December 16, 2016 — Vulnerable deep-sea corals off Virginia and along the Mid-Atlantic just got final approval for federal environmental protection by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The move will protect a 38,000-square-mile swath of sea bottom from New York to the North Carolina border, or an area roughly the size of the state of Virginia. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council initiated the action for the deep-sea coral zone in 2015.
John Bullard, administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, said the action represents the efforts of a wide variety of stakeholders.
“This is a great story of regional collaboration among the fishing industry, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the research community and environmental organizations to protect what we all agree is a valuable ecological resource,” Bullard said in a statement.
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional bodies empowered by Congress in the 1970s to manage fisheries off the U.S. coast. It moved in June 2015 to adopt the Deep Sea Corals Amendment.
Bob Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a D.C.-based group that represents the commercial fishing industry, also praised the final designation Thursday as an example “of the right way to protect these resources.”
“This is a situation where the industry came together with the council, with NOAA and with environmentalists and came up with a plan that created a compromise that everyone could live with,” Vanasse said in a phone interview. “It’s a bright, shining example of how to do it right.”