FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Goose that Laid the Brown Egg
January 31, 2015 | Key West Citizen, The (FL) | Page 4A
Ed. Note: From Letters to the Editor — Key West Citizen (FL), Jan. 31, 2015, Page 4A
Your recent piece on the Chamber of Commerce fighting an expansion of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s powers is way off base.
The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is acting well within its area of responsibility to protect a valuable — and threatened — international treasure.
Through a heavily advertised public process, we’ve spent the last two years reevaluating current management and zoning.
The basis for this reboot of the existing management plan is not rooted in some overreaching government conspiracy. It is based on the science contained within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report released in 2011.
I helped write it.
The fact is, the Florida Keys and the City of Key West have done a horrible job managing this resource and protecting it from internal impacts such as water quality issues — stagnant canals, lack of central sewer, stormwater runoff, cruise ships — overfishing (poaching, damage related to illegal casitas) and overexploitation (dumping thousands of people into the same areas of the reef tract 340-plus days a year, and thousands of jet ski hours per day on flats and in the backcountry).
Many of these are the same activities the chamber seeks to protect and promote.
The sanctuary is promoting habitat protection — not fisheries management.
Although I do not agree with a proposed permanent closure of Western Dry Rocks, this area serves as critical spawning habitat for a wide range of species vital to the health and survival of our reefs and needs to be protected, just like seagrass meadows and mangrove stands.
The sanctuary had nothing to do with banning the harvest of conch or jewfish; in fact, those moratoriums were enacted by fisheries managers prior to the existence of the sanctuary.
And if anybody deserves credit for forcing residents and visitors to fish in the mud, look no further than the Key West City Commission and the chamber’s pro-cruise ship PAC.
As a local, national and global community, it’s time to start making decisions based on what’s best for the resource — not what’s best for the bottom line.
Habitat protection is as important as the bottom line.
Capt. Ted Lund
Charter/flats fishing representative
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council