September 25 – Globe, Times Miss Boat on Real Issues – The Northeast’s two leading newspapers both editorialized recently on the fragile status of groundfish populations, especially cod, on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, both the Boston Globe and New York Times missed an opportunity to emphasize conservation measures and explain the great risk for fish and fishermen if we weaken those protections.

September 26 – Opening the Closed Areas – A bet we can’t afford to take? – On Thursday, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) will meet for the first time since the Secretary of Commerce declared the New England groundfish fishery, which includes species such as cod, haddock, and flounder, a disaster. One of the ideas currently being discussed is opening groundfish closed areas that have been closed to fishing for the past 15 years; a proposition that could be the final straw causing the collapse of the fisheries in the Gulf of Maine.

September 28 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, September 28 – In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, NEFMC moves to open closed areas; John Bullard reverses his decision on a seasonal gillnetting closure; NOAA proposes exempting scallopers from accountability measures on yellowtail bycatch; a report highlights the culture of distrust between fishermen and regulators; the Center for American Progress explains stock assessments; NOAA finds deep water coral hotspots on Georges Bank; the Boston Globe exposes problems with underweight seafood sold to New England consumers.

September 10 – New Study Shows Overfishing Costs Southeast and Gulf Regions Millions Per Year – By Lee Crockett of the Pew Environment Group. There’s an old saying that a penny saved is a penny earned. This sound financial advice is equally true for management of U.S. ocean fish resources. As I’ve said before, conserving our ocean fish populations is a prudent economic investment. The converse is also true: Overfishing is bad economic policy.

September 14 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, September 14 – This week in Fish Talk in the News: A disaster declaration for the New England groundfish fishery; fishermen oppose an increase in the minimum landing size for conch; an increase in seafood-borne illness in Maine; a new study of the importance of forage fish; NMFS denies a request to alter the gillnetting closure intended to protect porpoises; Shaw’s expands its sustainable seafood choices; a study suggests seal culling wouldn’t help fish; John Bullard continues his public listening sessions; and the US Court of Appeals upholds catch shares for West Coast groundfish.

September 6 – Courts Can’t Fix What’s Broken With Groundfish – On Wednesday, a panel of three Federal Circuit Court judges heard arguments from various parties regarding why the 2010 amendment to the New England Groundfish Management Plan, Amendment 16, should either be thrown out or upheld.

September 7 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, September 7 – In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, the US Court of Appeals hears arguments on catch shares; a tagging derby raises money for tuna research; lobster overproduction may be linked to warmer waters; Michael Conathan argues for a new start for New England groundfish; NEFMC announces the agenda for its next meeting; bonito venture farther north; the Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby opens; Menino brings New Bedford fish to farmers markets; and trawling may influence underwater canyon morphology.

This post was originally published on CLF’s fisheries blog, TalkingFish.org.

This post refers to an oral argument held in the First Circuit Court of Appeals on September 5, 2012.  To listen to an audio recording of the argument, click here.

On Wednesday, a panel of three Federal Circuit Court judges heard arguments from various parties regarding why the 2010 amendment to the New England Groundfish Management Plan, Amendment 16 as it is known, should either be thrown out or upheld. Among the folks asking the court to throw out the amendment were the cities of New Bedford and Gloucester, whose mayors sat prominently in the room. I was representing Conservation Law Foundation’s interests to the panel and advancing our view that Amendment 16 was both crucial at the time because of the looming catch limit reductions as well as being well within the law.  A decision is expected shortly.

The judges were clearly puzzled during the argument by the same question that has puzzled many of us repeatedly over the course of this two-plus year legal fight: what were the appellants’ motives in bringing this challenge and what did they hope to get from the court even if they were successful?

And why New Bedford and Gloucester? Their Council representatives all voted for the Amendment 16 package even though—like most everyone involved—they strongly objected to parts of Amendment 16. What do those two cities gain by throwing the management system into chaos by their judicial challenges? Gross revenues of most New Bedford-based boats and from all New Bedford groundfish have climbed dramatically under Amendment 16. To a lesser extent, Gloucester is also better off in gross revenues. The Port of Portland certainly has suffered in recent years, but they did not challenge Amendment 16.  The Court clearly wanted to understand the larger context of the challenge.

The cities argued that they were in court to stop consolidation but, wait a minute, haven’t fishing operations based in Gloucester and New Bedford accounted for a lot of the consolidation? Were they there protecting the interests of the small boat coastal fleet?  No one has ever seriously accused New Bedford of being a champion of the regional small boat fleet in the past although it would be welcome now.

