Culebra es un área de prioridad por NOAA: Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 1:16 PM Subject: Selection of NOAA Habitat Focus Areas for the Southeast and Caribbean All— Today, NOAA announces the selection of two sites in the Southeast and Caribbean Region as the next Habitat Focus Areas under NOAA’s Habitat Blueprint. In the Southeast, Biscayne Bay in Florida was selected from 5 possible candidates, and in the Caribbean, the Northeast Reserves and Culebra Island in Puerto Rico was selected from 3 possible candidates. They will provide an opportunity for NOAA to maximize our habitat conservation investments to benefit marine resources and coastal communities. The Northeast Ecological Reserves and Culebra Island support important recreational, subsistence and commercial fishing, marine transportation, tourism, and threatened and endangered species. The area has been designated as a coral reef conservation priority area by Puerto Rico’s marine resource management community. The area also includes a designated marine ecological corridor, a terrestrial corridor reserve, the first no-take marine reserve in Puerto Rico, and the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge. The ecological richness of the area is vulnerable to impacts from development activities, land-based sources of pollution, fishing impacts, and impacts of climate change, such as increased ocean acidification and increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes. As a Habitat Focus Area, NOAA and partners will support activities that reduce the impacts of recreational use of coastal and marine habitats, help to reduce land based sources of pollution to improve water quality and enhance wetlands, mangroves, seagrass, and coral reef habitats, and restore coral habitats by expanding efforts to identify ideal locations for, and increase the number of, coral nurseries and outplantings. Biscayne Bay is a shallow water, subtropical ecosystem with extensive seagrass cover and a mangrove fringe along most of its shoreline. The bay contains nearly 150,000 acres of essential fish habitat, which support a wealth of living marine resources, including protected species for which NOAA has trustee responsibilities such as sea turtles, dolphins, and several threatened coral species. The bay also provides products and functions worth billions of dollars to the economy. Water quality issues are a paramount concern for Biscayne Bay. Especially troubling is the recent appearance and extensive coverage of algal blooms in the southern, most pristine area of the Bay. Scientists and resource managers are concerned Biscayne Bay may reach a “tipping point” with possible widespread loss of seagrass cover (some loss has already occurred) that may be impossible to halt or reverse. As a Habitat Focus Area, NOAA and partners will work to better understand the frequency, duration, and impacts of algal blooms in Biscayne Bay, and educate local communities on the relationship between nutrient inputs and the health of the bay. NOAA will also examine the economics of the bay in relation to its ecological health, and promote and utilize green infrastructure where possible to support resilient coastal communities. The Habitat Blueprint is NOAA’s strategy to integrate habitat conservation throughout the agency, focus efforts in priority areas, and leverage internal and external collaborations to achieve measurable benefits within key habitats such as rivers, coral reefs, and wetlands. Under the Habitat Blueprint, NOAA selects certain Habitat Focus Areas to prioritize long-term habitat science and conservation efforts. The goals in all Habitat Focus Areas include: • Sustainable and abundant fish populations • Recovered threatened and endangered species • Protected coastal and marine areas and habitats at risk • Resilient coastal communities • Increased coastal/marine tourism, access, and recreation NOAA has already identified Habitat Focus Areas in California’s Russian River watershed, the Pacific Island’s Guam and West Hawaii sites, the Great Lakes’ Muskegon Lake and the St. Louis River estuary, and the Northeast’s’ Penobscot and Choptank Rivers. In some of these areas we are already seeing results in recovering threatened and endangered species, improving rainfall, flooding, and frost forecasts, and increasing community resiliency to flood damage. For those of you who participated in the review and comment of the Southeast and Caribbean Habitat Focus Area candidates, we thank you for your time and effort. Sincerely, Howard Schnabolk NOAA Fisheries Restoration Center, Southeast Region Co-lead, Southeast and Caribbean Habitat Blueprint Focus Area Selection Team Email: [email protected]
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 19:59:42 +0000
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