Inflexible: What fishing advocates say

February 07, 2007 08:59 am

— The federal fisheries law enacted last week does not include the necessary flexibility to protect fishermen from further economic damage, local fishing advocates said. Conservationists said the law closes a major loophole that allowed overfishing for several years after regional rebuilding management plans went into effect.
Amid a flurry of other legislation during a busy final day in session Friday, Congress passed a reauthorization of the 30-year-old Magnuson-Stevens Act. The law, last reauthorized in 1996, governs how fisheries are managed in federal waters, which stretch from 3 miles to 200 miles from shore.
Vito Calomo, executive director of the Massachusetts Fisheries Recovery Commission, said the bill will lead to a consolidation of the fleet because the law does not allow changing the restrictions on recovering fish stocks even if data shows the health of fish stocks to be improving.
For the smaller boats, already hurting from restrictions by the limited days allowed at sea and the amount of fish they can bring in, the restrictions keep them from fishing rather than pointing them toward healthier stocks or allowing them to go further out to sea.
“Within 10 years, you’ll only see about 10 vessels own the whole fishery,” Calomo said. “It’ll be larger vessels that can fish inshore and offshore. They’ll have all the permits.”
The Conservation Law Foundation, a New England conservation organization, applauded changes in the law it said will end overfishing of stocks that have been identified as overfished.
Roger Fleming, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, said the current law ordered regional fisheries councils to end overfishing without a specific time limit. The reauthorization states that overfishing must end no more than two years after a species has been identified as overfished.
“However, from our perspective, a significant omission is an accountability mechanism” for councils that allow overfishing anyway, Fleming said.
Congressmen John Tierney, D-Salem, and Barney Frank, D-Newton, originally supported the bill as it worked its way through the House of Representatives this summer, however, both spoke and voted against the bill early Saturday morning.
“Though the bill contains some positive elements, it unfortunately does not include a crucial flexibility provision allowing an extension of several years beyond the usual 10-year period for rebuilding weakened fisheries in cases when meeting the normal deadline would impose excessive economic hardship on fishing communities,” Frank said in a statement.
“Barney and I were both on the floor when this came up and had conversations with people who said we will have the opportunity to address some of those issues,” Tierney said.
Frank and California Republican Richard Pombo sponsored the original reauthorization bill, which contained some flexibility measures that were ultimately stripped after the election. A version the Senate had passed Thursday became the blueprint, Frank said.
“I have long felt that a stricter requirement for ending overfishing on the front end of a 10-year rebuilding period would be acceptable if it was paired up with flexibility on the back end,” Frank said.
Under current law and the reauthorization, once a target is set in a rebuilding plan, it remains the goal through the plan’s 10-year lifespan.
Besides the focus on overfishing, Fleming said the new bill creates a Science and Statistical Committee on each regional fishery council to recommend target catch limits that would allow depleted species to rebound.