South Atlantic

The Southeast coast includes a wide diversity of essential marine habitats, ranging from mighty estuaries and coastal wetlands to coral and rocky reefs, which sustain a rich array of sea life and productive fisheries.

The challenge

Unfortunately, these ecosystems are threatened by pollution, habitat destruction from both fishing activities and coastal development, and by overharvesting of fish populations.

What we're doing

To find solutions to these critical threats, the Southeast Oceans team has worked since 1988 to:

• develop sustainable harvest plans for marine and estuarine fishes;
• protect the region major estuaries from water pollution;
• safeguard critical fish spawning areas and nurseries;
• sustain coral reefs, seagrass beds, shellfish beds and other essential habitats; and
• combine these approaches into one of the first true ecosystem-based management regimes anywhere.

We work closely with state, interstate and federal natural resource managers, academic scientists, commercial and recreational fishermen and other water users to craft comprehensive strategies that achieve ecological goals while sustaining human economies.

Goals 

• Develop and implement market-based fishery management tools, such as catch shares or individual fishing quotas, that prevent overfishing and rebuild depleted fish populations while sustaining fishing communities.
• Build a comprehensive and workable ecosystem-based management program for the U.S. Southeast.
• Put in place a science-based network of marine protected areas throughout the region to protect fish spawning areas, assist rebuilding of overfished populations and protect important habitats.
• Protect other essential marine and estuarine habitats from all types of threats, including damaging fishing practices, water quality degradation, and poorly planned development.
• Safeguard deepwater coral reefs and key prey species.
• Develop and implement effective pilot programs to achieve comprehensive ecosystem protection and restoration.

Results

• Played a key role in designing and securing approval for the first interstate network of deepwater marine protected areas. The network, which includes over 500,000 acres from North Carolina to Florida, is designed to help rebuild deepwater snapper and grouper populations.
• Played a pivotal role in getting the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to adopt a Comprehensive Habitat Plan to protect reefs, spawning areas and other essential fish habitats throughout the four-state region.
• Secured passage of a saltwater fishing license for the state of North Carolina.  The license will enable managers to better manage recreational saltwater fishing and will generate funds for habitat protection and restoration.
• Successfully advocated for measures to reduce overfishing of snapper and grouper species in ocean waters.  
• Secured permanent protection for reef-fish spawning areas and other important habitats in the Dry Tortugas, Florida.
• Proposed protection for all deepwater coral reefs in the region from North Carolina to Florida, against both fishing and non-fishing threats.
• Won new safeguards for dolphin and wahoo populations, and for sargassum seaweed — on which they and many other species (like baby sea turtles) depend.
• Played a key role in decision by President's Council on Environmental Quality not to build twin jetties at Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, which would have threatened important major fish nurseries.
• Helped get the North Carolina General Assembly to adopt a comprehensive Marine Fisheries Reform Act in 1997. This law requires sustainable harvests for state-managed species, comprehensive habitat protection planning and effective enforcement, and other measure designed to protect important marine fish populations.
• Helped win a precedent-setting ruling by a federal appeals court that put an end to overfishing of depleted summer flounder populations from New Jersey to North Carolina. The ruling has also resulted in better management of other fish species throughout the United States.
• Played a key role in the development and adoption of the N.C. Coastal Habitat Protection Plan by three state rulemaking commissions. The goal of the plan is protection, enhancement and restoration of coastal fish habitats via an ecosystem approach.
• Implemented a comprehensive protection and restoration strategy for Edenton Bay, North Carolina, a key river herring spawning and nursery complex, including a $3.2 million award from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.
• Working with the Nature Conservancy and the N.C. Wildlife resource Commission, used lawsuit-derived funds to provide matching funds for a large acquisition program for essential fish spawning and nursery areas in the Chowan Estuary now totaling over 10,000 acres.
• Helped design a now-adopted fishery management plan for river herrings as key prey species that includes total harvest prohibitions for both recreational and commercial fishing and key recommendations for habitat conservation.