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More on Magnuson

Summary

We delve a little more deeply into the nitty gritty of what has come to be accepted as fisheries management in the United States today. We discuss the impacts of inflexibility not just on the fishermen, but on overall coastal development, pointing out that not enough landings in particular fisheries can too easily lead to the further inappropriate development of our coastlines. From there we move into a consideration of what has become one of the greatest fallacies of modern fisheries management: that a complex of similar yet competing species of fish can all be present at a level that will yield the Maximum Sustainable Yield if fishing can be effectively controlled. And finally, in The Oil Slick we discuss the connections between the Pew Charitable Trusts’ investments in the media and the growth of the “blame it all on fishing” movement.

“Congress intended to give your agency (the National Marine Fisheries Service) flexibility to deal with situations where management decisions would have disproportionate economic impacts or are subject to other unexpected factors….  It is clear that the Secretary of Commerce, acting through NMFS, has the authority and the legal precedent to use flexibility in ensuring that conservation goals are met without causing serious harm to fishing communities.” (Letter on summer flounder from Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and Congressman Frank Pallone to Dr. William Hogarth at NMFS dated 10/13/06)

We’ve written a fair amount in the last several months about the critical need for flexibility in fisheries management. With our scientists’ lack of knowledge of what’s going on in the oceans, with the lack of precision in fisheries statistics, with the importance of commercial and recreational landings to fishing communities up and down our coasts, and with the real estate development pressures that are threatening those communities, it’s sheer folly to insist on “by the numbers” management. This isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that the “numbers” are in actuality statistics that are so imprecise that the scientists who employ them are loath to identify them as statistics (while publications in virtually every other branch of science indicate when statistics are being used by following those statistics with some indication of their precision, this is very seldom the case in fisheries). This isn’t a problem caused by a lack of knowledge; rather, it’s caused by a lack of understanding of how exact – or inexact – that knowledge actually is.

Needless to say, the antis are more than willing to exploit this to the detriment of the fishermen. Hence the so-called “precautionary approach,” which, they would have it, requires that whenever uncertainty exists, managers should err in favor of the fish, not the harvesters. This seems to be a reasonable approach when it is couched, as it almost always is, in terms of saving the fish from extinction and saving the fishermen from an ineffectual management system and their own lack of self-control. And, the argument goes, when the fish stocks “come back,” the fishermen will once again be able to harvest them, all the while blessing the so-called conservationists and their superior knowledge and insights.

When the stocks “come back,” will the fishing communities?

But is this likely to be the case? After several or more years of severely reduced landings or of no landings at all, and were the stocks that the fishing businesses had depended upon to return to some (often imagined and always overly optimistic) former level of abundance, what would the outcome most likely be? Well, if those fishing businesses had been anywhere other than, perhaps, Alaska, they would be long gone – and where they once were, we’d have a new infusion of condominiums and tourist shops. That’s the reality in virtually all of our coastal communities, from Portland, Maine to Seattle, Washington. And development pressures are such that it’s highly unlikely that a fishing business once gone is ever going to be replaced.

"The development boom transforming North Carolina's inland coast is dismantling the state's seafood industry, which already was collapsing under falling prices, rising fuel costs and shrinking catches. More than 34,000 homes and thousands of private boat slips are planned along the sounds, rivers and estuaries in areas once prized more for their bounty of shrimp, crabs, oysters and flounder than their waterfront views.

Run-down fish houses, which buy seafood straight off the boats and sell it to wholesalers all over the country, are making way for condos that sell for a half-million dollars and up. The workman's docks where fishermen tie up are being replaced by private marinas where pleasure boaters sometimes pay $100,000 for a permanent slip."(From Development hurts ailing fishing industry, K. Collins and J. Price, The News Observer, 07/16/06 http://www.newsobserver.com/1233/story/461206.html  

If it were simply a matter of fishermen in particular fisheries taking several years off and then coming back to work, inflexible, by-the-numbers management might in some instances be acceptable and might actually allow some stocks to build up more rapidly. Realistically speaking, that isn’t anything approaching what would happen. In any coastal community we can think of, waterfront property isn’t going to be allowed to exist for any extended period of time without producing significant revenues. So when the fishermen finally got back to fishing, the fish might be there in greater numbers, but the docks, the chandleries, the ice plants, the gear/tackle shops, the marine railroads and all of the other infrastructure that it takes to support an active fishery will be gone, their owners having given in to relentless development pressures (as is happening far too often today even without the “help” of the supposedly selfless conservationists.)

