial governments, including one National Estuarine Research Reserve. Territorial and state governments nominating sites to the national system included North Carolina , Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington . Following review of public comments, the final nominations will be formally accepted as members of the national system in March 2010. More detail on the national system of MPAs can be found in the Framework for the National System of Marine Protected Areas of the United States of America, which describes how the national system will be built from existing MPAs across all levels of government to enhance collective efforts to protect the nation's natural and cultural marine heritage. This announcement was taken from NMFS’s FishNews newsletter. For more information please contact Lauren.Wenzel@noaa.gov, National Marine Protected Areas Center, (301) 563-1136.