On January
1, 2014, the European Union’s amended Common Fisheries Policy went into effect. The policy requires
that, during the next five years, “catch limits should be set that are
sustainable and maintain fish stocks in the long term.”
It appears
that European fisheries managers are finally adopting the concept of “maximum
sustainable yield.”
As an
American fisherman who has been involved with the management process for much
of my life, I can only say, “Welcome aboard, folks, and what took you so long?
We figured that out two decades ago.”
And that’s true. The United
States’ fishermen, and the fish we pursue, live in a far different world than
we knew in the days before Congress passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act of
1996 in response to fish stocks collapsing along every coast.
Magnuson-Stevens, which requires
overfished stocks be rebuilt and mandates rebuilding deadlines, changed the
fate of American fisheries.
Here in the Mid-Atlantic, the sea
bottom was desolate. Summer flounder, which had long been the backbone of our
recreational and commercial fisheries, were not abundant. The minimum size was
a mere 14 inches, fish so small and thin that it was hard to fillet the
less-meaty white side. Black sea bass were mostly sub-10-inch “pins,” while the
scup, when you could find them, were scarcely as large as a man’s outstretched
hand.
All three stocks needed
rebuilding, something that, save for the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act,
would have never occurred. Magnuson-Stevens, which requires overfished stocks
be rebuilt and mandates rebuilding deadlines, changed the fate of American
fisheries.
To understand fisheries
management in pre-Magnuson days, consider the facts underlying the court
decision in Natural Resources Defense
Council v. Daley, the
case that gave the Magnuson-Stevens Act teeth. There, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery
Management Council saw nothing wrong with a summer flounder management plan
that had a mere 18 percent chance of success; it’s how the council had always
managed fish in the past.
But the federal appellate court
down in Washington understood the new law, and noted,
“Only in
Superman Comics Bizzaro World, where reality is turned upside down, could the
[National Marine Fisheries] Service reasonably conclude that a measure that is
at least four times as likely to fail as to succeed offers a ‘fairly high level
of confidence’ [that it will achieve its management goal].”
With those words, American
fisheries management underwent a very profound change.
For the first time, it became
effective.
Today, anglers frequently catch
summer flounder so large that any one fillet (you get four from each fish) is
longer and heavier than entire fish that were deemed to be legal in prior to
the court’s decision.
Black sea bass and scup, are
doing equally well. Anglers are now seeing unprecedented numbers of them, and
the fish are not small. On my first sea bass trip last season, it took me
longer to run out to the wreck where I fished than it did to limit out with
eight quality sea bass. Scup are even more abundant, with so many available
that neither the commercial nor the recreational sector can land their entire
quota.
That’s what good fisheries
management can achieve.
But the achievements didn’t come
easily. As managers worked to rebuild the three Mid-Atlantic stocks, both
commercial and recreational fisherman railed about the restrictions and called
for the law to be changed. Fortunately, it was not, and those fishermen are now
enjoying an abundance of fish that most had never known before in their
lifetimes.
In other regions, where managers tried
to escape the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s mandates, such struggles are still going
on.
In New England, where commercial
fishermen on the New England Fishery Management Council embraced the riskiest
measures that were conceivably allowed by the law, the Gulf of Maine cod stock
has fallen to a true crisis level, while Georges Bank cod, along with a whole
host of flounders, are not far behind.
In the south, both the South
Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico fishery management councils are trying to rebuild
depleted red snapper stocks and are opposed by “anglers’ rights” organizations
which seek to kill more.
Neither northern cod trawlers nor
southern anglers have learned what their Mid-Atlantic counterparts know, that
conservative, science-based catch limits, coupled with a modicum of patience,
are the only sure way to restore stocks to abundance. Managers cannot undo
decades of damage without imposing years of restraint.
Instead, such fishermen rally
around the shibboleth of “flexibility,” seeking to weaken the legal provisions
in the Magnuson-Stevens Act that work. This year, they have found a champion in
Congressman Don Young, who has already introduced H.R. 1335, the
“Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries
Management Act.”
Young’s “Flexibility Act” would
gut key provisions of Magnuson-Stevens that require managers to end
overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks in a timely manner and hold fishermen
accountable when they exceed catch limits.
There is much irony here.
Congressman Young is from Alaska.
The conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which
emphasize science-based management, are often described as the “Alaska Model,”
after the place where such measures were first successfully used.
And Congressman Young
recently noted, in the Alaska Dispatch News, that such an Alaska
Model is not only “considered the envy of the world,” but also is “what all
regional fisheries management councils should strive to achieve.”
He has also assured his
constituents:
“My legislation…will not change
the way the [North Pacific Fishery Management Council] manages our fisheries.
Alaska fishermen and the communities they support will continue to reap the
benefits of our well-managed fishery resources and the NPFMC will continue to
use sound scientific data in their management decisions. Regardless of the
changes proposed to the MSA, the NPFMC will continue to utilize innovate
practices to be leaders in fisheries management.”
That’s fine for Alaskans and the
NPFMC.
However, it would push the rest
of the regional fishery management councils backward. At a time when Europe,
and other nations, are moving closer to a Magnuson-Stevens, Alaska-like model,
America’s fisheries managers would lose the incentive to “strive to achieve”
the same thing. Instead, they would be provided with too great a temptation to
fall back into Bizzaro World, when management plans that were more likely to
fail than succeed were the rule.
America’s fish, and America’s
fishermen, deserve better than that.
What is good for Alaska is good
for the rest of us.
H.R. 1335 is no good at all.
_________________________________________________
NOTE: This blog post originally appeared on the website of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. Over the next months, some of my blogs, along with blogs by other anglers and other folks concerned with fisheries conservation, will appear there at regular intervals. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll undoubtedly be interested in what folks write over at MFCN. You can find their thoughts at http://conservefish.org/blog/ .
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