December 21, 2014 — For 15 years, officials, environmentalists, fishermen and boaters have struggled to put together a plan to protect one of South Florida’s jewels — a national park, almost entirely underwater, where a part of the largest reef tract in the United States lures throngs of divers and anglers who fish its once-abundant grouper and snapper.
Now, with a plan almost in place to tackle decades of deterioration that has left coral sick and fragile, sea grass stripped clean in places by boats, and the fish population dangerously depleted, one bitter issue remains vexing.
The dispute, on one level, seems simple: Should federal officials ban fishing in 10,522 acres, or 6 percent, of Biscayne National Park, to help replenish the snapper and grouper? Or should they do as the state and the powerful marine industry want and try incremental fixes first, toughening existing rules? Saltwater recreational fishing pumps $7.6 billion a year into Florida’s economy, the largest total in the country.
Bubbling over the disagreement, however, is a larger question of fairness and consistency in park policies, federal park officials said. Strict rules designed to protect resources and ecosystems in the most cherished national parks — no hunting in Yosemite, for example — seem to get short shrift when applied to the fish and coral reefs here in the country’s largest marine park, they said.
“Biscayne is a national park,” said Brian Carlstrom, the park’s new superintendent. “If this were national park land” — as opposed to national park water — “there would be no question of what resources can be extracted from here.”
Mr. Carlstrom said the habitat across the 173,000 acres of the park, just off the shore of metropolitan Miami, had visibly deteriorated in the past 15 years, which is why officials have been developing a new general management plan.
Read the full story at the New York Times