Fisheries scientist John Shepherd once noted, Counting fish is like counting trees, except they are invisible and they keep moving.
And they eat each other, adds Eric Schwaab, former administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
As if this didn’t make fisheries management challenging enough, the complex relationships between fishing groups and managers could be described in similar terms as groups stake their legitimate claims to harvest a limited number of fish that we would almost always want to know more about.
The truth is that all sectors of the fishing communitycommercial, recreational and recreational charter operations, and the local economies that support and rely on themhave a clear stake in a healthy fishery that sustains fishermen and anglers for the long haul. The most effective fisheries management requires the participation from all.
As Congress reauthorizes the Magnuson-Stevens Actthe federal law that governs U.S. fisheriesthey should develop mechanisms that encourage competing stakeholder groups to put their differences aside and work together to fulfill their mutual, long-range objectives.
We must embrace new approaches and turn confrontation and mutual suspicion into dialogue and cooperation.
Consider, for instance, the central coast of California, where by 2000, measures to protect and rebuild rockfish populations depleted by trawling had so constrained the fishery that the Secretary of Commerce declared the fishery a federal economic disaster. Entire port communities hung in the balance: fishermen, processors, fuel suppliers and all the ancillary businesses that served them.
This seems like a simple debateprotect the fish or the fishermen. But it wasn’t. A unique coalition of community leaders, federal fisheries managers and fishermen joined with The Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Fund to develop a creative solution.
The Conservancy acquired a number of permits, which we then leased to local fishermen. In doing so, it helped shoulder some of the risk for the fishermen and gave them the opportunity and support they needed develop new and different ways to reduce their bycatch of depleted species.
Working with coastal communities to secure these permits, this partnership is now helping stabilize local fishing economies by keeping a steady supply of fish coming across the dock.
What happened in California serves as testimony to the fact that participants in cooperative management develop a sense of ownership in the resource, coming to view it as a long-term asset that must be protected and sustained. Stakeholders are more invested in the management plans they helped formulate, which improves compliance. And, because stakeholders take responsibility for many aspects of management, the resulting plans encourage non-federal investment in management to supplement what is now largely borne by the taxpayer. That’s especially valuable to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which manages a shrinking budget.
Also, as our recent study for the Conservation Leadership Council states, cooperative management approaches are also more likely to utilize new technologiessuch as electronic monitoring and reportingthat are helping fisheries managers better track fishing activity.
Unfortunately, the cooperative approach undertaken in Californiaand in other fisheries discussed in our paperis the exception, not the rule. In too many cases, fishery management is mired in politics and litigation, short on resources, lacking in accountability, and too slow to respond to developing conditions. Far too often the resulting decisions fail fish and fail fishermen. And while cooperative management isn’t appropriate in all instances, it has proven to be a highly effective alternative to the rigid, top-down regulatory regime.
Today, management councils and fishery stakeholders are forced to break new ground each time they explore the collaborative processes. As Congress rewrites the highly successful Magnuson-Stevens Act, they can help build on the cooperative management model by providing clearer guidance on how the process should work and create greater flexibility to make use of 21st century technologies. The National Marine Fisheries Service can also provide greater clarity by helping stakeholders re-define their respective roles and responsibilities within the management system and by offering clearer instructions, technical assistance and grant funding.
2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.