June 14, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — 50 years ago fisheries were in crisis.  The prevailing international law allowed no national control of ocean activities beyond 12 miles.  In New England, this meant giant Soviet factory trawlers practicing pulse fishing came in to devastate the abundant haddock stock, leaving US fishermen crumbs after they left.

Similar fishing situations were occurring around other coastal nations.  Chile and Peru were the first countries to declare a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.  Other countries such as the US and Iceland followed and by 1982, the UN recognized the right of countries to establish a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The implementing legislation in the US was the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Passed in 1976, the act not only restricted foreign fishing but much to the surprise of East Coast fishermen, it also implemented a system of fisheries management to set quotas and control overfishing.

The key features of Magnuson were to establish regional councils so as to promote local control over fisheries, to require management decisions be based on the best available science, and to involve all stakeholders in the council and decision-making process.

The results have been a fisheries management system that has preserved healthy stocks, as in Alaska, rebuilt overfished stocks (on the West Coast), and became the model for global sustainable fisheries management.  It is fair to say that the prosperity we see in the US seafood industry today would not exist without Magnuson.

But we are facing a new crisis every bit as profound as the lack of EEZ’s in the 1970s.  That is the crisis of global warming and ocean acidification, caused by the use of fossil fuels that have built up CO²in the atmosphere to dangerous levels.

CO² induced warming is leading to movement of fish to different areas, increased acidification that is interfering with the use of calcium for shells, including for zooplankton, changes in ocean currents, loss of sea ice, and sea level rise that is reducing the area of coastal marshes.  Taken together, these changes challenge the very basis of our fisheries management system, which depends on predicting the changes in stocks in a stable environment.

Several recent reports have provided eye-opening data.  One is an excellent report produced by the Canadian DFO on the state of the North Atlantic Ocean.  Finally, the DFO is spending money on transparent science and providing a real public service by documenting in one place all aspects of the North Atlantic ecosystem.

The most significant factors in the report are the change in the quality of zooplankton due to mistiming of plankton blooms.   This impacts the entire marine food chain.  A second is the movement of fish to new habitats, exemplified by the lobster fishery which is currently booming off of Nova Scotia, but which is likely to crash as waters exceed a certain summer temperature.  We published a summary of this report this week.

Another recent report, issued in May,  was the UN report on the loss of biodiversity.  This report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), was approved and adopted by the UN, and says that around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.

Sir Robert Watson, chair of the panel, said   “The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture.  The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

The seafood industry is complex because it is so varied, and regional differences abound.  This is partly why those of us in the industry love it so much. There is just nothing comparable to the interplay of natural productivity, human knowledge and skill, and highly diverse conditions and ecosystems.  Seafood distributors routinely carry over 100 items, even though most sales are from a smaller cluster of major species.

The commercial experience of the oyster farmer, a lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia, a salmon grower, a pollock captain in the Bering Sea, or a Dungeness fisherman out of Newport, Oregon are totally different, with each adapted to their particular resource and environment.

This complexity and localization make it very hard for people in particular fisheries to see the big picture.  Local communities can get dependent on a fishery that appears to be stable, and then have that stability pulled out from under them in an instant.

The common denominator for a new “Magnuson Act” should be the economic vitality and resilience of coastal communities.  This may not always come from fishing.

Wind power, tourism, marine protected areas, as well as fishing all can serve as an economic foundation as communities adapt to climate change and sea level rise.  Today proponents of most of these are in their own silos, in a war of all against all.

So fishermen oppose wind power developments, even though reducing fossil fuel emissions is the only possible path to prevent catastrophic increases in ocean temperatures. The temperature rise upends the productivity of most of the species on which they fish.

Fishermen also, by and large, oppose a massive increase in marine protected areas.  Yet a rethinking of habitat protection may be the only approach that would avoid a catastrophic loss of biodiversity.    We thrive on complex ocean ecosystems that offer changing opportunities.  If the price of maintaining that complexity means changing the way some ocean areas used for fishing, that is a price well worth paying.

Tourism is a bit more compatible with traditional fisheries.  In Astoria, Oregon, the Bornstein’s built their seafood processing plant in a way they could accommodate cruise ship visitors.  In our story about Nova Scotia lobstering, Lucien LeBlanc says he outfitted his new 50-foot lobster boat, the John Harold, to double as a tourist vessel and rely less on the fishery.  “Financially, I treat [every year]  like it’s my last year,” he says.

New Bedford, which on the one hand is the center of scallopers opposition to offshore wind power in New England, is, on the other hand, experiencing a dock and marine construction boom as the hub of offshore wind power.

The point is that these activities: fishing, power generation, tourism, and protecting biodiversity do not need to be in conflict with each other but could all contribute to the economic vitality needed to keep coastal communities intact.

This is where a new “Magnuson” type vision is needed.  We need a way to put forward an overarching vision of how to protect coastal communities in an era of climate crisis, not by watching individual ocean industries get destroyed but by developing a framework where they can all thrive together.

This not a Pollyanna puff piece about everyone working together.  The fact is that all these industries need support.  The fishing industry has benefitted massively from having the Magnuson Act as the foundation on which to build.  A new framework that focused on making coastal communities economically resilient around all ocean uses is not a zero-sum game.

By broadening our idea of what is necessary to keep fishing healthy for another 50 years, and by focusing on what will keep fishing communities healthy, we may find we get more support and better results if we look at the total picture of what we are facing, rather than just fighting over which 10 sq. mile grid to assign to wind, fishing, or protected areas.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.