FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

The Time Is Now

There are some considerable contrasting industry realities for fishermen. The reasons most would give for doing what they do probably includes being independent operators, working in a wild place, being connected to an important occupation with an unusually long history and the freedom within it.

However, at the same time, it is now a highly regulated industry, influenced by highly organized individuals and groups whose occupations may have none of the attributes listed above. Some of these individuals are in it for big money.

Fisheries governance gets broader and more complicated every year. The who, when, where and with what of regulations is in the process of changing with the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization process in Washington. That outcome will no doubt encompass more than the last reauthorization of 1996.

This time it may include language that will effect the cost of health insurance for fishermen and their families. Fishermen’s organizations in Massachusetts and California have had some success for themselves with this issue and are now actively urging the other states to contact their congressmen to push for it within the coming reauthorization. The language is there, it needs to be pressed for inclusion in the MSA.

This can happen with health insurance and it can happen with other areas of management that fishermen have talked about changing. Community based management, more local control, co-operative fisheries science, and management flexibility are some of them.
  
The legislators who are in the limelight on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act have interest groups paying to keep the lights on them.

Fishermen, without big money lobbyists are therefore forced to wield influence the way this government was established in 1789 to allow and encourage. Influence can come from the individual or from associations, alliances and organizations that can collectively wield power that otherwise would have to be bought.

But the legislators need to hear you before the legislation is passed. There isn’t time to wait for another Magnuson in 10 years, the time is now.