New report suggests "yes"

by Lynn Hamilton

Scientists, fishermen, and environmental activists have, for years, been warning that the oceans are in a state of emergency. Now a couple new reports may actually put pressure on government officials to do something to save our marine resources at the federal level.

The Pew Oceans Commission, an independent group of American leaders, recently published a report saying that America¹s oceans are disastrously polluted and overfished.

³Overfishing at sea, over-development along the coasts, and increasing pollution from cities and fields are leading to decline of ocean wildlife and the collapse of ocean ecosystems,² the report reads. (You can read the entire report at www.pewoceans.org.)

The report recommends a ³National Ocean Policy Act . . . that embodies a national commitment to protect, maintain, and restore the living oceans.² It also indicates the need for an independent oceans agency, whose job would be ³to streamline federal management, the creation of regional ecosystem councils to bring fishermen, scientists, citizens, and government officials together to develop ocean management plans, and a national network of marine reserves to protect and restore fragile ocean habitats.²

Commission members included a broad range of different personalities from scientists to fishermen to elected officials to business people. The southeast¹s interests were represented by Charleston, South Carolina Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.

Riley published an editorial in his hometown newspaper recommending that more coastal land be protected from development in permanent coastal habitat preserves.

Susan Shipman, who directs the Coastal Resources Division of Georgia¹s Department of Natural Resources, says the report may be overly apocalyptic.

³I don¹t think the oceans are in a state of disaster. We¹ve got some issues with overfishing and water quality degradation. I think some progress is being made with regard to overfishing in the U.S. that is not given credit in the Pew report,² says Shipman.

Regional environmental activist David Kyler responded quickly to the report, writing to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue about the specific implications for coastal Georgia and asking the governor to act.

³Because of the vast area and natural productivity of our tidal marshes and estuaries, Georgia¹s coast is very important to the nation¹s marine resources,² wrote Kyler who heads up the Center for a Sustainable Coast headquartered on Saint Simon¹s. ³Our state holds roughly one-third of the remaining tidal marshes on the eastern seaboard. Therefore, the health of the South Atlantic fishery and a host of other ocean resources depend directly on Georgia¹s responsible management of the many activities affecting them, throughout much of the state. If these public assets are allowed to further decline, the consequences could be ominous and irreversible, imposing untold costs on our coastal communities and businesses.²

Perdue¹s office told the Tybee News that the governor is not responding to the Pew Commission¹s report at this time.

Perdue and other elected officials are waiting for what they hope will be the less dire predictions of a second report, due out any day, from the United States Commission on Ocean Policy. Unlike the Pew Commission, the Commission on Ocean Policy was appointed by the United States president.

Shipman says the presidential commission¹s report will be much broader in focus.

³It will look at port security, marine education, ocean absorbing systems. That¹s the one the states are looking to comment on,² she says.

Shipman says, ³You¹re going to see some common themes² between the two reports.