including one in Maine, and received two out of four in-depth scientific reports by the time the President's Commission finally convened on September 17, 2001.
Originally chaired by former New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman, the privately-funded Pew Oceans Commission, has sought to establish its credibility by including a wide variety of stakeholders represented by people at the highest levels. The Commission is headed now by former White House chief of staff, Leon Panetta, and includes Governor Tony Knowles, of Alaska; Governor George Pataki, of New York; former president of the American Sportfishermen's Association, Mike Hayden; many well known environmentalists; and two commercial fishermen: Pietro Parravano, head of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, and Pat White, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen's Association.
The President's Commission has its own cast of notables, including Bob Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic. Most of its members however, are well known only within circles of government, and the closest thing they have to a New England fisherman is Andy Rosenberg, a former assistant deputy administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
While the President's Commission, intends to draft recommendations on a host of issues beyond fisheries, including transportation, mineral extraction, and oceanographic research, the Pew Commission has limited its focus to creating a healthy marine environment, and sustainable fisheries.
On two counts so far, the Pew Commission has come out as an ally to fishermen. Its report on pollution, for instance, recognizes the importance of healthy estuaries, where 70 percent of commercially important species spend at least some portion of their lives. Over a third of the nation's estuaries are in jeopardy according to conservative estimates, and the Commission addresses the primary cause: nutrient loading from non-point sources such as farms, municipal sewer systems, and automobiles.
"Over 30 percent of the nutrients reaching the Chesapeake Bay are airborne," said Eileen Claus-sen, chair of the Commis-sion's fisheries committee. "Some of that comes from power plants a thousand miles away, most of it comes from mobile sources - cars."
Pew's pollution report suggests that all the stakeholders whom various environmental organizations have claimed to represent in their efforts to restrict fishing, be asked to share the direct expense of maintaining sustainable fisheries. The report notes for instance, that the "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico - a biologically dead area the size of New Jersey and growing - is being created by runoff from farms in the Midwest. The Pew Commission plans to meet with farmers in Des Moines to talk about how to keep fertilizers out of rivers. But environmental protection will cost money and eventually the consumers will pay for it.
"Consumers have to see their own interest in this," said Chairman Leon Panetta. "We have to make everybody understand that this is a shared responsibility. The impacts affect us all." The second report the Commission released focused on the negative impacts the burgeoning aquaculture industry is having on the coastal environment, wild stocks, and traditional fisheries.
Rebecca Goldberg of Environmental Defense wrote the aquaculture report for Pew, and while she acknowledged many positive aspects of fish and shellfish farming, she also pointed out the industry's many problems, particularly the environmental impacts of shrimp and salmon farming. The realities of genetic pollution caused by escaped fish breeding with wild fish, transfer of disease between wild and farmed fish, nutrient loading in coastal areas, and price drops for wild product, have all been documented. Although aquaculturists point out the lengths they have gone to in addressing these problems, the state of Alaska has totally banned salmon aquaculture within its waters.
"We already have 50-100 Atlan-tics [salmon] from B.C. [British Columbia, Canada] showing up here every year," said Glenn Oliver of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "We have serious concerns about the impacts that could have."
Goldberg's report for Pew also raises concerns about the use of genetically engineered salmon in traditional net pen culture, where escapes are fairly common. "Under certain conditions," she says, "breeding between wild fish and faster growing transgenic fish could drive local fish populations to extinction."
In addition to the pollution and aquaculture reports already published, Pew has also funded reports on the economic plight of fishermen, the ecological effects of fishing, and invasive species. While only one of these reports focuses on the fishing industry, many fishermen remain wary of Pew.
"The name Pew sends chills down my spine," said Al Burch, president of the Alaska Draggers Association. "I asked them [the commissioners] if they were going to make blanket recommendations, and I haven't gotten a straight answer yet." Although he remains skeptical, Burch is engaged in the process. "I'll keep an open mind and see what they come up with," he said.
Not so for Portland fleet owner Barbara Stevenson. She has four draggers fishing the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, and she considers the Pew Commission a sham. "This is not a rational discussion of facts," said Stevenson. "They have their agenda, and they only want to talk to people who support it. If they wanted a realistic discussion, they picked the wrong people," said Stevenson, pointing out that Pat White represents lobster fishermen who have often been in conflict with draggers. She does not intend to get involved with Pew. "Why would you bother and give credence that they're a reasonable group?"
"No doubt, trawlers feel the crosshairs on their backs," said one observer of the situation. Eileen Claussen however, notes that the majority of fish landed in the U.S. come from trawlers. She expects the Commission to make recommendations for some type of zoning that will restrict areas where trawlers can work, not eliminate them.
The Pew Commission will also make recommendations on management strategies such as the use of Individual Fishing Quotas, (IFQs, or ITQs). Many of its members favor the controversial tool, and when the Commission seeks consensus on ITQs, Pat White's may be the only voice in opposition. Even if he produces a minority report against ITQs, many New England fishermen wonder how effective it will be.
"I'm wondering if we can get our message to the people who make the decisions," said Dana Rice, a lobster dealer from Winter Harbor. "I'm afraid there are other people who have their ear." Rice's concerns have merit. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts has a relationship with Pew Commission member Admiral Rodger Rufe that goes back to their service together in Vietnam. Rufe heads the Ocean Conservancy, a private organization with an interest in marine policy, and has supported the use of ITQs.
The professed intentions of both the President's and the Pew Commissions appear to be good, and could conceivably serve commercial fisheries well, especially efforts to clean up estuarine pollution and mitigate aquaculture's environmental and socio-economic impacts. The entire process could also backfire, and undermine existing protections for small-scale owner operators. Al Burch worries that Pew could paint all fisheries problems with a broad brush, and the fact that Julie Packard of the Monterey Aquarium - famous for labeling Maine lobsters as "overfished" during the longest standing boom the industry ever saw - sits on the Commission validates his concern.
Panetta said, however, that the commission was more interested in establishing a process than in providing blanket answers. According to Panetta, governance, which is also under his commission's review, needs to be changed to allow all stakeholders to become part of the solution. "We need a comprehensive policy workable at a local level," he said, and pointed out the success of the Chesapeake Bay Program in which several states and municipalities worked together - on an essentially voluntary basis - in beginning to clean up the nation's largest estuary.
"Those communities that use the ecosystem approach have an advantage," said Panetta. "Right now we have judges making important decisions, governing by crisis - and it's hit or miss. We need to create an approach that networks all the people involved. Solutions come from people at the local level."
Whether the Pew Commission can leverage its recommendations - due out in September of 2002 - through Congress and have them translated into effective action remains to be seen. The President's Commission hopes to finish its report by March 2003, and both groups have invoked the 30-year-old Stratton Commission as the precedent for the changes they seek to implement.
A popular cliché these days is, "the devil is in the details." Fishermen with plenty of challenges already, may soon have more details to deal with as the recommendations of both commissions emerge.