80 



Finally, economic assistance is a partial solution. Once individual economic crises 

 are stabilized many fishermen may decide that their future lies elsewhere. A one- 

 time, voluntary vessel (or fishing rights) buy-back program will allow this choice to 

 be made with one's dignity and economic well being intact. 



These times are fraught with unprecedented turmoil and uncertainty. At such 

 times institutions which embody community values become beacons of stability. I 

 believe it is imperative that the fishery management councils retain the confidence 

 of those who-must sacrifice to restore the productivity of our fisheries so that the 

 necessary changes can be accomplished. 



Prepared Statement Peter Shelley, Marine Resources Project Director, 



Conservation Law Foundation 



Good morning. Senator Kerry and members of the Senate Committee on Com- 

 merce, Science, and Transportation. My name is Peter Shelley. I'm the Marine Re- 

 sources Project Director for the. Conservation Law Foundation, Inc. ("CLF") on 

 whose behalf I am appearing today. CLF is a regional environmental and resource 

 advocacy group headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. We have approximately 

 7,000 members, the majority of which are Massachusetts residents. 



Over our 27-year history, CLF, has worked on numerous marine resource prob- 

 lems in the Gulf of Maine, from oil and gas development proposals on Georges Bank 

 to habitat protection along the New England coast, and from municipal wastewater 

 pollution poisoning our estuaries to efTorts to preserve commercial fishing rights and 

 access to the sea in Massachusetts ports that were rapidly being converted from 

 commercial waterfronts to condominium developments. For the past five years, we 

 have been deeply involved in the problem of fisheries management in New England. 



As this Committee well knows, there are no easy answers to the management cri- 

 ses confronting this region and most other regions in this country that have estab- 

 lished fishery industries. Mowever, our experience over the past five years has led 

 CLF to a number of conclusions about fisheries management in the United States 

 which we would like to share with this Committee as it considers its task of reau- 

 thorizing the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976 

 ("Magnuson Act"). 



First, and so obvious it barely merits stating, the context in which these reauthor- 

 ization proceedings occur is profoundly disturbing: after almost twenty years of ex- 

 clusive control over our coastal fisheries resources, many stocks are at the lowest 

 levels they have ever been. Many of this country's key fisheries — key in both an eco- 

 logical and economic sense — are overharvested and the rates of overharvest continue 

 largely.unabated. The National Marine Fisheries Service ("NMFS") admits that over 

 one-third of this country's marine fisheries are already heavily overutilized, while 

 the status of many of the remaining stocks is either unknown or fully utilized. Some 

 stocks in New England which once formed part of the mainstays of our commercial 

 landings, like haddock, have joined the ranks with halibut and redfish as "former" 

 commercial stocks, and are now beyond management for all practical purposes. 



Estimates of direct economic losses associated with this management failure are 

 measured in the billions of dollars of lost revenues nationally and in the hundreds 

 of millions of dollars in New England. The ecological and management costs of at- 

 tempting to restore some of these stocks to their natural stock biomass are impos- 

 sible to measure. The social costs for fishing families and the communities in which 

 they live are equally incalculable and devastating. Families are ripping themselves 

 apart trying to make ends meet under the current climate of diminisning catches 

 and high debt and the stress of that way of life, while the financial health of small 

 businesses that provide goods and services to fishing families is severely threatened. 



The New England Fisheries Management Council in recent years has been at- 

 tempting to alter events; but the appropriate remedies are so draconian, and the 

 lack of coordination and effective partnership between the Council, the fishing fleet, 

 and NMFS scientists seems so profound that the minimum medicine that needs to 

 be taken in reducing fishing mortality is possibility beyond our political capacity. 

 Current estimates of stock sizes suggest that the only prudent management re- 

 sponse from a biological perspective would be to close all groundfish fisheries for the 

 indefinite future. 



Second, the Magnuson Act needs to be changed, in some areas fundamentally. The 

 Magnuson Act asserted exclusive economic jurisdiction over a multitude of living re- 

 sources in the United States' coastal territories. That jurisdiction comes with a pro- 

 found trust and stewardship obligation not only to the people of the United States, 

 but also to the members of the international community. We have failed that trust. 



