902 
Bagles, Jr.: South Carolina - Clyde A. 
Eltz roth (later elected chairman), J. 1. 
Guerry, Jr., and Wallace Ir. Pate. 
The first meeting of this committce was 
held on May 29, 1968, in Columbia, South 
Carolina with all members present. 
Governor McNair, then Commission 
State Cochairman, opened the mecting and 
described the various Commission programs, 
emphasizing the importance of relating them 
aJl into a comprehensive program for the 
economic development of the entire Region. 
The committee was briefed en the 
sion's six target arenas 2sciorans: ways 
the marine resources of the Region might be 
developed to help close the income gap. The 
committee asked the staff to present addit- 
ional information on the problems and poten- 
tials of the Region's marine resources, at 
its next meeting in Savannah, Georgia, June 
19-20, 1968. 
, onomis - 
The second meeting began with a tour 
of Skidaway island and a briefing concerning 
the development plans of Georgia's Ocean 
Science Center of the Atiantic. On June 20 
with each member of the advisory committee 
present, the Commission staff surveyed the 
current status, potentials, and problems of 
selected marine-related industries. 
In order to simplify the necessary 
analysis of the economic potential of the 
Region's marine resources, the Advisory 
Committee divided this target area into seven 
subareas: 
Commercial Fishing 
Sports Fishing 
Recreation and Tourism 
Minerals and Chemicals 
Water Transportation 
Reseatch and Development and 
Land and Water Use Planning. 
In sclecting: its six farget areas, the 
Commission did not strive for routnally 
exclusive catepories. (Changes tn the ageri- 
cultural sector, for example, will stirdate 
compensating, changes in industrial develop-- 
ment, training, and Lransporiation. They may 
also influence commercial tourism and even 
the use of marine resources.) The Marine 
Resources Advisory Committee was similarly 
willing to accept overlapping subareas, in 
order to measure the cconomic potential of 
each, to learn how apparent conflicts can be 
reduced, and to find the balance between pre- 
servation and development that offers the best 
promise for the Region now and in the years 
to come. 
About 10, 000 members of the Region's 
labor force are regularly employed in 
commercial fishing, wholesa .ng and process- 
ing. During peak seasons an additional 4, 000 
casual employees enter these occupations. 
Most of the generalizations frequently made 
about commercial fishing in the United States 
apply to the Coastal Plains Region's portion 
of this industry: the harvesting methods are 
primitive, the processing is labor-intensive 
and the marketing is relatively disorganized. 
Four areas have been identified in which the 
Region's commercial fishing industry could be 
enhanced: resource management, harvesting, 
processing, and marketing. Most of the sea 
food consumed in the Nation is imported; both 
the catch and the per capita consumption of sea 
food could be increased significantly. However 
the evident costs of the solutions to the Nation's 
fisheries problems far exceed both the Com- 
mission's limited resources and the bencfits 
which would be likely to accrue to the Region. 
The problems of the fishing industry like those 
of the shipping industry are national rather 
than regional. 
The improvements in the commercial 
fishing industry of the Region which are likely 
to result from the Commission's efforts will 
probably emerge from two other subareas of 
its Marine Resources Program, Research 
and Development and Land and Water Use 
Planning, which are discussed later in this 
paper. 
