January 27, 2014 — It was with great relief that I saw that one of the amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson Act) offered by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings deals with one of the most prejudicial examples of misnaming that has penalized commercial and recreational fishermen and our fish stocks for years.
This proposed amendment and a handful of others are contained in the draft Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act (available at http://naturalresources.house.gov/magnusonstevens/). This draft legislation addresses a number of the concerns that independent fishermen – both recreational and commercial – and the businesses that depend on them have had since the original intent of the Magnuson Act has been so severely distorted by a handful of foundations, the powerful agenda-driven ENGOs that they support and the fishing organizations that have been co-opted by them.
In subsequent blogs I will be addressing some of the other draft changes.
Currently the Magnuson Act defines any stock of fish that is not at a high enough level to produce the maximum sustainable yield (msy) as being “overfished.” This is regardless of whether it is fishing that has reduced the stock to this level, or of whether cutting back on or curtailing fishing will return that stock to a “non-overfished” condition.
This law is without question the most important piece of legislation that deals with domestic fisheries management. Not only is it important because it controls the management of virtually all of the fisheries in our federal waters; it also has an overwhelming influence on the management and the managers of the fisheries in state waters (generally within 3 miles of the coast). Considering the pervasive influence of the Magnuson Act on the management of our domestic fisheries, to suggest that it’s equating “not enough fish” to “overfished” contributes to a blame-it-all-on-fishing mindset is a monumental understatement.
Obviously this is an ongoing public relations nightmare for the domestic fishing industry (and an effective weapon for anti-fishing individuals and organizations). But more than that, the almost completely fishing-centric focus on marine resource management that it is responsible for has had an undue influence on federal fisheries policy for most of two decades.
Read the full opinion piece at the American Fisheries Society