A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

114 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROTECTED AREAS
Box I-10. Everglades National Park
The state of Florida (USA) provides several useful examples of large-scale
preservation. The Everglades National Park was established in south Florida in 1947
and currently encompasses more than 500,000 ha of land and water. Although much
of this area is composed of upland plant communities, a significant portion is mangrove,
sea grass beds, and coastal marshes. All of these habitat types provide nursery areas for
the extensive commercial and sport fisheries that operate in contiguous coastal waters.
The great strength of Everglades National Park is that it includes almost the
entire gradient from upland freshwater, through the estuary, to offshore many kilometers.
The nearby Biscayne National Monument similarly includes coastal wetlands and
mangroves, sea grass and macroalgae beds, barrier islands and passes, and offshore coral
reefs. Together these two MPAs are designed to protect and nurture many commercial
and recreational species like the gray snapper in all the various stages of their lives. The
Everglades system also guarantees unimpeded natural production of detritus, which forms
the basis of a complex food web that supports stocks of fishes.
Unfortunately, some factors cannot be totally controlled, even in a preserved
area as large as the Everglades National Park (Morehead, 1984). For example, the
watershed draining into the park extends far beyond the park boundaries so that
activities outside the park, but within the watershed—irrigation, water diversion, and
introduction of pollutants—have caused ecological damage to the park, but are beyond
the control of park managers. For example, fish and shrimp populations within the
Everglades estuary fluctuate in response to annual patterns of freshwater inflow. Without
control of this inflow, it is impossible to properly protect and manage these fishery
resources. And while the park has been allocated a total freshwater inflow of
430,000,000 m 3 (350,000 acre-feet) annually it has not been successful in getting the correct
portions at particular critical times.
a variety of hinterland interests. The ZOI approach in the Gulf of Mannar is used to
formally negotiate cooperative management actions outside the boundaries of the
official coastal reserve and which affect the reserve, such as uncontrolled fishing
(Figure I-53).
The ZOI approach could also work for offshore waters that extend past the
statutory Coastal Zone boundary in order to cover some of the remote waters of the
continental shelf (as defined by the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea) or the
Exclusive Economic Zone (which extends to 320 km offshore) if important water use
issues extend that far seaward.