FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

More Rubber Boots

The “Constitution” of the fisheries regulatory system is in the process of being reauthorized. Based on the results of the last two authorizations there are a few words in the previous sentence that may need to be reconsidered. Fisheries, regulatory and system are not words that describe what the industry got out of Magnuson-Stevens in the last 30 years.

Is there any reason to believe that things will be different in this go round? Managers are wringing their hands and looking at each others shoes as they confess to the failed results of three decades, one and a half generations of sacrifice for fishermen, and a jobs program for government employees.

If there is one word that describes the roots of that failure it is misfit. Out of the cold war politics of the 1950’s, and a declining U.S. “position” in world fisheries, Congress established the Stratton Commission with former MIT president and Ford Foundation chairman Julius Stratton leading. Out of the 1969 Stratton Report came its primary recommendation for achieving the highest net profit from marine resources and plans for a technologically advanced, economically efficient U.S. fishing fleet, along with the financing and the institutions to manage it—NMFS in 1970 and the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976. Twenty years later, MSA was re-authorized.

Fishermen from the beginning opposed the regulations that came out of the MSA. One reason is that corporations were getting the fish, not fishermen. Another they were largely ignored. Why? Reconsider a few words in the previous paragraph. Cold war politics, chairman, MIT, Ford Foundation, highest net profit, and institutions don’t refer to fishermen. MSA was designed and built by bureaucrats for big business. Fish and the fishermen who knew and caught them were not a part of the plan.

There is not twenty years left on the fisheries calendar to see if this MSA works, there may not be six as planned. War, MIT, Ford and big business may work to stare down an armed opponent nation, but it’s a misfit for cultivating a fishery.

There are new catch phrases being tossed about, but the management development plan needs to include the words fishermen, communities, scale, flexibility and common sense. The real fishermen, not big business, need to make themselves heard, make themselves present. The process will better serve the fishermen when there are suits and more rubber boots in attendance.