the state-mandated comprehensive planning process (Estevez 1988). The 
workshop participants unanimously agreed on the need for an inter-local 
bay management program in place of the management void that existed. As 
a necessary step in the development of a bay management program, the 
workshop participants endorsed the concept of an intergovernmental 
symposium on Sarasota Bay, which would serve to coalesce relevant 
scientific and demographic information about the bay and to examine 
similar management processes undertaken for other estuaries (Eckenrod 
1988). 
The Sarasota Bay Area Scientific Information Symposium (SARABASIS) 
was held in April 1987. The symposium lasted for two days and coincided 
with field trips, special exhibits, and other activities related to 
Sarasota Bay. Sessions were held on a number of topics ranging from 
geology of Sarasota Bay to the biology of marine animals in the bay. 
Other sessions involved the history, economics, public use of the bay, 
and bay management. The public was invited to provide input on goals of 
management for Sarasota Bay. Symposium sessions were aimed at a general 
audience, whereas the written record will be designed as a reference 
document of use to planners, educators, and scientists. Proceedings of 
the symposium are in preparation. The interest generated by SARABASIS 
stated clearly that a conference reviewing scientific and other 
information was a timely and valuable exercise, and that the management 
needs for Sarasota Bay have been overlooked. 
EXISTING BAY MANAGEMENT EFFORTS 
Tampa Bay 
Both historically and currently, Tampa Bay constitutes the central 
geographic feature most responsible for the shipping, industrial 
development, aesthetic and recreational values that encompass the overall 
attractiveness of the region to new residents. The management of Tampa 
Bay is fragmented among a multitude of federal, state, and regional 
regulatory agencies, as well as seventeen local governments (three 
counties and fourteen municipalities) bordering the bay. Management is 
accomplished through the uncoordinated implementation of various 
monitoring, permitting, and regulatory programs. Under the existing 
management framework, jurisdictions are often overlapping; interests are 
often conflicting; and no one agency has overview authority for the bay 
or manages it as a holistic natural resource. As a result, management of 
Tampa Bay has been both wasteful and ineffective (TBRPC 1987). 
With the creation of the Tampa Bay Management Study Commission and 
the TBRPC’s Agency on Bay Management, however, there has been an attempt 
to implement a bay management program in a unified, holistic manner. The 
45 member Agency includes membership from the following groups: 
o The Florida Senate representing the Tampa Bay region; 
o The Florida House of Representatives representing the Tampa Bay 
region; 
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