Healthy Oceans Reports
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Executive Summary
America’s oceans are home to whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and
an enormous variety of other sea life. But today our oceans are in
trouble. Destructive overfishing, pollution, global warming and habitat
damage are putting important marine animals at risk. Many populations
are in serious decline. The result of this poor care for our oceans is
a drastic reduction in fishing opportunities for commercial and
recreational fishermen.
In the Gulf of Mexico, almost three in
ten (2 out of 7 or 29 percent) federally regulated fish stocks for
which there is adequate information are overfished.1 A little more than
three in ten (4 out of 13 or 31 percent) federally regulated fish
stocks for which there is adequate information are experiencing
overfishing. The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf
Council or Council) presides over four fisheries that have experienced
chronic overfishing in the past. Chronic overfishing is defined as
overfishing for six or more years since 1998 when the fishing laws
called for overfishing to end. These fish are vermillion snapper, red
grouper, red drum and red snapper.2 Recently the Gulf Council reversed
its earlier course and has begun to make the tough decisions required
to end overfishing and recover depleted species. Most noteworthy, the
Gulf Council has made progress with red snapper and greater amberjack. The
Gulf Council is one of eight regional fishery management councils that
cover U.S. coastal waters. Together with the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), the Gulf Council is supposed to determine how much of
each type of fish can be caught on a sustainable basis and establish
other types of fishing rules. Aside from the significant
percentage of overfished species, the other salient fact about the
health of the Gulf is that most of Gulf fish have not been assessed and
their status with regard to being overfished or experiencing
overfishing is unknown. The Gulf Council exclusively oversees 54 fish,
coral and crab/lobster stocks. The status of almost 90 percent (47 out
of 54) of all stocks is unknown/undefined for being overfished and 67
percent (36 out of 54) is unknown for overfishing status. For the vast
majority of stocks under its care, the Gulf Council is therefore making
decisions in the dark. It does not know how good or bad its overall
management regime is. This also means that fishermen could be driving
some fish in the Gulf toward depletion and the Gulf Council would not
know it. For example, fishermen caught millions of pounds of black drum
the Gulf in 2006, but whether this fish is depleted or experiencing
overfishing is not known.
In an effort to improve fisheries
management nationwide, Congress revised the primary law governing
fishing in U.S. oceans, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act, at the end of 2006. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires
NMFS and the regional fishery management councils to follow new
conservation standards. These rules, called National Standard 1, are
now under development. The new law also required NMFS to revise its
environmental review process to make it stronger and more integrated
with decision making.
If the National Standard 1 rules are
strong and the Gulf Council follows them, fish in the Gulf will
improve. Strong, clear rules will lead to: (1) faster rebuilding of
overfished fish populations like red snapper, (2) more conserving catch
limits for all fish, (3) tangible consequences when fishing limits are
exceeded, and (4) pressure to perform more stock assessments so that
the health of more fish is known.
If NMFS strengthens the
environmental review process to objectively assess the impact of
different alternatives on other fish, animals and habitat in the marine
environment, then the health of the entire Gulf of Mexico will improve,
not just the numbers of individual fish species. But unless NMFS
proposes strong National Standard 1 rules on overfishing to back up the
Gulf Council’s recent decisions and strengthens rules for doing
environmental reviews of fishery decisions, the Council could reverse
direction and backslide into its old ways.
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