With all the uncertainties fishermen face every time they leave the dock, the least we can do is help them build a slightly higher degree of certainty into their business plans.
Faith is integral to fisheries. When fishermen cast off their lines and leave the dock, they believe their skill, knowledge, and experience will lead them to the fish. They trust that weather and natural forces will not present more of an obstacle than their crafts can handle. And they hope when they return to port, the price they can get for their haul of fish will exceed the investment they have made in gear, crew, fuel, supplies, insurance, and the other countless costs of doing business.
At the heart of these costs and every economic decision fishermen have to make is one fundamental data point: the annual catch limit. In 2006 when Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act—the law that provides the framework for U.S. fishery management—it included a requirement that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA, must set a cap on the amount of each species that fishermen would be allowed to catch in a given year. This cap is referred to as an annual catch limit. This mandate was further strengthened by another provision of law stating that managers could not set a limit exceeding the level recommended by scientists.
Imposing annual catch limits certainly makes sense. In order to get the best economic return from our fisheries over time, we must catch what we can today while leaving enough in the water to ensure the resource remains solvent for the future. Still, as Eric Schwaab, then-administrator of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, announced at the time, doing so was an incredibly “heavy lift.”
Read the complete opinion piece from The Center for American Progress