Take things into account

(from the February, 2008 issue of National Fisherman)

One of the most troubling problems with the Magnuson Act as it’s been distorted in the last two reauthorizations is the designed-in inflexibility. This inflexibility, which has been forced by the campaigning of foundation-funded activists, is there to prevent the management system from acting, or reacting, too subjectively, relying on “science” rather than on the informed judgment of the managers.

At first glance that seems a reasonable approach. Science is objective, and supposedly isn’t influenced by extraneous factors. Do what the science says, and the fish – and the fishermen – are going to come out ahead.

But that’s not necessarily so, particularly for fisheries. It certainly is for simple systems, those that the scientists fully understand that are only influenced by identifiable and measurable variables. Scientists can predict, for example, at what temperature distilled water will boil at a particular pressure. It’s a simple system with identifiable and measurable variables.

But, alas, a fishery isn’t a simple system, and certainly not one in which we can identify and measure all of the variables. In fact, we can’t even measure most of those variables we’ve identified, perhaps not accurately, as major. We can estimate the stock size, the landings, a few of the sources of mortality and the recruitment. We don’t have a clue about the intra- or inter-specific interactions, the impacts of other natural or anthropogenic variables, the carrying capacity or much of anything else. As a matter of fact, for many species we don’t even have a solid handle on the complete life cycle.

Given all of the unknowns, how can we possibly predict – or, written another way, model – what is going to happen in a fishery with any degree of accuracy? Quite simply, we can’t.

Fully realizing this, in their wisdom the Members of Congress back in the ‘70s allowed for a significant amount of informed judgment to be applied to the management system. They knew that the scientists didn’t have all of the answers (and I’d be willing to bet that back then they knew that the scientists wouldn’t have them all at any point in the foreseeable future, either). Accordingly, they didn’t make fisheries management the exclusive turf of the scientists, but legislated participation by governmental representatives and members of the public as well.

Unfortunately, since then Congress’ intentions have been subverted by the antis. According to them, fisheries management shouldn’t be accomplished by the judicious application of the “best available” science reinforced with the informed judgment of people with hands-on experience. They want management based on “sophisticated” computer models (the sophistication only necessary because the data that fuels the models is so meager), limited survey results, and the recommendations of generally narrow-focused scientists with on-the-water experience limited, at best, to survey cruises and no real grasp of what the ocean is really like. And, of course, none of them are spending any of their easily earned foundation bucks on generating better data. That would interfere with their campaign to turn fisheries management into the entirely political process that they hypocritically claim they are vehemently against.

(The antis are sure in favor of flexibility when it comes to what they consider political interference. If it’s a handful of fishing businesses being kept alive by elected officials, it’s bad and it’s political. If it’s 300,000 “comments” generated by mouse clicks on propaganda laden anti-fishing websites to put them out of business, it isn’t.)  

But to their credit, Congressmen Walter Jones (NC), Barney Frank (MA) and most recently Timothy Bishop (NY) are sponsoring the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2007 (H.R. 4087). While not addressing all of the ills of fisheries management today, it’s a great start. It returns informed judgment to a system that isn’t making it on science alone, alleviating what has become counter-productive rigidity. Get your Representatives to sign on. It’s critical to your future.

On a sort of related note, Rhode Island fisherman Phil Ruhle was one of NOAA’s five Environmental Heroes in 2003. Agency head Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher said of the recipients “your dedicated efforts and outstanding accomplishments greatly benefit the environment and make our nation a better place for all Americans.” This year Phil was a winner of World Wildlife Fund’s International Smart Gear competition. He’s as good an argument as we have for cloning particular fishermen. So why, I have to ask, wasn’t he reappointed to the New England Council? And why have other, equally qualified fishermen and effective Council members been removed “before their time.”    

Nils E. Stolpe