And why go to court when it is patently obvious to many of us that some components of the coastal day boat fleet remain at serious risk until near-shore groundfish populations fully recover, which may not happen soon enough, if ever. There are any number of immediate management actions that New Bedford and Gloucester could be championing at the Council to support survival of day boats; their silence on such matters is striking in that forum.

To me, it didn’t seem like the panel members ever got a convincing answer from New Bedford or Gloucester’s lawyer. I suspect there are a variety of motives behind this effort: fishermen who can show that Amendment 16 irreparably hurt their businesses and ways of life, political ideologues advancing some romantic, largely inaccurate notion of the business of fishing , and business interests who are somehow economically advantaged by keeping the groundfishery in chaos. The political motives may be as simple as press ink: a fish fight almost always makes the front pages, even if it is … well, a fish story.

The court is going to do what it does; as one of the judges observed dryly: “statutory construction issues are not without interest….” A judicial setback of Amendment 16 is unlikely but even if that should happen, no one has seriously proposed a better alternative. What really troubles me about all of this activity is the distraction of it all. Some fishermen are really suffering for circumstances they did not bring down on themselves and strategic infrastructure like the Portland Fish Exchange are hanging on by a thread.

I have been doing this sort of legal work for more than thirty years and I can promise one thing: nothing, let me repeat, nothing that comes from the First Circuit Court of Appeals will make any sort of a difference to those troubles.

The only thing that will make a difference is commitment to a process that abandons slogans and propaganda and focuses on solutions. There is a lot of talent and interest throughout the region in solving some of these problems and there is no question that the region is at some sort of tipping point.

With New Bedford and Gloucester on board, it now seems that there is broad consensus that the small scale, mostly coastal boat fleet may be at a structural disadvantage that needs to be corrected and that time is of the essence. Rather than fund lawyers, why couldn’t New Bedford and Gloucester lead some problem-solving workshops that would tackle these questions for which they profess so much passion.  We don’t even have to wait for the Council to guide the process.

A New Bedford trawler leaves port.

“Groundfish resources off New England have experienced significant changes in abundance during the past 30 years and have now fallen to all time record lows.” 

-  Ronald Brown, Secretary of Commerce. Declaration of Disaster Affecting the New England Fishing Industry – March 18, 1994

“…I don’t hear so much in New England that ‘there are plenty of fish, our scientists got it wrong’…right now what I hear  – and what I see in the eyes of fishermen  – is people are saying ‘we can’t find codfish’ and they are really worried about their ability to stay in business…”

-  John Bullard, NOAA Northeast Administrator. MPBN Radio Interview – August 29, 2012

Why does this current groundfish crisis seem so familiar? As the populations of New England’s cod, haddock and flounder have continued to decline, it’s not surprising that the number of fishing boats chasing them have declined. The business of consolidation within any industry is often a fact of doing business and we know that consolidation has been happening in the New England groundfish fleet for decades. So far, the New England Fishery Management Council has avoided any serious approach to addressing fleet diversity and consolidation as it kicks the can down the road on the development of Amendment 18, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has been willing to watch from the sidelines. Some members of the New England Congressional delegation are trying to reduce the potentially devastating economic blow to fishing families and coastal communities by seeking federal disaster assistance, and for their good intentions and hard work, are getting a bizarre and negative counter reaction. And, NOAA appears to look for grossly wrong-headed short-term fixes, such as the concept of an accelerated effort to open some of the best remaining habitat areas in the Gulf of Maine to increased trawling and dredging.

Consolidation, fleet diversity, maintaining our region’s fishing heritage, federal assistance and creating new economic opportunities for fishing families are all important and serious issues, but they continue to avoid the core problem. The bottom line is that when there are no fish, there will not be a fishing industry.

What NOAA can do now is to exhibit leadership: stop looking towards actions which would heave the decades-long saga of the New England groundfishery into the next episode and, instead, focus on restoring the fish populations which are the basis for the jobs, resources and tremendous benefits which we all need and enjoy. Don’t wait for the elections and for Congress to sort itself out. Don’t seek to cheat on “inaccessible” fish stocks by opening closed areas. Catch limits which are not based on scientific data may be more politically palatable, but will only continue to mask the simple fact that the region’s best fishing captains aren’t finding fish because the fish are not there.

Here’s a proposal to NOAA: Follow the law. Tell the truth. Do the right thing.

Realistic catch limits are based on scientific data and incorporate a responsible amount of precaution. NOAA can establish rebuilding timelines which create a much higher likelihood of restoring fish populations. Ending overfishing is not just a legal requirement but a best management practice.

