[Coral-List] NOAA's environmental impact statement for coral restoration

Iliana Baums ibb3 at psu.edu
Tue Jun 17 17:30:19 EDT 2008


Dear colleagues,

may I direct your attention to the "DRAFT PROGRAMMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL 
IMPACT STATEMENT FOR CORAL RESTORATION IN THE FLORIDA KEYS AND FLOWER 
GARDEN BANKS NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARIES" currently open for comments 
from the community 
(http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/involved/pdfs/coraldpeis.pdf).

The purpose of this document is to describe acceptable coral restoration 
techniques including transplantation and reattachment.

"The purpose of this document is to present and analyze the current 
technologies available for effective implementation of restoration to 
address injury to coral reef resources in these areas of the NMSS; 
appropriate analysis of the technologies in this document will provide 
for efficient selection and implementation of action when needed."

It is my understanding that this document will serve NOAA as the road 
map for conducting restoration. This is the time to help NOAA improve 
the document.

I am particularly concerned that genetic factors (such as altering 
clonal diversity or genetic population structure) seem to not have been 
considered in the transplantation/reattachment sections. However, after 
intensive literature research on the subject, I concluded that 
disregarding genetic factors in coral restoration may have negative 
consequences [Baums, IB (2008) Invited Review: A restoration genetics 
guide to coral reef conservation. Molecular Ecology 17 (12) , 2796–2811 
. Article free at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/mec/17/12].


Regards,

Iliana

-- 
Iliana B. Baums, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
The Pennsylvania State University
208 Mueller Laboratory
University Park, PA, 16802

814.867.0491 (Office)
814.867.0492 (Lab)
814.321.3593 (Mob)
814.865.9131 (Fax)

http://www.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/baums/




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