The recent editorial by William Hogarth and Steve Murawski, titled “Longstanding fisheries act doesn’t need changing,” gets a lot of things right. The Magnuson-Stevens Act is working, and it has largely been successful in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and promoting responsible and sustainable fisheries management. Since 2000, fishermen and managers have rebuilt more than 40 stocks nationwide. Alaska’s fisheries, often the gold standard for science-based management, have thrived since Congress passed the act. Thus, I am in total agreement with the authors’ perspective that recent efforts to weaken the act come at the expense of sustainable fisheries and healthy coastal communities. These roll-back proposals, offered both by NOAA Fisheries and Congress, compromise the foundation of the act under the guise of “flexibility.”
That said, while I agree that undermining the current law would be a mistake, failing to modernize the law would also be misguided. Reauthorization of the act has always been about raising the bar toward better management through improved accountability. There is no doubt we are better off today because of past reauthorization efforts, efforts that brought forward mandates to reduce bycatch, protect fishery-dependent communities, and apply the “Alaska model” of science-based catch limits throughout the country.
Despite these past efforts, problems still exist. Here in Alaska, bycatch remains the priority use for halibut in the Bering Sea, coastal communities and Alaskan fishermen are struggling to maintain access to historic fisheries, and fishermen are struggling with the high costs of on-board observer coverage. Nationwide, but especially in Alaska, rapidly changing ocean conditions present fishermen and managers with new problems that the existing management system may be too slow to address.
Reauthorization of this law provides an opportunity to approach these problems. It is also an opportunity to once again raise the bar, by promoting ecosystem based management plans, improve fishery data and stock assessments, and by strengthening protections for fishing communities as well as businesses. Let’s build on the act’s history of strong bipartisan leadership and put the long-term health of our fisheries and fishing communities first.
• Brian Delay lives in Juneau, where he runs a small construction contracting business and operates a family-owned drift gillnet operation. He is a board member of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council.
