Today, fishermen on docks from Maine to Rhode Island have come to hate the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan even more than the New York Yankees.
The message that decorates many a pickup in Gloucester, New Bedford, and other fishing towns reads: “National Marine Fisheries Service: Destroying Fishermen and Their Communities Since 1976.”
The message couldn’t be clearer. New England fishermen are not fond of their regulators.
In fact, the relationships among most groups of stakeholders in the region—fishermen, regulators, politicians, conservation groups, and scientists—have been strained for decades. It’s a circular problem. Politicians pass laws that include increasingly strict requirements to rebuild overfished species. Regulators, including both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fishery Management Council, are then required to meet those targets. As allowable catch levels decline, fishermen howl that their livelihoods are being threatened, rail against environmental organizations for convincing politicians to pass the laws, blame the agency for the cutbacks, and induce their politicians to hold the agency accountable.
The latest act in this drama will play out October 3 when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) convenes a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Other Bay State lawmakers will join Sen. Kerry and Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), in questioning Dr. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of NMFS’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other fisheries stakeholders about the future of the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan, which is currently in the second year of a controversial new system known as sector management, or “sectors.”
We will have another opportunity to change the tone of the groundfish dialogue in Boston on Monday morning. Yet as long as we deal in stereotypes rather than the reality that every story has multiple sides, we’re not going to make any progress. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may “reject the word” compromise, but to put things in terms even he can support, the time has come for the various components of the New England groundfishery to lay down their slings and arrows and start looking for “common ground.”
Fishermen know that if they catch too many fish, they’ll put themselves out of business. So they must be willing to accept sound fisheries science and create their business plans accordingly.
Environmentalists want to see industry thrive today and for future generations. So they must acknowledge that to benefit from a fishery tomorrow, we have to maintain it now.
The agency is bound by laws over which it has no control. But it must also be creative about its ability to find innovative ways to help keep fishermen on the water and be more proactive about explaining its mandates and perspective when such solutions aren’t possible.
Politicians have to seek a balance since they represent a wide array of constituents, and they should ensure the agencies under their purview are carrying out the letter and intent of the laws on the books.
I am not a hopeless optimist. I am as skeptical and jaded and resigned to attrition as anyone who has worked in Washington, D.C. Still, I believe these things are possible.
I see hope in the New England groundfishery. And I still have faith in the Red Sox.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Center for American Progess