At the same time, and in spite of the antis’ ongoing campaign to convince the public otherwise, no species of fish or shellfish has ever been driven to extinction by fishing pressure. This includes fisheries that have been pursued in some instances for several centuries with no or minimal regulation. And even when they temporize, changing the imminent threat from “extinction” to “economic extinction,” it’s awfully difficult to come up with actual examples. As a matter of fact, none of the species making up the New England groundfish fishery, the supposed poster child for mismanaged, overfished and otherwise abused fisheries, are close to approaching that level, all still generating significant landings and significant income.

It’s about much more than the fish

It’s our most sincere hope that these “selfless conservationists” and their supporters in Congress have been operating at this point without realizing the harsh economic realities that will result from their overblown doom-and-gloom pronouncements, but perhaps they do. Perhaps they confuse real-world people who have productive jobs and real-world businesses not dependant on tax-exempt foundation largesse with their own colleagues and their own organizations. Perhaps they don’t realize that not everyone can avail him- or herself of a regular sabbatical – with pay, of course - every few years. Perhaps they don’t realize that the paychecks that many of us take home are actually based on producing things, not on stopping things from being produced.

Or perhaps they do have a realistic grasp of what’s going on, but they’re far more interested in pushing their anti-fishing agenda and see nothing wrong with miles and miles of oceanfront MacMansions and back-bay condominiums.

Our Congress, on the other hand, has recognized the importance of maintaining our fishing communities. The eighth National Standard controlling the content of federal fishery management plans set forth in the Magnuson-Stevens Act states “conservation and management measures shall, consistent with the conservation requirements of this Act (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities in order to (A) provide for the sustained participation of such communities, and (B) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.”

It’s obvious that the “sustained participation” of fishing communities in particular fisheries is being threatened by slavish, court-mandated adherence to inflexible management programs. The managers are forced to set rigid biological targets and rigid timelines for reaching them, and when the targets can’t be reached within the allocated time, regardless of whether this is due to fishing or some other factor out of the control of the fishermen, the fishermen – and the communities that they support – are expected to pay. And if it appears as if they won’t, the “conservationists,” bankrolled by multi-billion dollar foundations, will go to court to force them to. It’s happened in fishery after fishery, and until the Magnuson-Stevens Act is changed, it's going to continue to happen.

Fish stocks can’t all be at optimal levels at the same time

This situation points up yet another major problem with how we are supposed to be managing our fisheries. According to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, both as written/amended and as interpreted, when “recovered,” all of the stocks under management are supposed to be at a level that will produce the Maximum Sustainable Yield or MSY (defined as the largest long-term average catch or yield that can be taken from a stock or stock complex). This is generally accepted to be at a level of from 30% to 50% of an unfished stock, a seemingly reasonable level and certainly a desirable one. But how reasonable is it – particularly in the context of having every species/stock complex at that level concurrently?

One of the problems with ocean issues in general and fisheries issues in particular is the average person’s unfamiliarity with what’s going on out in the ocean, which to most of us is an environment as alien as the surface of the moon. To partially obviate that problem, let’s consider a more familiar system instead.

A terrestrial example

Imagine you owned a fenced-in pasture that could support a certain biomass of grazing critters. For the sake of the illustration, assume that this would be 500 horses or 300 cattle or 2000 sheep or 100 bison at any particular time. These numbers would each represent the pasture’s carrying capacity for one of the four species (the carrying capacity is determined by one or several limiting factors – those critical factors that limit the size of a population). Could your pasture support 500 horses, 300 cattle, 2000 sheep and 100 bison at the same time? Of course not, nor could it simultaneously support half of those horses, cows, sheep and bison. You’d have too many grazers and not enough grass.

If everything was percolating along exactly the way it should, if there was enough rain and it didn’t get too hot or too cool and you kept away the predators, you might be able to maintain a quarter of the sheep, the horses, the cattle and the bison. How about adding another species? Not likely, because the cattle, horses, sheep and bison that were there would already be eating all of the edible plants that could be eaten each year, drinking all the drinkable water, using all of the available space, or exhausting whichever other factor was limiting.

How about if one of the species, because of optimum environmental conditions, has a banner breeding year? Instead of 25 bison being born, you’d have 150. If those bison were better at competing than the horses, sheep and cattle, you’d end up with more of them and fewer horses, cattle and sheep.       

How does this apply to fisheries management? If the managers are doing it right, and if the fishermen and Mom Nature and everyone else are complying, you can have enough fish of a particular species to allow you to harvest the MSY for year after year. You could probably have a number of different species from the same area at MSY levels, as long as those species have either no or minimal effect on each other and no environmental varies get too out of kilter.

