Rep.
Tom Allen is spearheading an effort to blunt the worst aspects of a
House bill that would roll back the already weak laws that control how
much commercial fishing we allow in the nation's waters. It's a
courageous and necessary stand by a lawmaker from a New England coastal
state with a long, proud fishing history.
The nation's
management system for controlling overfishing is broken, at least in
the Northeast. The basic problem is that we fish too much. That's
driven cod to virtually disappear from our waters, and many other kinds
of fish are on their way to disappearing.
It's no surprise that what we need to do to fix the problem is fish
less and allow the various species to rebuild their numbers. But we
haven't had the self-control to do that, and we are on our way to
fishing out the Gulf of Maine.
Consider this fact: The populations of 18 of New England's different
kinds of fish are in such bad shape they require federally-mandated
"rebuilding plans" to help them recover their numbers. Only two of
those 18 have recovered enough that they are no longer considered
over-exploited.
Part of the problem is that our management system puts the fishing
industry in charge of regulating itself. The country's historic fishing
grounds are divided into eight regions that are overseen by separate
management groups called councils that set catch levels and limits for
the fishermen in each respective region.
Those councils are dominated by the fishing industry; their members are
under enormous pressure to keep their industry fishing, at the expense
of the sustainability of the resource from which they derive their
livelihood. Would you vote to put yourself and your friends and
colleagues out of business by limiting how much they could catch?
Of course not, so councils ignore the advice of scientists who tell
them the number of fish remaining in the region can't withstand the
current or increased levels of fishing and still maintain healthy
populations -- and they allow overfishing.
As Maine's commissioner of Marine Resources put it recently, quoting Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
We have depleted the historic fisheries of the Gulf of Maine because we
have succumbed to greed, self-interest and short-term profit.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act is the overarching federal law governing the
management of our nation's fish populations. It is up for
reauthorization in Congress and now is the time to ensure that our
policies truly protect those fish. The Senate version of the bill
reflects a strong commitment to rebuild fish populations based on
science.
The current version of the act allows the eight regional councils to
set limits on the volume of fish that can be caught as high as two
times the amount recommended by scientists. The new version proposes
serious and enforceable measures to control overfishing. The bill was
unanimously passed by the Senate.
Lamentably, the opposite approach is being championed in the House.
There, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., -- the same lawmaker who led a
recent attack to weaken the Endangered Species Act -- has submitted a
version of Magnuson-Stevens that rolls back the already weak-kneed
conservation provisions of the current act. It is riddled with
loopholes, exemptions and provisions for "flexibility," a euphemism
that generally means lack of enforceability.
Pombo's fishing industry-supported bill would not require regional
councils to set limits on total amounts of fish that can be caught, for
example -- and without that bedrock limitation, any other regulation is
irrelevant.
Furthermore, and deeply disturbing, it allows fisheries management
plans to be exempt from the provisions of the nation's fundamental
environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, which
requires an assessment of the environmental impacts of a proposed
project, consideration of less harmful alternatives to the proposed
action and federal review and public hearings for proposals that
significantly affect the environment.
The act was intended to achieve "productive harmony between man and
nature," as President Richard Nixon put it; exempting fisheries
management will guarantee the opposite.
Passing a strongly conservation-oriented bill like the Senate version
of Magnuson-Stevens will hurt, in the short term. It may put some of
Maine's fishermen out of business. But it is an essential move if we
are to achieve the long-term viability of the fish populations in the
Gulf of Maine, as well as the rest of this country's waters.
And that's what will make it possible for our fishing communities to
have a future. We encourage Rep. Allen to press his fight to make sure
that we manage our fish populations -- and our fishermen -- to ensure
healthy populations of each.
