If you act now, we have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect the world’s third largest coral barrier reef that corporate special interests are quietly trying to take away from you.
Our long-awaited Biscayne National Park Coral Reef Preserve was finally created in 2015 to protect and restore the most sensitive six percent of the 225,000-square-mile Biscayne National Park. This Biscayne Preserve is a place where nature can be allowed to recover, where reef fish and other keystone marine life will once again grow larger, and where scientists can learn from this natural laboratory about how best to restore coral reefs worldwide that are now threatened by damage from global climate warming and other impacts. Within Biscayne National Park, many species are in serious decline, with crushed corals and scarred seagrass meadows clearly apparent throughout the Park’s waters. The purpose of the Biscayne Coral Reef Preserve is to preserve and protect the marine life that is there now and allow it to grow and thrive unimpeded, while enabling National Park visitors to experience an increasingly healthy reef ecosystem. Protective action for these waters has been desperately needed to conserve the Park for future generations, and as a result of careful deliberations, the Biscayne Preserve has been created.
Fifteen years of objective peer-reviewed studies, including a transparent and open public process involving the Park, fishing interests, scientists from all disciplines, and the State of Florida, led to the present Biscayne Preserve. The portion of Biscayne National Park most in need of the protective status of a Preserve is now a welcome reality for all of us, allowing Biscayne National Park’s vital web of life to be put on the road to recovery.
Now, even as all Americans celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the National Park System nationwide, the Biscayne Preserve itself is suddenly coming under attack by distant corporate interests seeking to undo its protections.
Who’s Trying to Kill Biscayne National Park’s Coral Reef Preserve?
It’s no secret that throughout the world, thousands of communities already benefit from discrete, science-based marine protected areas that they’ve created to buffer the impacts of climate change and help restore damaged marine life populations, making their oceans more vital and resilient. Careful monitoring of similarly-protected marine life elsewhere has proven that declining species will rebound if even a small part of the ocean is just simply left alone to recover, resulting in a promising “spillover effect” whereby nearby anglers consistently catch bigger fish.
For our communities surrounding the unique urban oasis of Biscayne Bay and Biscayne National Park, the establishment of the Coral Reef Marine Preserve clearly represents a win-win situation: A boost for the regional economy, a lush haven for exploration by divers, and good for those of us who love to fish nearby. The current Preserve represents only 10,500 acres of the 174,000 acre Biscayne National Park, so with over 90 percent of Park waters still fishable, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of promising fishing spots remaining. Anglers elsewhere have long prized the much larger fish that they encounter at the edge of similarly-protected preserves, providing them with a real trophy-sized catch.
So why would the National Marine Manufacturers Association way up in Chicago unleash their expensive lobbyists in Washington, DC to secretly work behind-the-scenes while trying to undo the Biscayne National Park Coral Reef Preserve after 90 percent of the more than 43,000 public comments on the proposal supported creating the current Preserve? What’s in it for these outside corporate special interests that makes them think they can quietly kill this painstakingly-negotiated and promising effort to restore our Biscayne Bay ecosystems? Mr. Thom Dammrich, the president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, has been quoted in a June 29, 2016 Miami Herald story as praising the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee’s hasty “markup” of a bill to undo our Biscayne Preserve, because it would “prevent this unwarranted marine reserve from going into effect.” So the true goals of those trying to kill the Biscayne Preserve are no secret. Without hearings, another similar industry-sponsored bill has been introduced in Congress that’s deceptively called the “CORAL Act”, which even makes false claims of helping coral recovery, but at its heart that bill would also clearly kill the Biscayne Coral Reef Preserve.
What You Can Do
Those who have come to love and enjoy Biscayne National Park, part of the third-largest coral reef in the world, and who overwhelmingly supported the creation of the Biscayne Preserve here, now need to stand up to distant special interests and let Florida’s elected officials know that a deal is a deal, that fifteen years of past deliberations have led us to a fair and balanced outcome reflected in our Preserve, and that for them to let Congress belatedly hide a “kill switch” to undo our Park’s protections after-the-fact would be a huge step backward and is not going to be acceptable. Please contact your legislators now by clicking here to support Biscayne Coral Reef Preserve. Bring back the reef!
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