In addition to strict scientifically set catch limits, the most basic component for healthy fish populations and ocean wildlife is to protect and maintain quality habitat. This is an area of management which NOAA can effectively control. NOAA needs to come to grips with the reality that better protection and restoration of degraded habitat is not only integral to the recovery of fish populations, but serves to create the long term resilience that fish populations need when the more unpredictable effects of climate change hit. Existing habitat areas and areas already closed to bottom trawling and dredging, juvenile groundfish in nursery areas and essential fish habitat are building blocks for restoring the fishery. This is a Basic 101 Management issue.

Fishing families and coastal communities deserve any help they can get in an economic crisis. Over a year ago the Department of Commerce deployed Economic Development and Assistance Teams to assess economic impacts to New England communities. Those reports are gathering dust. High-level interagency coordination helped develop solutions in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and they can do that on a respectable scale in New England. Support communities with the available programs of the Departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development, the Small Business Administration and community grants.

August 29 – Fisheries Scientists across the Yellow Line? – In discussions about how to set catch limits for yellowtail flounder, some scientists may have crossed the line separating pure science from policy making.

August 31 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, August 31 – In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, a draft disaster relief package for the Northeast groundfishery; the mayor of New Bedford asks NEFMC not to reduce the catch limit for yellowtail flounder; dogfish receives MSC certification; NMFS adopts a new scallop stock assessment technique; warmer waters may be changing the distribution of New England fish stocks; the Ocean Health Index gives US oceans a low score for food production; and Coast Guard safety inspections for fishing vessels become mandatory this fall.

August 31 – A Proposal for NOAA – Why does this current crisis seem so familiar? As the populations of New England’s cod, haddock and flounder have continued to decline, it’s not surprising that the number of fishing boats chasing them have declined.

August 24 – Court Order Sets Clock Ticking for Action on River Herring – In a few weeks the New England Fishery Management Council will get a letter, probably a long one, explaining why the coming year will bring big changes to the way the council handles severely depleted river herring and shad.

August 24 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, August 24 – In this week’s Fish Talk in the News: NOAA asks Congress to keep NERO in Gloucester; the Boston Globe supports John Bullard; New England fishing is the deadliest profession in the country; the South Shore Seafood Exchange grows; rising seal numbers cause concern; a gold rush for New England conch; river herring return to Upper Mystic Lake; and a cooking competition raises awareness of local, sustainable seafood.

This post was originally published on TalkingFish.org.

Despite its caption, the “Transparent and Science-Based Fishery Management Act of 2012,” H.R. 6350, introduced by U.S. Representative John Runyun of New Jersey just hours before Congress adjourned for summer recess on August 2^nd is a misguided piece of legislation.  It brings political interference and micro-management back into fisheries management, thwarts science-based decisions, costs jobs and any hope of increased prosperity for hundreds of fishing families, eliminates government and fisherman accountability for a public resource, and reverses the painful progress and sacrifice that has been made in recent years to restore many of America’s once-bountiful fisheries.

New England certainly doesn’t need this bill.  All it would do here is to pull fishing families and businesses back into the tar pit of mismanagement and economic and social decline from which they have been struggling to escape for the past two decades. Whatever Representative Runyan’s intentions might be, the only outcome this legislation guarantees is more chaos and productivity losses in this nation’s fisheries.

In 2006, important accountability provisions were introduced into the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and recent reviews of fisheries management indicate that they are working to rebuild fish stocks. Despite this success, Representative Runyun is trying to un-do these provisions. In 2006, 28 % of the nation’s fisheries for which data was available were overfished; in those fisheries with adequate data, 26% of them were subject to overfishing. By June 2012, just one or two years after the new Magnuson measures took effect, 23% remained in an overfished condition and overfishing was down to 17%. Not great after 35 years of federal management but headed the right way. Unfortunately, New England’s fish stocks–the poster child for what happens with “management flexibility”—remained among the worst in the nation.

New England managers have destroyed hundreds of good fishing businesses and plummeted cod populations to levels never seen in history by catering to short term economic interests at the expense of long term profitability.  In the New England groundfish fishery, overfishing and mismanagement have resulted in significant revenue losses. If stocks were at managed at sustainable levels, current groundfish revenues could be three times greater – infusing New England’s economy with nearly $170 million in additional dockside revenues compared to 2010 revenues. In New England, we’ve seen the human and ecological damage caused by ”flexible fishery management.” It doesn’t work. Not for the fish and not for the fishermen..

If Congressman Runyun cared about fisheries, he would lead the charge to secure adequate federal appropriations for better research, better stock assessments, more data, better assessment technology research and development, and innovative gear research by fishermen, not file backward laws. Unfortunately, he appears to be more interested in demagoguery and ideology than he is in solving real fisheries problems. From where I sit, his legislation is a political distraction to the real work that needs to be done —  restoring sustainable fisheries and communities in New England.