Posted on 11/14/2002 4:52:21 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON (AP)--Vast coral reefs, sea grass meadows and mangrove forests in ocean waters off the Florida Keys are being designated as especially sensitive by the U.S. government.
The United States' first Particularly Sensitive Sea Area--just the fifth such domain worldwide to gain special protection in accordance with the International Maritime Organization--is being created in the Florida Straits, where U.S. officials say more than 40 percent of the world's commerce passes each year.
Bush administration officials announced Wednesday the creation of the new protective zone in the Florida Keys, which is part of the world's third largest barrier reef ecosystem and attracts $1.2 billion in tourism dollars annually. Designation of the protected area with international cooperation is intended to reduce damage to the marine environment from large oceangoing ships' anchors, groundings, collisions and pollution.
Starting Dec. 1, captains of ships longer than 164 feet will have to avoid certain areas and cannot drop anchor in three places, Commerce Department officials said. Nautical charts produced worldwide will start showing the zone and its requirements, and ships will be required to carry those updates.
``We want maximum protection for the Florida Keys' corals without disruptions for the flow of commerce,'' said Sam Bodman, deputy U.S. commerce secretary.
Bodman said obtaining this rare form of international protection required close cooperation between federal resource managers and industry. He said it would make international shippers coming to U.S. waters more aware of the coral reefs but wouldn't crimp trade.
The other four ``particularly sensitive'' areas are Australia's Great Barrier Reef; Cuba's Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago; Colombia's Malpelo Island; and the Wadden Sea area in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.
Waters extending for more than 2,600 square miles will be part of the new zone, an area that stretches from Biscayne National Park to the Tortugas. The zone includes the 2,500-square-mile Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary that Congress and the first President Bush created a dozen years ago, shortly after three large ships in the fall of 1989 ran aground and damaged coral reefs there.
``Our coral reefs are in crisis,'' Bodman said. ``Around the world, nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone. And if this alarming trend persists, another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years. Simply dropping an anchor with its cables, chains and other attendant equipment can cause severe and permanent damage.''
Since 1984, there have been 10 large ship groundings in the area, according to the Commerce Department. Damage to corals has occurred 17 times since 1997 because of what U.S. officials describe as rogue anchoring by large ships or freighters, officials said.
Commerce officials said U.S. shipping interests backed the zone's creation and already were complying with similar protective measures. Billy Causey, superintendent of the Florida Keys' sanctuary, said U.S. law already provides for penalties of up to $100,000 per day per incident for shipping damage to the marine environment, and further damages can be assessed for loss of natural resources.
He said there were three known incidents of large foreign-flagged ships inadvertently dropping anchors in the Tortugas area, destroying coral reefs. The ships' anchors typically weigh 10 to 12 tons and the long chains they are attached to also apart the ocean floor by being dragged back and forth, he said.
Joe Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, representing 21 U.S.-based shipping companies, said more international cooperation is needed to protect Florida corals.
``If we can see it, we can miss it, because we're not fond of running into things,'' Cox said.
"Camel's Nose in the Tent" seems more appropriate these days.
The goal is noble, however, Gubbermint at federal, state, and local levels is notorious for land grabbing to protect The Environment For The Children (tm).
For that reason alone, this designation worries me. 'Pod
"Our coral reefs are in crisis," Bodman said. "Around the world, nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone. And if this alarming trend persists, another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years. Simply dropping an anchor with its cables, chains and other attendant equipment can cause severe and permanent damage."
Annie, while I've got no problem with the decision to place certain reef areas off limits to commercial vessels and other activities, the GOP is not going to do themselves any favors with buereacratic boneheads, like Deputy Commerce Secretary Sam Bodman, making wild, Chicken Little comments like the one above.
I'm in the aquarium industry, and know a thing or two about corals.
Full disclosure: Unscrupulous individuals in other countries (particularly the Phillipines and Indonesia) have certainly damaged reefs while collecting specimens for the aquarium trade. It's in the interests of the industry, and Los Angeles is at the center of Indo-Pacific importation, to discourage such practices as best we can. I can tell you, without going into details, that considerable effort is expended in that regard, though we have a long way to go.
All that said, the idea that reefs can be "permanently damaged" is ludicrous. Given sunlight and clean water, reefs will regenerate. Tropical storms often do enormous damage to coral reefs, and have done so for hundreds of millions of years. Yet we still have reefs. Storms are to coral reefs as lighting-strike wildfires are to forests. As forests naturally regenerate, so do reefs regenerate.
Corals can propagate like weeds. Artificial reefs grow on every well-lit ship or plane wreck in the tropics. Broken corals don't necessarily die, as corals are colonial animals which can reproduce both sexually and by fragmentation.
I'm not saying that reefs don't need reasonable protections and stewardship, but BS notions like "permanent damage" and "nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone... another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years," are going to come back and bite us later if we allow them to go unchallenged, just as deforestation alarmism has for the past two decades.
BTW, I'll bet the statistics just quoted rely on projections based on El Nino-related coral "bleaching," which has falsely been attributed to the Global Warming Hoax.
Pinging the science list, as I thought this might interest some of you.
See #27, above.
Thanks for the ping
If we don't reign in the rhetoric, it could be. Certainly, reasonable regulations on pollution, overfishing, aquarium collection, anchorage, etc., are not out of line.
But alarmist screechings about "vanishing coral reefs" ought to be considered in this context:
Sessile coelenterates (corals) have survived ice ages, changing sea levels, and the Cretaceous extinction.
I'm sure there will be no problem. GeoBushSenior likes to go bone fishing north of the Keys. He's makes a trip most winters with some of his sons and their families.
Yes. We were west of Key West toward the Dry Tortugas. There were some breathtaking coral formations. When I was there it was legal to take Lobster (there was a size minimum), and we got quite a few. Not sure if it is still legal to take them, or if they are seasonal.
'COURSE not...they've been yelling for so long about how George Bush is going to destroy our environment that they don't DARE say much about it. The best they can hope for is that no one will hear about this.
Thanks posting this. BUMP!!
There were many pictures shown of whitening coral, etc.
Is this a true phenomenon? 'Pod
They've freaked me out to the point where I trust nothing they do anymore.
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