U. S. Fisheries Update

by Carl Safina, PhD

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In my article in Issues, I documented how overfishing and poor management had devastated the U.S. commercial fishing industry, and called for a major overhaul of the federal legislation that guides fisheries management. Now, thanks to a newly revised Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act passed by Congress last fall and signed by the President in October, many of these problems have been addressed. If properly implemented, the new revisions should do much for recovery and sustainable management of the nation's fisheries.

The basic flaws of the Magnuson Act were its failures to: 1) define and prohibit overfishing, 2) direct fishery managers to rebuild depleted populations, 3) protect habitat for fishery resources, 4) reduce wasteful and harmful "bycatch" of non-target organisms, 5) consider predator-prey or other important ecological relationships. The significantly reformed Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (now called Magnuson-Stevens) addresses many of these flaws and contains some new key new provisions.

Fisheries have gained increasing attention. The National Marine Fisheries Service estimates that fisheries depletions cost $8 billion annually, and 300,000 jobs. Taxpayer-financed bailouts to U. S. fisheries total about $85 million in the last 2 years. In response, an informal federation of some 125 environmental, fishing, scientific, and recreational organizations called the Marine Fish Conservation Network joined to overhaul the Fisheries Act (and thereby fisheries management). Many but not all of the reforms they initiated are now law.

Among the most significant is a one-word change in the definition of "Optimum Yield," which fishery managers are directed to use as a goal. The previous definition was, "the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as modified by any relevant social, economic, or ecological factor." Modifications due to short-term economic factors had frequently led to overfishing, with consequent depletion and dislocation. The new definition substitutes the word "reduced" for "modified." In other words, fishery managers may no longer allow catches exceeding what the fish population is capable of producing on a sustainable basis. Further, entirely new language directs managers to rebuild depleted fish populations within specified time frames, or forfeit management authority to the Department of Commerce.

New language also requires fishery managers, for the first time, to minimize and reduce mortality of non-target fish caught incidentally. Such "bycatch," much of which is now discarded dead, accounts for nearly a third of all landings worldwide. Shrimp fisheries have the highest ratio of bycatch to targeted catch, and in the Gulf of Mexico, where four pounds of small and juvenile fish are discarded for every pound of shrimp kept, the new law ends a prohibition on any regulation that would have required use of bycatch reduction devices. Additionally, the law now enables the fishery management councils to require such devices.

Another first is a provision directing fishery managers to identify, for each fishery they manage, "essential fish habitat," defined as "waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity."

No progress was made to delete language preventing the United States from unilaterally setting more conservative catch quotas in its own waters in cases where the U. S. is granted an allocation through an international agreement. This presently affects catches of bluefin tuna and swordfish, both of which are severely depleted, due largely to overfishing in U. S. waters. The fishing industry had fiercely guarded this language, making improvements politically infeasible.

Nonetheless, many in the scientific, conservation, management, and fishing communities believe that implementation of the new changes may usher in an era of fish recovery, and increasing social and economic options.