Surfers for LIFE

Monterey Bay Aqurium has published a good guide of seafood readily available for consumption.

Happy dining!

from Action Network:

Bluefin tuna are having a hard time surviving. Once abundant and thriving, the bluefin tuna population declined by 99 percent between 1963 and 2007, bringing this overfished species to the brink of extinction.

Last year, the president signed a law to end the overfishing of U.S. fish by 2011. There’s just one catch: overexploited species like bluefin tuna only have a chance to survive if the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) creates rules that follow the letter of the law and are strong enough to meet its goals.

In the next few months, NMFS will present new annual catch limits and environmental review rules. We need your voice to remind NMFS that it’s not just a good idea to set rules that will help fish like bluefin tuna survive, it’s the law.

Help bluefin survive by sending your personal comment to NMFS now.

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Surfrider Foundation Action Network

Please CALL your Congressional Representative Today!

You have the power to help preserve and protect our oceans, waves and beaches by asking your Congressional Representative to support the Oceans Conservation, Education and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act (“Oceans-21”). Oceans-21 provides common sense legislation to ensure that our ocean water and marine life remain healthy.

The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans is considering Oceans-21 this month. Surfrider has been working with a coalition of environmental organizations to encourage subcommittee leadership to support strong provisions to protect, maintain, and restore coastal and marine ecosystems and resources, and to oppose weakening amendments.

The legislation is critical because we currently do not have mechanisms in place to ensure that our ocean ecosystems and resources become and remain healthy and productive. You have a chance to help turn this situation around.
Call now and/or send the email below to your Representative in order to get this important piece of ocean legislation passed through the House subcommittee without any weakening amendments to the bill. Tell your Congressman to vote Yes on Oceans-21 and to oppose any amendments that would weaken the bill.

The Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. You can call and ask for your Representative’s office. Tell your Rep’s staff that you are a constituent living in the district and that you support H.R. 21.
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from: Surfrider Foundation Action Network

Since its passage in 2000, the BEACH Act has been funding beach water quality monitoring programs in coastal states across the nation. Congress is now considering much needed amendments to increase the amount of money spent on monitoring and to modernize the technology we rely on to protect the health of the beach-going public.

The BEACH Protection Act of 2007 requires the EPA to adopt rapid testing methods that will provide water quality data within hours of sampling and forces states to issue swimming advisories or beach closures within 24 hours. These amendments also propose taking action to identify and clean up the sources of beach water pollution. Let Congress know that you support these amendments and ask your senators and representatives to co-sponsor the Beach Protection Act (S.1506/H.R.2537). After all, it’s your beach!

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From: Surfrider Foundation Action Network

Contact your Florida State Representatives in the House to Co-Sponsor the Clean Ocean Act – HB897. The Clean Ocean Act can only be at the top of their list if you contact your state leaders. This is our last year to get this through. Tell me more

Subject:
Please co-sponsor the HB897: Clean Oceans Act

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

As a resident of Florida and a beachgoer, I am concerned with the water quality along the coast. I know that excess nitrogen in the surf zone can come from many non-point sources, but the one that you can control is the sewage dumped from the gambling boats.

Please co-sponsor the HB897 – The Clean Oceans Act. You have the support of the local community, because they know how important a clean beach is to the economy. You know the value of protecting Florida’s water resources. Stop the gambling boats from dumping their sewage right off our coastline. Our ocean is not a toilet, and dilution is not the solution.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

from: Action Network

NASA is proposing two alternatives for a private spacecraft launch site which would result in closure of public access and would likely impact water quality on and near the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and Canaveral National Seashore in Brevard County.

These projects are on a very aggressive timeline; NASA needs to hear from you now!

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from Patagonia

Fifty million buffalo once roamed the rolling green prairies of North America. Gunners reduced them to near extinction. Now, hunters are at work on the rolling blue prairies of the sea, and already, the big fish – including miracles like thousand-pound, warm-blooded bluefin tuna – are 90 percent gone. What we regret happening on land, may again happen in the sea. Those who care about wildlife should get to know about oceans. – Carl Safina, “Comes a Turtle, Comes the World,” Patagonia 2006 Heart of Winter Catalog

On land, we saw once what wildness meant. Imagine it: 50 million buffalo. Passenger pigeons that flocked so thick they covered the sun. A Spanish explorer sailing up the coast of California described a beach with scores of grizzly bears feeding on whale carcasses. Now, the vast numbers have dwindled or gone extinct. Only a remnant reminds us of what was, the animals and land we destroyed in our belief that there was a never-ending supply. We protect them with the Endangered Species Act, wilderness areas and hunting and fishing laws – having finally learned that we must.

And so now the sea: In Maine, they used to catch lobsters by gaffing them in shallow water by the shore. Cod were so numerous and so easily caught that prisoners complained because they were fed the fish too many times a week. Once, salmon returning from the ocean so crowded rivers and streams that people told stories of walking on their backs. Marlin, swordfish, mako, bluefin, abalone – everywhere in abundance.

We need to train ourselves to see what is hidden under the surface of the waters because fish stocks are in collapse and the oceans are in trouble. Many recent studies, including the Pew Oceans Commission (2003), have come to the same conclusions. The big fish, like that thousand-pound tuna, are 90 percent gone. Newfoundland cod, wild abalone, Atlantic halibut and Chilean sea bass are so scarce as to be nearly nonexistent. Breeding swordfish populations have been cut in half; marlin are rare. Pelicans in the Sea of Cortés starve for want of fish to eat.

Coral reefs are crumbling, and the ocean floor is plowed up by trawlers. Plastic kills seabirds and is found on the beaches of the world’s most remote islands. Surfers, swimmers and lifeguards are vaccinated annually against hepatitis as a matter of course. Tuna and swordfish have so much methylmercury in their bodies, they are hazardous food for pregnant women and children. The causes are many, but chief among them is an ugly trinity: unsustainable fishing practices, habitat destruction and contamination.

Patagonia’s 2006–07 environmental campaign was devoted to the oceans. Our goal was to help us all see what is under the waters of the earth. How the vast schools of tuna are like those herds of buffalo. How bottom trawling is like clear-cutting an entire forest to get at a single tree. In our catalogs, retail stores and on our Web site, we spent 18 months with marine scientists and writers, surfers and fishermen, to teach ourselves and our customers just how close the connection is between the vitality of human life and the marine environment.

Our OAW campaign helped bring about a great success for the oceans: the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing fishing practices in U.S. waters. But our work on this issue is far from over. The fishing holes, beaches and wetlands that we enjoyed as children will not be there for our children unless we acknowledge that the oceans belong to everyone and take seriously our shared responsibility for long-term marine management.