Fw: CHRISTINE JOHNES - Torturas Ecological Reserve

[Guest guest]

- Christine Johnes

Kitty ; Andrew ; Alfred Griffith ; Andrea Emily Baer ; anna calhoun ; cheryl the mighty ; Dian Hardy ; Dr. Jai Maharaj ; International CollegeActionNet ; Kari Johns ; Lisa Wood ; Mike ; Name Unknown ; Name Unknown ; Paul Rance ; Paula Sherrod

Thursday, November 04, 1999 9:14 PM

Torturas Ecological Reserve

 

 

 

Protect the Tortugas

 

Dear (Recipient's name and title), I write to urge you to support the Tortugas Ecological Reserve proposed by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council and the Tortugas 2000 Working Group. I encourage you to take a leadership role in seeing this proposal implemented. Your active support for the Recommended Proposed Alternative for the reserve will help protect an extraordinarily diverse, pristine, and productive marine ecosystem. It will also help replenish the recreationally and commercially important fish stocks that are so important to Florida's economy and quality of life. And it will reward the consensus-building efforts of the conservationists, sports fishermen, commercial fishermen, business interests, and others who worked together to design a reserve that everyone can live with and benefit from. The proposed reserve will protect a wide range of habitats (including seagrass beds, coral reefs and pinnacles, spawning grounds, and hardbottoms) and will conserve areas of highest biodiversity, thereby meeting important environmental goals. Protection of the reserve is also expected to have significant fisheries benefits: increasing the size and abundance of grouper, snapper, and other sought-after species; "spilling" juveniles and adults into surrounding fishing areas; and exporting larvae to augment depleted populations throughout the South Atlantic Bight. I hope that you will support the reserve by agreeing to the inclusion of state waters and approving the regulations recommended by the Working Group. I also hope that you will actively champion this unique, consensus solution as it proceeds through state, regional, and federal authorization processes. Please do all that you can to ensure that the Tortugas Ecological Reserve becomes a bright beacon worldwide for the effective, cooperative protection of our living marine resources for current and future generations. Sincerely, insert name, address and country

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