{"id":1391,"date":"2014-08-25T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/?p=1391"},"modified":"2014-09-01T16:03:20","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T15:03:20","slug":"key-largo-and-the-noaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/2014\/08\/25\/key-largo-and-the-noaa\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Brother in the Florida Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the issues that comes up again and again in the debate about sustainability<\/strong> is the role that local, regional, and national governments play in setting environmental policy<\/strong> and what happens when they do not agree as is the case in the Canary Islands<\/a><\/strong> today. What is fascinating (and a bit alarming) about the case in the Canaries and also in Ibiza<\/a><\/strong> is that the roles appear to be reversed compared to the history of environmental protection in the United\u00a0States.<\/p>\n

Conservationists<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the second half of the 1800s the\u00a0conservationist movement<\/strong> emerged, inspired by philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/strong> and writers such as Henry David Thoreau<\/strong>, the movement was concerned that people were\u00a0losing touch with nature in a\u00a0headlong rush toward industrialisation.<\/p>\n

\"pbs.org\"<\/a>
pbs.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1864, the U.S. Congress passed landmark legislation protecting the giant sequoia trees in the Yosemite Valley in California. In 1871, the country\u2019s first National Park was declared in Yellowstone, Wyoming, and then in 1872, conservation writer John Muir<\/strong> led a group of San Francisco naturalists who called themselves The Sierra Club<\/a> to lobby the government to expand the protection in Yosemite and make a second National Park.<\/span><\/p>\n

The national parks superseded local and even state authority and protected large tracts of land under direct federal supervision<\/strong>. At issue was that local interests would, more often than not, focus on the immediate benefits of jobs and industry rather than the more long term, less tangible benefits of conservation and environmental protection.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Florida Keys<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the story in the fight to protect the Florida\u00a0Keys which are home to the world’s 3rd largest reef system and is still, despite years of neglect, a fantastic\u00a0place for diving and snorkelling<\/strong>. The reefs off Key Largo were protected in 1975, Looe Key in 1981 and the entire keys system in 1990<\/a>. Fishing and diving in the keys is a highly regulated activity with very specific zones for motor boats, fixed mooring positions\u00a0on the reefs and a “no touch no take” policy which is adhered to\u00a0by the community of professional dive clubs and fishing guides. It is also enforced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a><\/strong> (NOAA).<\/p>\n

\"fknms_s\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dive operators, such as the Amoray Dive Resort<\/a>, also participate in NOAA’s Blue Star program and even take divers out to repopulate the coral reefs.<\/p>\n

Green brother is watching you<\/strong><\/p>\n

NOAA is a federally funded agency with 12,000 employees and a budget of $ 5.4 Billion U.S. It monitors the air and water quality of the Unites States and enforces the law in\u00a0places\u00a0like the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary. NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(EPA) were both founded in 1972, the same year as Greenpeace<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What struck me, this week in the keys, is how critical such agencies\u00a0are and also perhaps how\u00a0much we take them for granted in certain parts of the world. If it was not for these organisations, and their counterparts in other countries, who would monitor the environment and enforce legislation?<\/strong> Where would the science come from to base policy recommendations\u00a0on?<\/p>\n

\"time.com\"<\/a>
time.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NOAA’s current head is\u00a0Kathryn Sullivan<\/a>, a geologist and former\u00a0astronaut who flew three missions on the Space Shuttle. Fortunately, the United States can afford to have such an agency looking out for its environment. Even though $ 5.4 Billion is a lot of money, it is not even 1% of the over $ 1 trillion U.S. Budget.<\/p>\n

The question for me is if we are in fact spending enough in the U.S. and also if the rest of the world, especially poorer countries can afford to do even this much?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitors the air and water quality of the U.S. and enforces the law. Can the entire world afford such professional agencies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82402],"tags":[12613,82404,82403,132],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-regulations","tag-environmental-protection","tag-florida-keys","tag-noaa","tag-sustainability"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}