We have all heard of a line being drawn in the sand but who ever heard of a line in the Gulf? But, there really is such a thing. When I first moved to the Gulf Coast a friend told me it was a good idea to buy waterfront property. I asked him why? He said, "Because they are not making any more". Well, it seems that our government was listening because on March 10, 1983 president Ronald Regan signed Executive Order 5030, setting up the "Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States of America". This zone is called the EEZ and is probably the last and greatest land-grab the world will ever know.The Executive Order 5030 indicated the following: "The Exclusive Economic Zone extends to a distance 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. In cases where the maritime boundary with a neighboring State remains to be determined, the boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone shall be determined by the United States and other State concerned in accordance with equitable principles". The concept of having legal control vs. de facto control over so much of the surface area of the planet was so well liked by other governments around the world that now any nation who has a boarder fronting on the sea has set up something similar. The EEZ is intended is to "establish an Exclusive Economic Zone by the United States to advance the development of ocean resources and promote the protection of the marine environment, while not affecting other lawful uses of the zone, including the freedoms of navigation and over-flight, by other States". This Executive Order set the tone for fishing regulations to be controlled by the federal government from the end of a State's territorial sea out to 200 miles. When the creation of the EEZ is coupled with The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, which created eight regional fishery management councils and excluded foreign fishing fleets from U.S. coastal waters state inclusion in EEZ fishery management was allowed. The Magnuson Act was designed to protect U.S. fisheries and help marine fish stocks recover. The primary intent of establishing the EEZ was not the protection and management of the living resources out to 200 miles but rather control of the mineral resources under the seabed. Given the threat of control over the world's oil resources by middle-eastern governments, at the time the EEZ was established, it was a protective response by the United States. Still, creation of the EEZ has provided for some real gains in the management of fishery resources in the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of the United States' territorial waters. Fish do not know or care which state's water they in or which countries' for that matter. The Fishery Management councils, coupled with the authority from the establishment of the EEZ's, have set up a regulatory process for fisheries management which is on course to provide for sustainable and fair management of the Gulf's fishery resources. The latest proposed actions by the Gulf Council have been to consider very severe limitations on recreational and commercial red snapper fishing and to restrict shrimping in the Gulf.

Think Global - Act Local!