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A federal panel has protected 23,000 square miles of deepwater corals, believed to be the world's largest such ecosystem, off the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, meeting in Charleston, approved the plan late Thursday. Advocates say the protection, culminating a decade of advance work, is a first for U.S. fishery councils.
The move is intended to preserve rare, undisturbed coral reefs on the ocean floor, 1,000 feet or more below the surface, while continuing to allow fishing with gear that does little damage to them. The Observer wrote about the little-understood corals in mid-2008.
"The final plan incorporates the science coming straight from research vessels," said Doug Rader, chief oceans scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. "I know of no other process in the world where unpublished, brand-new science was translated so directly into world-class protection for a unique natural resource."
Rader led the regional committee that developed the protection plan, helping fishermen and fisheries managers chart the areas where fishing will be allowed with gear restrictions.
Deepwater coral reefs are far less known than the colorful reefs that flourish in tropical waters. Few of the deep reefs have been charted, but they are known to draw a large array of ocean life, despite the darkness of the ocean floor. Some species hold the potential to yield medicines.
Individual coral colonies may be more than 1,000 years old, growing very slowly, and larger mounds may be 1 million years old.
Researchers from UNC Wilmington, descending in manned submersibles, are among relatively few explorers of the reefs.
