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Global, not just local
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Posted on May 13 2009
In response to John Gourley’s letter to the editor in Wednesday’s paper, the point Gourley fails to understand is that the Pew operates on a global level, rather than a local one, and it is the concern for global welfare that drives its quest for large ocean areas that can be set aside as reserves.
The Pew’s Global Ocean Legacy project was established for the purpose of creating a handful of significantly sized marine reserves in the world by 2011. Most of the money on which the Ocean Legacy operates actually comes from organizations other than the Pew Charitable Trust.
The Global Ocean Legacy’s interest in increasing the protection provided by the Marianas Trench Marine Monument is in keeping with its broader mission: creation of a legacy that ensures protection and preservation of the world’s marine life in all its forms. In light of the extensive damage to the ocean and its benthic communities due, among other things, to overfishing encouraged and supported by such groups as WESPAC, many species have already disappeared, and others are on the verge of doing so. Fishermen have found that it has become necessary to go further and further afield—only to catch fewer and fewer smaller and smaller fish.
The large “no-take” zones the Global Ocean Legacy supports would provide a sanctuary where such fish stocks—as well as related marine life—could grow to full size, reach maturity and breed, and for the young, in turn, to grow to maturity. Restricted access would provide protection to the entire food chain—from polyp to top predator—allowing balance in marine life to be re-established and restored.
Such replenishment and restoration would benefit not only local fishermen—and divers—but everyone else around the world who depends on the oceans’ resources for survival.
The issue at stake is global, not local. Which is not to say that the CNMI couldn’t, or wouldn’t benefit—if it chose to do so.
[B]Ruth L. Tighe[/B] [I]Tanapag, Saipan[/I]
