Full document / COSOC-W-86-002 - the National Sea Grant Library

Estuarineand Coastal Management- Toots of the
Trade. Proceedings of the TenthNationalConference
ofThe Coastal Society. October 12-15.1986. New
Orleans. LA. Copyright by The Coastal Society
1987.
THE ROLE OF RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TOOLS AT
GULF ISLANDS NATIONAL SEASHORE
Theodore R. Simons
US. National Parle Service
Gulf Islands National Seashore
3500 Park Road
Ocean Springs. MS 39564
Gulf Islands National Seashore (Figure 1) is comprised of
approximately 57,000 hectares of barrier islands and their
adjacent waters in northwest Florida and coastal
Mississippi. Established in 1971, the Seashore stretches
from West Ship Island in Mississippi, 240 kilometers east to
the middle of Santa Rosa Island in Florida. The park's
resources range from remote wilderness barrier islands with
very limited visitation, to readily accessible recreational
beaches and historic sites visited by several million people
each year. The undeveloped portions of the Seashore
represent the best example of an undisturbed barrier island
ecosystem remaining in the Gulf of Mexico. Research efforts
at the Seashore are aimed at providing park resource
managers with the information and tools required to carry
out their difficult and often contradictory responsibilities
of preserving park resources for public use. Research has
been focused in four major areas; (1) understanding the
resource by obtaining spatially and temporally referenced
baseline data on the major components of the park's
ecosystems, (2) identifying indicator species or communities
that can act as barometers of overall ecosystem health, (3)
restoring extirpated populations, and (4) developing the
management tools to conserve threatened park resources. A
fundamental objective of the research program is the
development of simplified long-term monitoring programs of
key species, populations, and communities. These long term
monitoring programs will be the primary tool used by park
resource managers to identify adverse impacts on park
resources.
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