• Complexity: Management encompasses a range of stressors that may affect the ecosystem of the banks.
• Adaptive Management: Development of new knowledge about the environment surrounding the banks is being incorporated into recommendations for future management actions because of the interrelated nature of the ecosystems.

Lead Organizations

Key Parties

Federal

• United States Coast Guard
• Minerals Management Service

Academic and Educational Institutions

Multiple academic institutions in Gulf of Mexico states and elsewhere including:

• Audubon Aquarium of the Americas
• Texas State Aquarium
• Tennessee Aquarium
• The Aquarium at Moody Gardens
• Ocean Exploration

Foundations and Financial Partners

• National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
• Gulf of Mexico Foundation
• SeaSpace

The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary

The Sanctuary maintains offices in Galveston, Texas that are co-located with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Sanctuary Advisory Council (SAC)

The SAC was established in 2005 to facilitate communication among sanctuary staff, user groups and the public. It is assisting in the development of a revised management plan by fostering public engagement and developing consensus on new threats to the marine sanctuary and potential management responses. Of the 21 members of the SAC, 16 are voting members and are appointed to represent the following groups:

• Dive operators
• Oil and gas industry
• Conservation
• Education
• Research
• Commercial fishing
• Recreational fishing

The non-voting members represent the following federal agencies:

• Minerals Management Service
• National Marine Fisheries Service
• Environmental Protection Agency
• NOAA Law Enforcement

SAC Working Groups

In February 2007, the SAC established six working groups, most of which have been discontinued, to address the following issues that were identified as key to the review of the management plan:

• Fishing impacts
• Impacts from visitor use
• Sanctuary expansion
• Enforcement
• Education/outreach
• Impacts of pollutant discharge

In the late 1880s, grouper and snapper fisherman discovered the banks and named them the Texas Flower Gardens. For many years, scientists were hesitant to believe rumors of coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico because they thought the water temperatures were too cool to support them. However, in the early 1960s, scientific scuba diving expeditions definitively documented healthy, coral reef ecosystems at East and West Flower Garden Banks.

The National Marine Sanctuaries Act was passed in 1972 which sparked discussions about including the two banks in the National Marine Sanctuary Program. Scientists, who had established a research center focused on the banks, supported the designation of the sanctuary. One of the scientists, Tom Bright, director of Texas Sea Grant at Texas A&M University, explored the banks and captured on video the damage caused by a large boat anchoring in the area. He released the video to generate support for the sanctuary. Additional support came from recreational divers, who formed an association called the Gulf Reef Environmental Team.

In 1979, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published proposed regulations that would create the sanctuary, but withdrew them in 1982. NOAA cited the development of a Coral Fishery Management Plan for the Gulf of Mexico, which would address some of the same specific issues relative to East and West Flower Garden Banks. The fishery management plan banned the removal of coral and prohibited many techniques of commercial fishing. Meanwhile, the Minerals Management Service, which regulates oil and gas development in the gulf, already had issued regulations that prohibited vessels involved in oil and gas operations from anchoring near the banks.

However, supporters of the marine sanctuary continued to press for its designation, pointing to two key gaps in the oversight and administration of the banks. Neither the Minerals Management Service nor the Coral Fishery Management Plan had the authority to prohibit large commercial shipping vessels from anchoring near the banks, and there were no long-term provisions for the assessment and management of the area’s resources.

In 1983, NOAA again recommended creation of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS). A public scoping meeting was held in 1986, followed by the development of a draft management plan and environmental impact statement in 1989.

The Ecosystem

Flower Garden Banks consists of three separate underwater communities that are located 70 to 115 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana: East Flower Garden Bank, West Flower Garden Bank and Stetson Bank.

• East and West Flower Garden Banks are roughly located 690 kilometers southeast from Galveston, Texas and are separated by 19 kilometers of ocean. These Banks are ancient salt domes which are underwater mountains that began forming 190 million years ago when the Gulf of Mexico was a shallow sea. A hotter climate led to the evaporation of ocean water, leaving deposits of salt on the ocean floor. Around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, coral reef communities began developing on top of the salt domes. The corals may have been carried from Mexican reefs by currents in the gulf, where the corals lodged in the hard substrate of the salt domes. Today, the reefs crest 15 meters from the surface of the ocean.
• Located farther to the northwest, Stetson Bank is surrounded by waters that are cooler, inhibiting the growth of coral reefs. Still, coral colonies can be found among populations of sponges. Stetson Bank is noted for its moonscape appearance which is the result of the varied rates of erosion of its claystone and sandstone cap.

The three separate banks act as a regional reservoir of shallow-water Caribbean reef species at the extreme northern edge of the zone in which extensive reefs can survive. The ecosystem includes more than a dozen species of tropical Atlantic corals and at least 280 species of fish, including colorful reef fish such as wrasse and larger fish such as snapper and grouper. In addition, 20 species of sharks and rays have been documented, along with several types of marine turtles, including the threatened loggerhead turtle.

Because of its remote location, there is little direct human impact, although the banks are popular with recreational divers and two charter boats regularly visit the area.

Threats

When the sanctuary was designated, the main threat to this ecosystem came from large commercial shipping vessels that anchored near the banks while transiting the Gulf of Mexico. Anchoring was destroying and/or damaging portions of the coral reefs. Today, threats include the warming of ocean waters due to climate change which can lead to coral bleaching and disease, invasive coral species and water quality issues due to marine pollution and nutrient-laden run-off from land. 

Commercial and recreational fishing is limited to traditional hook and line methods in the area and the impact of fishing on the ecosystem is not known.  However, anecdotal reports have pointed to a decline in reef fish. In addition, 150 oil and gas platforms are located within roughly 40 kilometers of the sanctuary. One platform that had been established prior to the designation of the sanctuary is located within its boundaries.

Resource Protection

Resource protection at Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) is accomplished through the promulgation of regulations, particularly a ban on the anchoring by vessels greater than 100 feet within the waters surrounding the banks. In addition, FGBNMS maintains mooring buoys to guide smaller vessels away from particularly sensitive areas. Contingency plans have been developed to address threats from oil spills and groundings.

Education

Because of its remote location, it is difficult to enforce FGBNMS regulations. Education efforts are aimed at specific user groups and the general public to generate support for management actions and a greater appreciation for the marine resources of FGBNMS. Sanctuary staff educate divers at trade shows and on dive vessels during peak season weekends. In addition, FGBNMS has developed partnerships with aquariums to showcase exhibits on sanctuary marine life and holds workshops to help school teachers convey educational messages about this marine resource to their students.

• Developing new baseline information on the marine resource.
• Guiding future management actions.

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary has:

• Assisted in establishing a sense of place that conveys a need to protect the biological significance of the banks.
• Facilitated new research which has increased understanding of the interconnected nature of the ecosystem of the three banks of the sanctuary.
• Supported a high-resolution multi-beam mapping project, which mapped 3,700 square kilometers of the Gulf of Mexico, within and outside the sanctuary boundaries, which provided new information on the existence of potentially vulnerable geological and biological features.
• That research, along with the success of sanctuary regulations in protecting the East and West Flower Garden Banks and Stetson Bank, contributed to the recommendation by the Sanctuary Advisory Council in 2007 to expand the sanctuary boundaries to encompass eight additional banks in the region. Expansion of the sanctuary is still pending, however.

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary: http://flowergarden.noaa.gov/welcome.html