{"id":6168,"date":"2015-03-03T11:46:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T16:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2015-03-05T08:55:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T13:55:55","slug":"regulations-have-done-little-to-boost-depleted-cod-stocks-maines-lobster-management-approach-offers-clear-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/regulations-have-done-little-to-boost-depleted-cod-stocks-maines-lobster-management-approach-offers-clear-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"GUEST COLUMN: Regulations have done little to boost depleted cod stocks; Maine\u2019s lobster management approach offers clear direction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following originally appeared as an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News (BDN) and is reprinted here by permission of the BDN.
\n\u2014Editor<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Colonial America\u2019s first true industry, groundfishing, has followed the path of many others.<\/p>\n

Technology improved as the industrial revolution took hold \u2013 it kept improving afterward \u2013 and a growing population of fishermen, both domestic and foreign, became more productive as they pursued cod, haddock, and other species found near the ocean floor.<\/p>\n

Today, that industry faces an uncertain future of depleted stocks, consolidation of the fleet, restrictive regulation, and questions about whether species that long sustained some New England fishing communities will ever rebound.<\/p>\n

As the steam-powered trawler and mesh net replaced the schooner and baited
\nfishing line at the start of the 20th Century, fishermen and their vessels became, perhaps, too efficient to the point of jeopardizing the resource on which they depended for their livelihood.<\/p>\n

Regulations were slow to take hold, but in recent decades, they have become increasingly more restrictive. Federal regulators last year again drastically slashed Atlantic cod catch limits, for example.<\/p>\n

Groundfish stocks, however, have failed to rebound in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumans have been failing at fisheries management for a very long time, so it\u2019s not a small task to get it right,\u201d said Robin Alden, executive director of the nonprofit Penobscot East Resource Center in Stonington and a former commissioner of the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources.<\/p>\n

Regulation of the fisheries today is ever-present, whereas a century ago it was absent.\u00a0 But today\u2019s regulatory system leaves much to be desired.<\/p>\n

First, regulators manage individual species in isolation rather than as part of the intricate ecosystems to which they belong.<\/p>\n

As a result, regulators react to legally required stock estimates of a single species but don\u2019t necessarily take into account how one species interacts with another and with the broader environment.<\/p>\n

Second, regulators craft uniform rules to cover vast areas of the ocean \u2013 for example, the entire Gulf of Maine, stretching from Cape Cod to the Canadian border \u2013 as if such a vast area were a uniform ecosystem.<\/p>\n

And third, there is far from universal faith in the current regulatory scheme, with fishermen frequently doubting the science behind increasingly restrictive catch limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gulf of Maine is a very diverse place,\u201d\u00a0 said Jim Wilson, a University of Maine professor of marine sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cDowneast Maine, it\u2019s totally different from Casco Bay, and Casco Bay is totally different from Gloucester and from Provincetown. When we manage fish, we treat all those areas as if they were the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisheries regulators have a directive from the top \u2013 a 2010 executive order from President Barack Obama \u2013 to transition to ecosystem-based management of the fisheries.\u00a0 \u201cBut the concept isn\u2019t precisely defined,\u201d\u00a0 Alden said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little doubt an effective ecosystem-based management system will have to be more local in nature than the current system.\u00a0 And a regulatory system that\u2019s more local in nature will have to rely in part on those with the most local knowledge \u2013 namely, those who fish.<\/p>\n

Much work needs to be done before regulators can change the way they manage fisheries.<\/p>\n

But Maine\u2019s management \u2013 or, more precisely, co-management \u2013 of its lobster fishery over the past two decades could offer an example.<\/p>\n

Maine\u2019s lobster fishery is divided into zones, and each zone has an elected council of lobster license holders who can recommend rules, within broader state parameters, on four issues to the state commissioner of marine resources:<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Lobsterman trap limits;<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0The number of traps allowed on a line;<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0When lobstering is allowed; and<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Entry into the fishery.<\/p>\n

The commissioner has the power to adopt or reject the rules.<\/p>\n

While Maine has become, perhaps, dangerously dependent on the lobster, the lobster\u2019s success can, in part, be owed to responsible, shared management through a system in which lobstermen have buy-in.<\/p>\n

A federal, ecosystem-based model will have to take into account multiple species and will be more complex, but federal regulators might find a place to start in Maine.<\/p>\n

The BDN Editorial Board<\/p>\n

\"CFN_3_15-cover\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read much, much more in the March issue of\u00a0Commercial Fisheries News<\/em>. \u00a0Buy this issue or\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>. [add_to_cart=6092]<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Read online immediately with access key and download for future reference.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following originally appeared as an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News (BDN) and is reprinted here by permission of the BDN. \u2014Editor   Colonial America\u2019s first true industry, groundfishing, has followed the path of many others. Technology improved as the industrial revolution took hold \u2013 it kept improving afterward \u2013 and a growing population … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-march-15","nodate","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6183,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions\/6183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fish-news.com\/cfn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}