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EDITORIAL
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 9
May 2006
Pombo, Frank understand fishermen’s concerns
Two key congressmen came to New Bedford on April 25 to hear what New England’s commercial fishing industry had to say about the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) and US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) sat and listened for more than two hours to the testimony of a diverse group of people with close ties to the industry: Deb Shrader of Shore Support; David Bergeron of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership; Chris Wright, captain of the scalloper Huntress; Jackie Odell of the Northeast Seafood Coalition; and Brian Rothschild, dean of the UMass Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology.
Articulately, cogently, and sometimes passionately, these individuals told the congressmen that the MSA needs to put fishermen’s safety and the economic impacts on coastal communities and fishing families on par with stock rebuilding mandates. Fisheries science must be more timely and better able to respond to the dynamic nature of fisheries. And management programs should not be driven by the “weak link” – the weakest stock in a multispecies complex.
In sum, they said federal fisheries management needs a big dose of common sense.
The industry reps testifying had a sympathetic audience. Frank, who represents New Bedford, has been a staunch and outspoken supporter of his local fishing industry constituents. And Pombo, who has a reputation for standing up for working people, has been demonized by powerful environmental groups for daring to question the wisdom and effectiveness of federal laws like the Endangered Species Act.
A California native whose grandfather immigrated to the US from the Azores through New Bedford like many of the Portuguese-speaking fishermen who live and work in the port today, Pombo is no stranger to the kind of suffering strict environmental laws can inflict.
As chairman of the resources committee, he has seen time and again the needs of people – loggers, miners, and fishermen – subjugated to those of animals and plants based on what he views as questionable science. In stating his bottom line, Pombo told the hearing audience there should be no decisions that devastate communities “unless you absolutely know what you are doing.”
Brian Rothschild also questioned how science is currently used in fisheries management.
“It isn’t true that every decline in a stock is caused by overfishing and every increase in stock abundance is a management success,” he said. The assumption that reduced fishing can lead to all stocks rebuilding to their “historical maximum simultaneously” is, he said, “a notion not supported by ecological theory.”
Of course, there’s another side to the MSA debate. Some fishermen, like those affiliated with the Marine Fish Conservation Network, firmly believe the only way out of stock declines is through tough conservation measures. And there are people like former NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Andy Rosenberg, who also testified at the New Bedford hearing, who argue that fish stocks would already be recovered if only the industry had trusted the scientists and agreed to cut back fishing effort a decade ago.
There is a strong commitment on the part of both Pombo and US Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) to get MSA reauthorization done this year. A lot of very complicated issues must still be sorted out. But in a world where the environmental community has become so tremendously efficient in getting its often one-sided message across, we at least know that, on April 25, two congressmen heard – and really understood – the concerns of the majority of fishermen here in New England.
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