The Biden administration on Friday revealed a “restoration blueprint” to save the Florida Keys, one of the world’s richest and most imperiled marine ecosystems.
A comprehensive management plan for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary would expand the 3,800-square-mile protected area by 20 percent and create 20 additional wildlife management areas for birds, sea turtles and other species unique to the Keys’ marine-tropical climate, according to NOAA.
Expansion would align the sanctuary’s geographic boundary with what are currently called “areas to be avoided” by tankers and other large vessels and bar discharges from cruise ships except for cooling water. It would also “close a gap” in the Tortugas region on the western side of the sanctuary and add Pulley Ridge, a deep-sea coral reef formation 100 miles west of the Tortugas, as a distinct unit within the sanctuary, officials said.
The sanctuary expansion and other rule changes are ”based on ecological connectivity and provides additional protections for ecosystems of national significance,” NOAA said in press release.
