Feuding While the Fish Flicker Out

Marine Protected Areas, traditional tools for conserving fish and other ocean resources, are not a new idea. America has about 300 of them, and we need more.

In the South Atlantic, for example, the MPA known as the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary has made it possible to zone jet-skis out of flats important to sport fishermen and to protect coral reefs and their fauna from commercial collectors.

This stunning victory was accomplished by a politically unstoppable alliance of sportsmen and environmentalists. But now the two groups are engaged in a war about marine protected areas, spawned by the former's paranoia and the latter's political ineptitude. The casualties are the fish stocks both sides seek to save.

Leading the charge against all MPAs in the Southeast is Karl Wickstrom, publisher of Florida Sportsman magazine. "The groups pushing MPAs have been nowhere on the scene for the major reforms we've accomplished, such as the Florida gillnet ban, (fish) trap prohibitions, longline closures and many species limits," he writes, accurately enough.

But then, like so many angling activists, he lapses into such preposterous claims as: "There are no MPAs in the world of any size that have worked."

Likewise, the normally rational and effective Coastal Conservation Association loses it when the subject gets to MPAs. In one screed to members, CCA president David Cummins warns of "radical environmentalists ... conspiring with federal bureaucrats to take away our freedom to fish." Then he asks for money.

The letter alienated allies, including the Norcross Wildlife Foundation, a major funder of the CCA, which promptly suspended all support.

Yet elements of the environmental community and the fish-management establishment have behaved in ways that make it easy to forgive, if not excuse, Wickstrom and Cummins.

Three years ago the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council moved to set up a no-fishing MPA in an area where reef fish such as groupers, snappers and amberjacks spawn. Such a sanctuary made sense for spawning aggregations that are highly vulnerable to commercial and sport fishing.

What didn't make sense was a fishing ban for abundant surface feeders like dolphin and king mackerel that shot in and out of the proposed MPA high above the reefs. Accordingly, the council assured all hands that the ban would apply to just reef fish. So the CCA endorsed the protected area and pushed hard for it. Then, after public testimony, the council announced that it would prohibit surface fishing, too.