Unfortunately, with many of the fish species that are sought by commercial and/or recreational fishermen, the species that are the primary focus of management, that isn’t the case. They consume the same prey species (which tend to be anything they can catch and fit in their mouths) and will often feed on each other. If we take the inshore/nearshore waters of the Mid-Atlantic as an example, we have a number of species that spend time in the same areas during much of the year and have diets that overlap significantly. According to Bigelow’s and Schroeder’s Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, summer flounder, weakfish, bluefish, striped bass, dogfish, black sea bass, monkfish and barndoor skates all feed on smaller fish and squid (see table #1 below). They all share the same chunk of ocean at the same time, they all are chasing the same prey species and, given the opportunity, they’ll all feed on each other. They are the oceanic equivalent of bison, cattle, sheep and horses.

Table 1

There isn’t any way that the waters of the mid-Atlantic are going to simultaneously support adequate levels of each of these competing species to allow them all to be harvested at the MSY level, particularly considering that optimal conditions for each are unlikely to coincide. There won’t be enough food, there won’t be enough space, and they’ll all end up eating each other. But that’s what the Magnuson Act unrealistically requires. And the Act – or how it’s being interpreted – puts all of the responsibility if the MSY level isn’t reached, or if the rebuilding schedule to get there isn’t met, on the shoulders of the recreational and commercial harvesters.

And how real are fisheries “targets?”

Then there’s the MSY level itself. With summer flounder it was decided that 204 million pounds was the biomass target level. As far back as the records go, that level has never been reached, and the records go back to the 1970s. Summer flounder spawn in the ocean, but the juveniles migrate into and mature in estuaries. Considering that the population of the coastal states in the mid-Atlantic has increased so dramatically over the last three decades (see http://www.fishnet-usa.com/blame_it_all.pdf - pg2), it’s hard to imagine the biomass of summer flounder of any other estuarine-dependent species not being negatively impacted. Regardless of this, if the biomass target that’s never been seen can’t be reached, it’s assumed that it’s because of too much fishing, and once again the fishermen will be expected to pay.

And this is the case in every region, in fishery after fishery. A rebuilding target has been/will be chosen at (or, as in the case of summer flounder, beyond) the highest level that has ever been observed, and when that level can’t be reached or the arbitrary schedule for meeting it can’t be met because of the loss or degradation of habitat or because of competition with other species, the fishermen are the folks will be held accountable.

What’s to be done?

In essence, it’s pretty simple.

Managers – at least the good ones – realize how inexact the science is, how fragile the fishing infrastructure is, how resilient the fish stocks are, and the shape the habitat is in. They also have an appreciation of the species-to-species interactions. They are fully capable of making informed decisions (to the extent that such decisions will ever be informed) that equitably balance the needs of the fishermen with the needs of the fish. If we return once again to the summer flounder example, we can insist on sticking to an inviolate 10 year “rebuilding” schedule and a “rebuilding” target that we’ve never observed, inflict hundreds of millions of dollars of damage on recreational and commercial fishing businesses, and interfere tremendously – and perhaps irrevocably – with fishing communities from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Or we could allow the managers enough discretion to switch to a less punitive “rebuilding” schedule (while still being held to the requirement that the stock continue to increase), allowing the recreational and commercial fishermen, the businesses they support and the communities they belong to, to cope with and adjust to any necessary cutbacks in harvest. The only difference, as far as the fish are concerned, is that it will take several more years for them to reach – if they ever can – the arbitrary rebuilding target.

It doesn’t sound like much of a choice, yet the anti-fishing activists are still lobbying for a continuation of the Sustainable Fisheries Act inflexibility that won’t significantly help the fish but will inflict tremendous economic injury on coastal communities in seven coastal states. And it’s not limited to summer flounder and its not limited to the Mid-Atlantic.

“Rebuilding” can be enforced, and “rebuilding targets,” if they are reasonable, can be reached, and it’s doubtful that anyone who fishes and who cares about the fisheries, would argue that they shouldn’t. But what they should and will argue for is the flexibility in management plans that will allow it to be done in a way that protects both the fish and the fishermen. That was the intent of Congress in crafting the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and it should be reflected in the implementation of the Act. Congressman Richard Pombo and Congressman Barney Frank and others have been attempting to get much needed flexibility back into Magnuson-Stevens. The future of fishing communities from Maine to Alaska depends on that happening.

“We are now in year seven of our fishery management plan for summer flounder, and since 2000, its biomass has nearly doubled and its spawning stock biomass has nearly tripled. The stock is not overfished, but overfishing is occurring. Nonetheless, to meet the statutorily mandated 10-year rebuilding target, we must double the current biomass level of about 105 million pounds by roughly 100 million pounds over the next three years. To meet the letter of the law will likely require draconian measures that entirely miss the spirit of the law. For, in addition to stopping overfishing and rebuilding stocks, we also are supposed to minimize adverse economic impacts and allow for recreational opportunities. Given the current circumstance, i.e., the summer flounder stock at the highest level it has been in more than 20 years, and the requirement that we achieve a target level that has never existed, we are forced to question the application of a law (and science) that would place a burden on the fishing community that is so onerous that its outcome would likely lead to massive civil disobedience.” (Ron Smith, Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, in a letter to Congressman Richard Pombo, Chairman of the House Resources Committee. Emphasis added.)            

