Should Alabama’s Underwater Forest be protected as a marine sanctuary?

Since AL.com first revealed the existence of an ancient cypress forest standing on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, its location has remained a secret. That’s because salvage companies immediately expressed interest in mining the ancient logs from the seafloor and turning them into expensive coffee tables, electric guitars, and other luxury items.

At present, there is no legal protection whatsoever for the forest, which is seen as a globally important treasure trove of scientific data, and a natural wonder on par with American icons like Yellowstone National Park. If the salvage companies obtained the location of the forest, there would be no recourse to stop them from removing the logs from the seafloor, forever destroying this incredible time capsule of what life was like on the Gulf Coast 70,000 years ago.

Instead, many believe the forest should be formally protected as a National Marine Sanctuary. The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has endorsed the idea, along with the Alabama Coastal Foundation, the Alabama Gulf Coast Reef & Restoration Foundation, the Coastal Conservation Association, and other groups.

AL.com is sponsoring a poll for the public to weigh in, as public support is a critical component for the establishment of new marine sanctuaries. Make your voice heard here.

Unlike most marine sanctuaries, where fishing is prohibited, the sanctuary protections envisioned for the Underwater Forest would allow both fishing and scuba diving. The only thing that would be protected would be the trees themselves. The public would be free to visit and enjoy the site, but no one would be allowed to remove any wood from the forest.

“Of course this needs to be protected. There is nothing else like it anywhere in the world,” said Kristine DeLong, a paleoclimatologist with Louisiana State University who has led the scientific investigation at the site. “There is so much scientific value there that we are just scratching the surface with what we can learn at the site. What we have is a well-preserved ecosystem from this earlier ice age that we know so little about. We want to learn as much as possible from the forest. But if it is sitting in somebody’s living room as a coffee table, that doesn’t help anybody. Somebody is going to make a quick buck and that’s about it.”

Working with DeLong, her team of scientists, and the Alabama Coastal Foundation, AL.com coproduced the award-winning documentary, the Underwater Forest, which brought this incredible discovery to the public. The film only heightened the desire among the scuba diving community to have the site opened to the public for diving. Alabama dive shop owners say the site would instantly become one of the most popular scuba dive sites in the world and mean a lot of dive-related tourism for Orange Beach and Gulf Shores.

“The reason the Alabama Coastal Foundation is involved is because our coastal environment is our economy, making it vitally import to protect sites like the Underwater Forest. It is important to protect it both from a tourism perspective and scientific perspective,” said Mark Berte, executive director of the Coastal Foundation. “ACF just celebrated our 25th anniversary as a non-partisan group, and we believe protection is non-partisan. The reason most of us live in this part of the state and on the Gulf Coast is because we all love the environment that surrounds us. Protecting this incredibly unique piece should make sense to everybody.”

Chandra Wright, director of environmental and education initiatives at the Gulf State Lodge, spearheaded an effort by the Reef and Restoration Foundation to protect the forest.

“We divers would love to see the Underwater Forest receive a marine sanctuary designation that allows public access for fishing and diving, but would protect it from harvest. The discovery of this ancient forest and the marine habitat that it has created is awesome, but since the coordinates have not been made public, only a few people know about it and have been able to go see it. The underwater forest should be a public resource available for all of us to enjoy, but we don’t want to jeopardize it until it is protected from those who want to destroy it for their own profit," Wright said.

"Every time ‘Alabama’s Underwater Forest’ makes the news, we have divers from around the world clamoring to come see it... It has the potential of being the sort of significant dive attraction that the Oriskany - frequently called ‘the great carrier reef’ - has been at attracting divers from around the world to patronize our dive charters, hotels, restaurants, and the like. Unlike the Oriskany and our other artificial reefs, though, this one doesn’t cost any money to clean and deploy – Mother Nature has done all the work for us.”

Please take a moment to vote in our “Should the Underwater Forest be protected” poll. One of the key elements in having an area declared a National Marine Sanctuary is public support. Our poll will help provide insight into how the public feels about the Underwater Forest.