Gary Glick, President of Friends of the RGV Reef

October 4, 2020

A conversation about the science & logistics of the RGV Reef

On this episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, Peter and Tyler sit down with Gary Glick, President of Friends of the RGV Reef, a non-profit that supports the ongoing construction of the first industrial scale nursery reef in the Gulf of Mexico. It was permitted to allow a large extensive nursery reef primarily benefiting the commercially and recreationally important Red Snapper. This is also the only reef off the Texas coast that is being built with graduated stepping stones of increasingly complex and taller habitat to carry multiple species of fish through their life cycles. Scientists involved with the project have estimated that the reef has carried 240,000 snapper from juvenile stage to adults from 2017 to 2019.

Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.