NEW RESEARCH CONFIRMS THAT FISHERIES MANAGEMENT WORKS

It’s impossible to go to a fisheries meeting and not hear people disparage fisheries science and the effectiveness of fisheries management.  


When fish become less abundant, and managers propose regulations to rebuild fish stocks, fishermen invariably push back, arguing that the fish aren't in any trouble, but 1) have just gone elsewhere (bluefish to Africa and striped bass somewhere offshore are currently popular), 2) remain as abundant as ever, though most people, and particular scientists, don’t know where to find them, 3) are governed by unexplained “cycles” in which abundance waxes and wanes for reasons unrelated to fishing pressure or management efforts, or 4) don’t need management because, the fishermen aver without supporting data, the science is just plain “wrong.”


I was at a meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council last Tuesday, and heard all of those opinions voiced over the course of just one four-hour session.


Fisheries management often isn’t very popular with fishermen, because fishermen often feel entitled to access resources without any restrictions, and restrictions lie at the heart of successful management efforts.


For many years, scientists have accepted the idea that managing fisheries is both a necessary and a desirable thing to do, but have always had some difficulty in articulating a clearly defined “why” that was true.  But a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on January 13, titled “Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status” demonstrates through peer-reviewed analysis what we intuitively knew to be the case.


Fisheries management works.


The paper reflects the work of 23 scientists; the primary author, Dr. Ray Hilborn, is a respected and very well known professor employed by the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences in Seattle.  In an introductory paragraph describing the significance of the paper, the authors claim

“This article compiles estimates of fish stocks from all available scientific assessments, comprising roughly half of the world’s fish catch, and shows that, on average, fish stocks are increasing where they are assessed.  We pair this with surveys of the nature and extent of fisheries management systems, and demonstrate that where fisheries are intensively managed, the stocks are above target levels or rebuilding.  Where fisheries management is less intense, stock status and trends are worse.  We review evidence on the half of world fisheries that are not assessed or intensively managed and suggest their status is much worse than where fisheries are intensively managed.  [emphasis added]”

In other words, the folks who keep arguing that fishery management isn’t needed, that “fish come and go,” or that when stocks decline, “it’s just the cycle” and there’s no need for management measures, don’t have scientific support for their claims.


That becomes clear after reading the paper, which draws from data containing biomass trends for the stocks responsible for 49% of reported global landings between the years of 1990 and 2005; such data included most of the catch from North and South America, Europe, Japan, Russia, Northwest Africa, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the regional fishery management organizations responsible for managing various tuna fisheries.

There was very little or no data from South or Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East, Central America or Central and East Africa.  

The conclusions that could be drawn from such data were clear.


First, fisheries management is effective at rebuilding species within a relatively short, 10-year time period, provided that managers don’t allow abundance to drop too low.  If abundance drops to half of the target level, defined as the biomass needed to produce maximum sustainable yield, rebuilding a stock within ten years is generally possible.  


That’s good news for United States fishermen, as most federal fisheries management plans, particularly those prepared by the New England and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, define the target biomass as the abundance of fish needed to produce maximum sustainable yield, and define the threshold biomass, which is the point where a stock is considered overfished and a rebuilding plan must be put in place, as one-half the target level.


Thus, provided that managers act promptly and effectively, most overfished stocks can probably be rebuilt within a relatively short time.


On the other hand, if a stock is allowed to collapse, defined as a biomass no more than 20% of the target level, the time it will take to rebuild such stock will be longer, and much more uncertain.  That could explain why efforts to rebuild stocks of cod, Atlantic halibut and some other species have had such limited success.


The data considered in the paper shows that, through 1995, average fishing pressure increased and average stock biomass declined.  Fishing pressure began to decline in 1995, and by 2005—just 10 years later—the average stock biomass was increasing.  


It’s impossible not to note that the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which first required federal fishery managers to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks within ten years if possible, was enacted near the beginning of that period, something that the authors of the paper recognized, or that the court’s decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, which required federal fishery management plans to have at least a 50% probability of achieving their objectives, was handed down during that period as well.


Other nations also tightened their laws during the 1990s and early 2000s, although not all experienced the same level of success; while the reasons for that aren't clear, collapsed stocks (e.g., Newfoundland cod) and a lack of enforcement (as in the Mediterranean Sea) could well be factors.


Biologists involved with fisheries management issues have created a fishery management index, which scores management efforts based on a combination of management and enforcement factors.  Regions given higher scores, meaning that stocks were actively managed and management measures were actively enforced, generally had lower fishing effort (compared to the effort that produces maximum sustainable yield) and average biomass that was much higher (again compared to the biomass needed to produce MSY).


So active management and enforcement clearly benefits fish stocks.  What too many fishermen often ignore is that such active management and enforcement ultimately benefits fishermen, too.


When fish stocks are depleted, fishermen can’t catch as many fish.  That’s true if they are commercial fishermen, who are focused on maximizing landings, or recreational fishermen, who are often more focused on encountering and catching fish, but not necessarily landing them.  

The paper focuses on landings— on yield—and estimates how much yield fishermen lose by management that fails to end overfishing and/or rebuild overfished stocks.


It estimates that, on average, fishermen targeting the stocks for which data was available lose between 3% and 5% of their potential yield to excess fishing pressure, and a very significant 24% to 28% of potential yield to stocks that have not been restored to the target biomass level (assuming that B_target=B_msy, which is generally true for federally managed stocks in the United States, but may not be the case elsewhere).


That being the case, it’s time for fishermen, whether recreational or commercial, to stop trying to derail the fisheries management process, and instead embrace it with open arms.  Even though it may lead to restrictive management measures in the short term, active and effective fisheries management, and equally active and effective enforcement, are probably the most effective guarantors of fishermen’s futures.


Without it, those futures will likely be bleak.  And perhaps very short, as well.