Birthday wishes are in order.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act celebrated its 40th year of existence last month.
The what Act you might be asking?
Enacted on April 13, 1976, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the primary law governing fishing in the United States, setting up a system that brought together fishermen, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coastal states and other stakeholders in working together on America’s fisheries.
It sounds like a rather far-reaching and possibly innocuous approach to fisheries management, but the act includes one key element — even when a stock is overfished, the Magnuson-Stevens management system allows a limited harvest to keep fishermen working while the fishery rebuilds. This rewards fishermen for compliance and stewardship and keeps the economy going while the stock’s population grows. United States federal fisheries operate under the same national standards and robust fishery management plans.
But the key question to be answered is does this management model work?
Overall, the NOAA is calling the plan’s results a success, with 39 fish stocks having been rebuilt since the year 2000.
In the 2016 Status of the Stocks Report, the NOAA reported that 91 per cent of stocks with known status are not on the overfished list. Overfishing happens when the harvest rate is too high. And 84 per cent of fish stocks with known status are at healthy population levels. However, there are probably numerous Eastern Seaboard groundfish fishermen who might take exception to these findings.
So how does the Canadian fisheries policy management situation compare?
A recent paper published on the Policy Options website highlights this very issue.
The April 8 article, penned by fisheries-related academics Jeffrey Hutchings, Randall Peterman and David VanderZwaag, praised the relatively new federal Liberal government for the new direction it appears to be taking in the sustainability of Canada’s fisheries and oceans.
“While they are commendable, these objectives are not sufficient to ensure that Canadians benefit over the long term from productive populations of the fish (such as cod, herring, salmon) and invertebrates (shrimp, lobster, crab), which have formed the core of our fisheries. In order to be able to generate sustainable social and economic benefits from these wild natural resources, Canada needs to also rigorously implement its long-standing laws and policies related to sustainability. The incomplete implementation of these laws and policies has resulted in many of Canada’s marine fisheries not being biologically or economically sustainable over the past few decades. For instance, Canada’s annual total catch of marine fishes decreased by 71 per cent between 1990 and 2014, and in January 2016, researchers at Yale and Columbia universities ranked Canada 99th out of 136 countries on fish conservation, which is a key element of sustainability. According to the evidence, the main reason for Canada’s poor fisheries status is unsustainable levels of exploitation,” the article stated.
However, the three academics proposed that Canada does not need to reinvent proverbial fisheries policy — it already has the necessary legislation in place to properly manage the fishery.
“On paper, Canada has made a good start toward reaching that leadership goal. It has long acknowledged the benefits of sustainability in the coastal realm. The Oceans Act (1996) offers a strong, clearly articulated legislative foundation for the sustainable development of marine resources (objectives that are absent from the Fisheries Act). As well, Canada has committed to following the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and in 1999, Canada ratified the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA). The latter two documents set out principles for fisheries conservation and management that are based on the precautionary approach. In addition, DFO established a Sustainable Fisheries Framework (2009), which incorporates the precautionary approach to promote fisheries conservation and sustainability). Together, these policy elements match the best of international approaches,” the paper reads.
So, like the U.S., if the legislative framework is already in place, what has gone wrong in this neck of the woods?
The three academics point to several factors, including budget cuts to DFO.
“After two decades of budget cuts the DFO’s science branch is seriously understaffed and does not have sufficient operating funds to develop the scientific advice that managers need to sustainably manage most major fish stocks. This concern was raised in 2012 by a Royal Society of Canada (RSC) Expert Panel, which also concluded that Canada’s lack of significant progress cannot be attributed to a lack of relevant policies; plenty of those exist on paper. Instead, there has not been full implementation of sustainability policies.”
The writers of the Policy Options article also state that many of the problems lay with the powers of the minster of fisheries.
“The existing Fisheries Act, which dates from 1868, gives absolute discretion to the minister, meaning that she/he is not bound by prescriptive legislation to act in any particular manner (for example, reducing catches by some specified amount) if a given set of circumstances occurs (such as overfishing). Ministerial discretion might offer political flexibility, but it is also vulnerable to pressure and counter-productive demands from vested interests. In the United States, in contrast, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act curtails such discretionary decision-making authority, increases accountability and strengthens the links between policy and science. Regional fishery management councils are required to adhere to binding scientific advice on catch limits, to prevent overfishing and to rebuild overfished stocks.”
Perhaps those driving Canadian fisheries policy do not have it wrong after all? Is it possible that all we have to do to right the wrongs with fisheries management is uphold the legislation that is already on the books? Perhaps the governing Liberals won’t have to look as far afield as they are thinking in their efforts to create a more sustainable fishery for the future.
