BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 28 — The European Union's head office announced plans today for a major overhaul of the 100,000-vessel fishing industry, including a call for cutting some national fleets by as much as 60 percent.
National politicians are wrangling behind the scenes in an effort to soften the measures, which could erase thousands of jobs across Europe. But union authorities say tough steps will be needed as fish stocks in European waters have been vastly diminished by overfishing.
"It is make or break time," Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler said in presenting his proposals. "Either we make bold reforms now, or we watch the demise of our fisheries sector. The desperate race for fish has to stop."
The plan brought immediate protests from fishermen, who said it would cost far too many jobs, especially among small operators.
Across the union, the new plan could cut the total fleet of trawlers working Europe's waters and those off the coasts of Africa and North America by 8,600, or 8.5 percent.
Groundfish fishermen in New England are still facing closures and delays in access to cod, haddock, yellowtail flounder and other groundfish off the coast of New England as a result of a recent lawsuit, though now with a ray of hope through a negotiated settlement with conservationists that will reopen some, but not all, of these fisheries and promote speedier rebuilding of still seriously depleted stocks.
The lawsuit (Conservation Law Foundation, et. al. vs. Evans, U.S. Dist. Ct. DC, No. 00-1134 GK), was originally brought in May 2000 by four marine conservation groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), alleging that NMFS was continuing to allow serious overfishing of these slowly recovering New England fisheries by opening them too soon to be sustainable, threatening the rebuilding process. Many fishing-dependent New England communities suffered severe economic distress when these fisheries collapsed due to prior overfishing several years ago, and depleted stocks are only now beginning to recover. The federal judge in the case, Judge Gladys Kessler, agreed with Plaintiffs, and on 26 April issued an order to NMFS suddenly shutting most of these fisheries down, which would have caused severe economic distress. One of the Plaintiffs, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), then broke ranks with the other environmental Plaintiffs and negotiated an alternative conservation plan with fishermen restoring many of these fisheries, while still protecting them against overfishing. Together with various fishing industry groups, cities and four state governments, CLF then went back to court and requested Judge Kessler reconsider her ruling, presenting the negotiated plan as an alternative.
On May 23, Judge Kessler vacated her original ruling and adopted the negotiated plan as her order, subject to periodic court review. The newly negotiated plan requires at least a 20 percent reduction in the fisheries from levels that would have been allowed by NMFS, with harvests phased in over a longer period as stocks recover, and with various gear changes and other conservation and monitoring measures to minimize bycatch and other past problems. A copy of the Conservation Law Foundation's press release, a history of the lawsuit and links to the pleadings in the case are at: http://www.clf.org.
A near-total shutdown of the entire west coast rockfish fishery may be necessary, according to federal regulators, to avert total collapse of these stocks. Rockfish quotas, really a complex of about 55 species generally sold as Pacific red snapper, have already been cut back by as much as 85 percent from prior years, but many of these species are still so depressed that even more may need to be done. Years of fleet buildup paid for by government loan programs, plus lack of monitoring to determine sustainable harvest levels that resulted in setting quotas too high, have resulted in overfishing that has left some rockfish species, such as bacaccio and yelloweye, now so depleted that they are candidates for Endangered Species Act protection.
Rockfish closures will not only put hundreds of boats off the water, but may affect many other fisheries as well. The problem is that many of these species, such as canary and yelloweye rockfish or bocaccio, intermingle with much more abundant and commercially valuable species such as halibut, squid and shrimp, and thus can become unintended bycatch in these harvests. Rockfish stocks are so depressed that even with no directed harvest, just this bycatch might be too much. Severe limits on rockfish thus may trigger closures and restrictions on otherwise abundant fisheries that are the mainstay of what is still left of the west coast fishing fleet. Many rockfish are long-lived and do not reproduce quickly: if all bocaccio harvest were stopped now, say biologists, it would still take 90 years for the fish to rebound to healthy population levels. Restoring other species could take even longer. The only bright spot is that some vessels may still be able to fish much further offshore, in much deeper water off the continental shelf, where the most depressed species are not found. For more, see the 30 May Oregonian article at: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page/1022759854296202.xml
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