An independent, top-to-bottom review of any government agency—especially a fisheries agency—should be a good thing, right? Although a recent analysis of Maine’s Department of Marine Resources prepared by three out-of- state veterans from fisheries management and the seafood industry backgrounds, effectively illustrates the condition of the patient, the medicine they prescribe is both wrong-footed and wrong-headed.
The most telling finding of the experts is tragically obvious from a quick look the graphs at the end of the report. The pages of graphs document 50 years of landings for the 33 major commercial species that Maine fishermen harvest. The stunning diversity of Maine’s commercially valuable marine species, although underscored by these landing data, did not appear to attract much notice from the authors in comparison with other fishing regions. The authors’ analysis focused on distinguishing between Maine’s commercially landed species primarily harvested in state waters from those harvested in federal waters. Among these 33 species—everything from the all important lobster, cod and herring to the more humble worm, periwinkle and wolffish—the data demonstrates a depressing pattern of what the authors describe as “stock increases, followed by increased landings followed by a collapse.” Boom and bust, in other words, in fishery after fishery—with the exception of lobsters, which has boomed during the past 20 years of increasing harvests.
Interestingly, the record of stock collapse from overfishing among species harvested from Maine state waters is about the same as from those species caught in federal waters—in other words, neither state nor federal fishery managers have enviable records, where the vast majority of commercial species have been fished to depletion in both state and federal waters. The authors, however, take heart that the 2010 federal management plans, which now prohibit overfishing “will generate increasing economic activity and job growth based on future landings,” although they believe this increase may occur in other New England states where Maine boats land their catches due to such incentives as fuel credits, enhanced infrastructure, processing capacity, and permission for trawlers to land lobsters, which is illegal in Maine. They suggest that without changing these policies Maine is “missing an opportunity to participate in the economic benefits of these sustainably managed fisheries,” without considering whether dragging for lobsters might actually diminish the sustainability of Maine’s successful lobster fishery.
The authors’ troubling and nearsighted prescription for the state’s fishery managers is to develop specific fishery management plans with rebuilding targets and hard numbers to increase the economic output from the state’s abundant marine resource sector.
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