THE OIL SLICK

Have you ever wondered why so many of the country’s most prestigious newspapers and other media outlets devote so much attention to “doom and gloom” fisheries and ocean issues, almost all involving the supposed negative impacts of fishing and for the most part ignoring a host of other anthropogenic factors? Does an editorial board in Manhattan or a reporter in San Francisco suddenly develop a spontaneous interest in what commercial fishermen are doing to the world’s oceans? With everything else that’s going on in the world, in the country, and in most journalists’ own back yards, that’s kind of hard to imagine. We have written a great deal about how the Pew Charitable Trusts supports and encourages researchers that are willing to perpetuate the “blame it all on fishing” philosophy. However, without the media to spread this message, the Pew campaign would be far less effective because professional fisheries managers are capable of seeing beyond the distorted Pew perspective to what’s really going on in our coastal and offshore waters.

We’ve been somewhat remiss in reporting on Pew’s connections to with the media, which appear to be quite as equally extensive – and expensive – as their efforts in fisheries (they extend beyond fisheries into other areas that Pew has an interest in, like global warming, as well).

Going through their database, we see that the Pew Trusts have made at least $140 million in media-oriented grants since 1996. Notable recipients and the amounts they have received are:

The Tides Center* - $40 million
Columbia University - $25 million
Various Public-Broadcasting recipients - $15 million
University of Richmond - $11 million
Johns Hopkins University - $7 million
New York University - $3 million

*The Tides Center disburses foundation funds to other recipients. For more information on Tides, visit the Activist Cash website at  http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/225.)

This is just over $100 million, which should be enough to grease a reasonable number of skids. And, though we’re not privy to the numbers, it wouldn’t surprise us to find that a significant proportion of many of the Pew grants dealing with fisheries issues goes to media relations, which seem to be at the foundation of the Pew oceans program.

Taking the Pew Fellows annual meetings as an example, in the 2002 conclave held in Bonaire, one of the workshop sessions was titled “Communicating For Results.” The description of the session read “Learn how to navigate the stormy waters of the media. Packaging your message is a key to success—whether talking to the media, submitting a paper to Science or Nature, writing a grant proposal, or writing an op-ed for your local paper. This interactive workshop will help you hone your ability to get the results you want. A diverse team of trainers will share their insights and experiences and provide individual feedback on how to strengthen your message. Topics covered will include: What do Media Want, Do's and Don'ts, Managing Your Message, and Putting Your Press Clips into Action.”

But even better than the content of the session was the fact that Cornelia Dean, at the time the Science Editor of the New York Times, was identified as one of the session “Presenters/Trainers.”

Ms. Dean was present again at the 2004 annual meeting, this one at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Florida. Here she was listed as one of the participants in a workshop titled “Bridging the Worlds of Science and Journalism” as well as being in a panel discussion “Oceans in the Balance: Is Science or Politics Tipping the Scales?” (Note that Ms. Dean also teaches courses at Columbia University.)

Those of us who follow such things recognize that Ms. Dean, as well as Andrew Revkin, her colleague at the Times (who is also a faculty member at the Columbia School of Journalism), are far more likely than not to depend on members of Pew’s stable of researchers as sources for their oceans/fisheries coverage. And, of course, their coverage reflects the pessimism of those researchers. When opposing views are presented, they are nowhere nearly as compelling; leaving the reader with the impression that the scientific consensus is that fishing is to blame (for just about anything). This is hardly the case.

This isn’t to suggest that either Ms. Dean’s (or Mr. Revkin’s) journalistic integrity has been in any way compromised, but after spending time at what appear to be luxury resorts in what appear to be tropical paradises with a bunch of scientists who all share a jaundiced and controversial view of fishing’s’ impacts, is it any wonder that these scientists are her and her papers primary sources?  

In an article she wrote for the New York Times after one of these annual meetings (Rousing Science Out of the Lab and Into the Limelight, November 11. 2003), Ms. Dean wrote “But it is not always easy for us to tell when a science story really has more than one side -- or to know who must be heeded and who can safely be ignored,” which she immediately qualifies with “when we cast too wide a net in search of balance, we can end up painting situations as more complicated or confusing than they actually are.” We would suggest that Ms. Dean and her colleagues at the Times aren’t having problems with the width of the net, but with the direction in which it’s being cast.