What We Do
Current Programs
Everglades Restoration Advocacy Campaign
Spanning the southern tip of the Florida peninsula and most of Florida Bay, Everglades National Park is the only subtropical preserve in North America. Its unique sawgrass prairie and mangrove swamp ecosystem is highly endangered due to the canals and pumps that were added in the last 50 years to drain and reroute water. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is an ambitious $7.8 billion government to restore this beleaguered ecosystem over a thirty year period. NPCA works to ensure that CERP gives the utmost priority to the needs of the natural system. NPCA engages and represents the public to ensure that the public interest influences both broad programmatic policies and highly technical but critically important project designs. During the next year, several major policies and projects will be in the key stages of development. NPCA is involved with many of these projects including the Tamiami Trail modification project, which will determine how much water can flow beneath a major road that now acts as a "dam" to the Everglades, and the C-111 Canal and Modified Water Delivery projects, which will allow water to flow back into Everglades National Park.
South Florida Fisheries Conservation Campaign
Fish catch rates in Florida Bay has been declining dramatically over the past twenty years. Grouper, snapper, grunt, bonefish, tarpon, and permit are just some of the species suffering from significantly decreasing populations. Much of this decline is due to overuse of the Bay. With the 500 percent increase in boats since the 1960s have come more fishermen, more irresponsible boaters, and more boaters unfamiliar with navigation rules. The results are overfishing, groundings, and damage to shallow banks where fish feed. All of this harms fish populations. Unfortunately, current fishery rules and regulations in south Florida designed to conserve the fish stocks have not been effective. The main reason for their ineffectiveness is that there are too few rangers to enforce the rules and far too many fishermen for current rangers to effectively police. A major cause of the ranger shortage is due to park funding shortfalls. Lack of park funding is also the reason for inadequate educational programs that should inform fisherman of the rules and regulations as well as educate them on the ecologically sensitive areas in the Bay that they should be aware of. Current educational programs do not accomplish this. NPCA is addressing the fish population declines by forging a unique partnership between fishermen, other marine user groups, and the National Park Service, the government agency charged with managing the Bay.
Regional Activities
Park Funding
NPCA's Sun Coast region is creating new coalitions of park supporters and stakeholders that will help NPCA advocate for more park funding. In the Florida Keys, NPCA's ourreach coordinator is organizing a "Bay Buddies" program that will bring local citizens out on the Bay to help support the drastically underfunded park rangers. A Park Users Coalition of recreational fishermen and local business people is advising the regional marine campaign and supporting funding. The region has several congressional targets that the Sun Coast staff will cultivate, helping to create a larger presence on Capitol Hill.
Protecting Coral Reefs
Biscayne National Park contains the northernmost extent of the Florida Keys Coral Reef Tract and boasts an array of coral species. NPCA is working with the park to protect coral reefs and to find ways to restore damaged or dying reefs. NPCA is providing input to the park's general management plan, which will guide the park's management and operational practices of the parks for the next 15-20 years. NPCA also is serving on the official working group that is advising the park on its innovative fisheries management plan. Both of these important documents will contain measures to protect coral reefs. NPCA is also overseeing planning for the newly created Virgin Islands National Monument and the expanded Buck Island Reef National Monument, both of which contain extensive coral reef systems.
Motorized Use
After achieving enormous success in 2000 with the Big Cypress National Preserve's completion of an Off-Road Vehicle Management Plan, NPCA is continuing to help the preserve address the resource damage caused by 30 years of mismanaged swamp buggy and airboat access. This help is primarily in the form of supporting funding for construction of new trails and supporting the state and Army Corps permitting process that also must be completed to implement the plan. The Sun Coast region is also concerned with preventing the reintroduction of personal watercraft into the marine parks in the region.
Oil and Gas Development
NPCA is fighting against oil and gas development in Big Cypress. After successfully convincing the federal government to purchase the mineral rights from a company that owns them, NPCA is helping to get this buy-out approved by Congress and making sure that the price of the buyout is fairly determined. NPCA is also keeping a watchful eye on the Gulf Islands National Seashore, which is being threatened by new state initiatives to conduct offshore oil exploration near the seashore.
Regional Accomplishments
2004 - NPCA hosts the 2004 Everglades Coalition Conference, convening Everglades leaders nationwide to set the restoration agenda. Biscayne National Park becomes the first marine park convene a stakeholder working group to shape a fisheries management plan.
2003 - At NPCA's instigation, Biscayne National Park creates a trust to oversee the historic Stiltsville structures in Biscayne Bay so they can be used for the public rather than as private enclaves. A judge upholds the Big Cypress Off-Road Vehicle (ORV) Management Plan, due in part to NPCA's intervention in the lawsuit challenging the plan. NPCA's challenge to a housing development near Biscayne National Park improves the state of Florida's permitting policies for projects that affect Everglades restoration.
2002 - NPCA supports the National Park Service's efforts to buy private lands within Virgin Islands National Park or partner with a land trust to ensure their protection. A 400-acre parcel is under threat of large-scale development.
2001 - Dry Tortugas National Park issued its plan to establish 42 percent of the park's waters a research natural area, which prohibits fishing and limits public access. This was the culmination of NPCA's three-year battle to protect marine resources in this unique island park and the first time such an action has been taken to protect marine habitat in a national park.
2000 - NPCA is instrumental in passing the Restoration of the Everglades: An American Legacy Act of 2000, a historic law authorizing a $7.8-billion project to restore the Everglades and the national park. NPCA also compels Big Cypress National Preserve to approve a Recreational Off-Road Vehicle Management Plan that limits the destructive swamp buggy use in the sensitive areas.
