Coral reef legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) has been incorporated into omnibus conservation funding legislation introduced by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Akaka. The omnibus bill, S. 2181, would provide $2.9 billion nationally for land and water conservation, coastal stewardship, wildlife conservation, historic preservation, urban parks, and National Park resource protection. Hawaii would receive about $34.5 million under the omnibus legislation. The bill would fund a strong coastal stewardship program for each coastal state, with funds to protect estuaries, marine sanctuaries, fish habitat, reefs, and wetlands. The $350 million Wildlife Conservation Title establishes a new fund to provide assistance to States for a broad variety of wildlife conservation programs with a special emphasis on the conservation of non-game species.
Senator Akaka's legislation for coral reefs would provide $15 million per year to the Department of the Interior for coral reef research and stewardship. The coral reef conservation program advances the goals of the President's National Action Plan for Coral Reefs, adopted March 2, 2000, by the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force in Washington, D.C. Matching grants would be available through the Department of the Interior to educational, non-governmental institutions, organizations with demonstrated expertise in coral reef conservation, and natural resource management authorities of a State or territory of the United States. The legislation encourages community-based conservation efforts that involve local communities, non governmental organizations, and academic institutions in protection and stewardship for coral reefs.
"The people of Hawaii are more aware than most Americans of the subtle and interdependent relationship we have with coral reefs," Akaka said. "But all citizens should appreciate that the health of coral reefs is an indicator of the health of our oceans, upon which we depend for food, pharmaceuticals, tourism, protection from natural hazards, and much more."
The U.S. Department of Interior manages sensitive coral reef habitat and adjacent submerged land at 20 National Wildlife Refuges and 9 units of the National Park System in Hawaii, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the territories of Guam and American Samoa in the Pacific. Of the 4.2 million acres of reefs in the United States, few have been mapped, assessed, or characterized. Few reefs have conservation efforts involving local community participation.
"This bill brings people and communities together to participate in, and learn more about, the conservation of ocean resources – coral reefs and the many species that depend on reef ecosystems," Akaka noted. "Only by making ordinary people responsible for reef conservation can we alter the types of human activity and behavior that are responsible for the adverse impacts on coral reefs that we glimpse today."
"Coral reefs are the rain forests of the ocean, a wild, beautiful, complex bountiful resource whose importance to life on earth, much less ourselves, is only beginning to be understood. But the harsh reality is that we are going to lose our reefs if we do not act soon, before we fully understand their role in the great web of marine life."
Senator Akaka is an original cosponsor on Senator Bingaman's bill, along with Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Fritz Hollings (D-SC), Joseph L. Lieberman (D-CT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Richard H. Bryan (D-NV), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD).
