The Enormous Importance of Connectivity
"Coral reefs and
associated ecosystems are invaluable human treasures. They support the
most diverse marine communities and beautiful seascapes on the planet,
and provide wave-resistant structures and resources for local
communities, fisheries and tourism. However, coral reefs and associated
ecosystems are now under serious threat of collapse because of
over-fishing, development of the coastal zone, including dredging and
landfill, and terrestrial run-off ... The degradation of coral reefs by
local, regional and global environmental stresses is at the very least
destroying the health, function and positive values associated with
coral reefs, and at the worst leading to loss of this treasure."
The Okinawa Declaration
on Conservation and Restoration of Endangered Coral Reefs of the World,
International Coral Reef Symposium, July 2004
By Nancy Klingener
An amazing thing is
going to happen in Key West two weeks from now. Some of the smartest,
most thoughtful, most knowledgeable people in the world are going to
come together right on our little island and talk about how the people,
the science and the policy of the Florida Keys interact, and how they
affect the coral reef tract that defines us.
The Keys reef, as
those of us who live here probably know, is the world's third-largest
barrier coral reef, the only living coral reef in the mainland U.S. This
reef has provided for the Keys livelihood and lifestyle since the 1820s,
when settlers became wealthy by salvaging shipwrecks that ran aground on
the reef. Later, we reaped bounty from the marine world's living
resources sponges, turtles, fish and shrimp. Nowadays, we sell that
bounty to others, through services provided in fishing and diving. And
we're still selling the seafood, too, enough that we are America's
eighth most valuable commercial fishery, the most valuable in Florida by
a long shot.
That's all good. But
there is also some bad news. Our reef, like many reefs around the world,
is in trouble. Scientists have documented a 38 percent loss in stony
coral cover since 1996. Repeated severe bleaching episodes in the late
'90s devastated parts of the reef, leaving them even more vulnerable to
pounding from Hurricane Georges. Like reefs all over the Caribbean, ours
lost one of its primary algae-grazers, spiny urchins, in the early
1980s. Diseases have killed and maimed our corals and sea fans. Intense
fishing pressure has changed the food chains and complex webs that make
a living reef system work. Groundings don't help most of the 600 or so
annual groundings in the Keys are in seagrass beds, but enough boats
scrape and crush our reefs to add to the damage.
"A thing is right
when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the
biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
Aldo Leopold
There are a lot of
meetings in the Keys and elsewhere about coral reefs. I attend many of
them Sanctuary Advisory Council meetings every other month, Water
Quality Protection Program steering committee meetings, sometimes
Technical Advisory Committee meetings. I try to keep up with science and
other information about reefs and about our reef in particular.
A lot of times, I hear
and read interesting, relevant information that doesn't seem to make its
way to the people who most need to hear it the people who are making
their living from the reef and the people who make decisions that can
affect our local economy. This Connectivity conference (see details on
p. 4) is an excellent opportunity to make the (yep, you guessed it)
connection.
I also attend a few
conferences each year to try and learn more about the South Florida
environment and how we can protect and restore it. I see announcements
for others that I can't afford to attend but look like amazing
opportunities to learn a lot in a few days. That's why Connectivity is
so important it's one of those amazing opportunities, and it's coming
to us. The whole conference will be held in Key West, at the Casa
Marina, and registration is only $25.
Sanctuary
superintendent Billy Causey says he hopes the conference will reach more
than the usual suspects, ie. people like me who attend these things
because it's our job.
"It would behoove any
person who cares and loves our coral reefs, whether for their
environmental value or economic value, to pay attention to this very
important conference," Causey says. "I really hope one of the outcomes
will be a revitalization, renewed interest in taking seriously our
charge to protect our resources."
It is time for that
revitalization. Back in the 1990s was when the sanctuary was designated,
the management plan was drafted and implemented and, eventually, the
Tortugas Ecological Reserve was created. All of those were major
achievements, both by scientists and conservationists from across the
country and by our local community.
But during that
interim, something else happened on the South Florida environmental
front. Everglades restoration took the spotlight, and for good reason.
South Florida, unbelievably, is on a track to run out of water and to
poison its estuaries through its manmade system of canals, levees and
pumps that harness the Everglades. Now the federal and state governments
are embarked on an $8 billion experiment to see if they can restore the
remaining wetlands, provide flood protection for the developed areas and
provide enough water for cities and farms.
There's a reason this
has taken a lot of scientific, environmental and political attention:
it's unprecedented. And while there is hope that a more natural flow of
clean water will benefit the reef, our system also needs attention of
its own.
The sanctuary has
attracted a stellar line-up for the conference. This includes Elliot
Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, and Frank
Muller-Karger, a scientist who served on the President's Commission on
Ocean Policy, which recently issued its report.
We're also going to
hear from Rod Salm of the Nature Conservancy, an expert on resilience in
coral reefs, and Lara Hansen of World Wildlife Fund, an expert on
climate change. On Friday, Carl Safina, author of "Song for the Blue
Ocean," will be the dinner speaker. And on Saturday, we're going to hear
about the human perspectives what the reef means to us, economically
and otherwise.
"When one tugs at a
single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world."
John Muir
Connectivity in the
Keys is a funny thing. As islands, we have a spirit of self-reliance,
the independence that helps make our communities interesting and
unusual. Except we are also connected. Thanks to Henry Flagler and his
Standard Oil fortune, we are permanently attached to the mainland. First
the Overseas Railway and then the Overseas Highway transformed us from
archipelago to peninsula. Major policy decisions are based on evacuation
times in the face of devastating hurricanes and the flood of weekend
visitors and daytrippers has changed the nature of our communities. We
like to think of ourselves as islanders but we rely on goods that are
hauled in daily by trucks and we send our garbage out by the same route
and method.
Even if we weren't
physically connected, we are ecologically connected, as we have learned
through a century of Everglades "reclamation" and now, restoration.
People may disagree on exactly what action by humans caused Florida
Bay's near-collapse in the late 1980s, but no one is arguing that it was
from natural causes. What happens upstream matters to us. And here in
the Keys, we get "upstream" from both ends from the Everglades flowing
south and the Gulf Stream flowing north. We are the nexus of the Gulf,
the Caribbean and the Atlantic, with the freshwater flow coming off the
mainland just to add to the mix.
"For all at last returns
to the sea the beginning and the end."
Rachel Carson
That means that
solving this problem saving the reef, restoring the South Florida
ecosystem is hard. It's complicated. It doesn't have a quick fix and
it's not a task easily reduced to a 30-second soundbite. Sometimes it's
tempting to throw up your hands and think about moving somewhere else,
somewhere that ecological disaster isn't constantly staring you in the
face.
But the reef is worth
it. Our islands, part of that coral reef ecosystem, are worth it. Our
livelihoods and our lifestyles are worth it. And our system under siege
is also a great opportunity scientists are doing work here that has
never been done before. We are on the cutting edge of conservation with
our ecological reserves. We have the chance here to be part of a great
achievement, of saving one of nature's wonders, a coral reef. We have
every reason to try, both for our financial well being and to preserve
the reason we live here. How can we say no?
"Live in fragments
no longer. Only connect ... "
E.M. Forster
Nancy Klingener is the Florida Keys Program Manager of
the Ocean Conservancy. |
