Revised federal legislation regulating the commercial fishing industry nationally was signed into law Jan. 12 by President George W. Bush.
The legislation reauthorizes the 30-year-old Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act through 2013. The overhauled bill has won praise from both the industry and environmental groups,
Under this legislation, regional councils have more power to govern local fishing communities and set catch limits based on scientific and environmental advice for marine conservation, said David Benton, executive director of the Marine Conservation Alliance, an industry group in Juneau.
Benton, a former chairman of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, said the bipartisan legislation would strengthen the nation's ability to responsibly manage fisheries for sustainability, based on sound science and an open public process.
“It incorporates the provisions that have been so successful in making Alaska a model for fishery management and preserves the regional council process which has been the keystone to its success,” Benton said.
The most significant improvement in the legislation is a requirement that fishery managers set harvest caps at or below those recommended by regional scientists, he said.
Dorothy Childers, program director for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, in Anchorage, also praised the final legislation. Childers said the act added “new provisions that improve conservation and address the interests of working fishermen and communities.”
The new legislation builds on the 1996 legislation, called the Sustainable Fisheries Act, which established precedent-setting conservation requirements to minimize wasteful fishing practices, protect important fish habitat and prevent overfishing, she said.
It ends overfishing that has continued to some regions and improves science-based decision-making by requiring that fishery managers adopt catch limits that do not exceed those set by their science advisors, Childers said. The bill also establishes guidelines for limited access privilege programs, ensuring that fishery managers consider the needs of coastal communities and independent fishing families, she said.
The bill's provisions include a $25 million federal loan to buy out permits in the Southeast salmon seine fleet. It also establishes national guidelines for assigning individual fishing quotas in fisheries otherwise open for competition among commercial harvesters, and preserves the network of eight regional fishery management councils.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at
margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
