September 15, 2016 — The following was released today by the American Bluefin Tuna Association, in response to President Obama’s decision to designate a new Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod:

The American Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA) represents 27,000 commercial, charter/headboat and recreational fishermen who fish for Bigeye, Yellowfin, Bluefin and Albacore tuna. ABTA is deeply saddened to hear of President Obama’s decision today to designate a marine monument in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts. All of the aforementioned fish species are found and fished by our fishermen within the newly designated monument.

ABTA’s fishermen have the distinction of employing the most sustainable fishing methods of any oceanic fishery in the U.S.  ABTA’s commercial fishery is the U.S.’s only artisanal fishery, as defined by the United Nations Fish and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) and by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). ABTA fishermen catch one fish at a time, using handgear, with negligible bycatch and its commercial fishermen have the highest record of compliance with fishery regulations of any such fishery in the world.

ABTA’s takeaway from the Administration’s decision to designate an Atlantic marine monument:

1. This decision sends a message to the world that the U.S. does not support its own sustainable fisheries; that the U.S. is more interested in promoting the concept of marine protected areas internationally than it is in protecting its own fishing economy and food supply. Implicit in this action is the message that the U.S. does not trust the body of law that we have created and the democratic institutions we have empowered to enact that law in the stewardship of our oceans.

2. This decision will most definitely result in the U.S. having greater difficulty in utilizing its fishing quota, as set by ICCAT, for certain species fished in this region; in particular, swordfish. There is a very real threat that the U.S. will have to surrender some or all of its unutilized swordfish quota to another ICCAT-member country who may not maintain sustainable fishing practices. This decision will also result in an unnecessary increase in fish imports.

3. The proposed prohibition on all forms of fishing in the monument is simply punitive and completely unnecessary. The Canyons and Seamounts region is in very deep water, from 1,500 to 15,000 ft in depth. Much of the fishing in this region uses surface and sub-surface fishing gear, sustainable fishing methods in which the fishing gear never comes into contact with deep sea coral found on the sea floor. Prohibiting these forms of fishing is tantamount to prohibiting commercial airline flights over Yellowstone National Park for fear that trees will be knocked down.

4. The notion that creating a marine monument will contribute to the sustainability of the marine species found there is a myth. All of the marine species harvested in this region are from healthy fish stocks and are sustainably managed by NOAA. Most of the marine species that are harvested in this region are highly migratory, highly fecund pelagic species whose habitat is the entirety of the tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions of the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas. These species do not preferentially inhabit this region for long periods of time. They swim in and out of the region constantly during certain months and migrate to the east Atlantic, West Africa or the east coast of South America regularly.

A negative message

Abandoning the open, democratic and thoroughly science-based process by which we undertake to establish protections for important marine attributes in favor of a monument established by executive fiat sends a negative message to those U.S. fishermen and shoreside industries who would needlessly pay for this monument by loss of income. It also sends a negative message to the majority of our fishermen who are committed to adhering to the processes and respect for regulation promulgated in accordance with the Magnuson Stevens Act. The decision is a clear denouncement of the democratic institutions that are charged with safeguarding the public interest as it pertains to oceanic marine matters. U.S. fisheries, in particular those fisheries that are found in the proposed area, are already the most highly regulated such fisheries in the world.

Absent strong, verifiable scientific support for such an action, creating a marine monument based upon vague and unsupported concerns “for the future”, can be likened to such expressions as “better safe than sorry” or “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. These are fairly vacuous guidelines for safeguarding the environment and for public policy in general.

David Schalit, Vice President

American Bluefin Tuna Association