November 20, 2013 — The message of Mr. Lang and Mr. Rothschild was simple: The Magnuson-Stevens Act does not have to be re-authorized — a process now underway in Congress — it has to be rewritten. Mr. Lang praised Ms. Brady for “tracing the lineage,” following the money from powerful conservation groups to the creation of lopsided policy, a connection that had facilitated inaccurate science and removed the components of the original national standard that protected the economies of fishing communities.
“There is no reason we cannot have a conservationist system based on transparency. We are going to have a [National Marine Fisheries Service] that’s transparent, that reforms from within. It’s the key issue in this year’s reauthorization,” Mr. Lang said. “The intent of Congress was a balance.” He stressed the importance of vastly improving the science of counting fish. “We have to have the science.”
Professor Rothschild boiled down the Magnuson-Stevens Act to three national standards: “Don’t overfish,” obtain the “best science,” and “take into account the social fabric” of fishing communities. “We want optimum yield balanced with the needs of the community,” something he said current policy is not permitting, but which is possible given the facts.
Dr. Rothschild said that the total allowable catches of all the regulated species that make up the Northeast fisheries add up to 140,000 tons per year, while current regulation permit only 35,000 tons to be harvested. “We are wasting fish, and losing tens of millions of dollars.” He said that what is being called “the best available science” is woefully inaccurate. “We are committed to the reauthorization not going forward without rewriting. We have to rewrite it, and we need a national debate that will show how wrong management is,” he said.
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