91 



Over the past 5 or 6 years, however, the councils have become more effective in 

 passing management measures which work, and the economics of the industry have 

 fed to an overall decrease in fishermen. This process must be given a chance to 

 work. By now swinging too far in the other direction — as many environmental 

 groups want — it is quite possible that a real crisis can and will develop in this and 

 other U.S. fishing communities, and the Nation will lose vital fishing infrastructure 

 and traditions. 



The SIU believes that it is important to maintain these communities and the tra- 

 ditional characteristics which make the commercial fishing industry one in which 

 individuals can succeed thou^ hard work. Thank you very much for this oppor- 

 tunity to present this testimony, and I would like to request the opportunity to ad- 

 dress these and other concerns of the SIU regarding the Magnuson Act in written 

 testimony. 



Prepared Statement of William Hogan, Professor of Economics, University 



OF Massachusetts Dartmouth 



The crisis in the fisheries of the northwest Atlantic is severe. The exact dimen- 

 sions of the crisis, however, are ambiguous because of the lack of reliable data on 

 the fisheries. During the Reagan-Bush administrations, funding for the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service and other data-gathering agencies was sharply reduced 

 and has not been restored to pre-1981 levels in real terms. The first order of busi- 

 ness in directing public support toward the fisheries should be the institution of ac- 

 curate and comprehensive data-collection systems, and dissemination of data gath- 

 ered from these systems in a variety of formats. 



Confidentiality, as always, must be assured; that is, the individual respondent 

 must be confident that neither colleague nor competitor will have access to informa- 

 tion regarding the specifics of his or her operations. Aggregation of many individ- 

 uals, for example, to the port level, is one of the simplest ways of achieving con- 

 fidentiality. As the Federal Government embarks on programs to distribute tax- 

 payers' fiinds to provide financial support to the industries that make up the fish- 

 eries, it is both appropriate and necessary that there be a clear understanding of 

 the nature and magnitude of the problems to be addressed. 



Data on fisheries, as for most other economic statistics, are a public good. It will 

 never be profitable for any individual or corporation to gather the data; compile, 

 classify, and analyze them; and disseminate them to suers. Like the national parks 

 or national defense, if we are to have these economic data they must be provided 

 by the Gk)vemment. As the Federal Government has reduced its data-gathering and 

 dissemination fijnctions, they have not been replaced by the private sector. 



We need accurate and comprehensive data on quantities and prices by species by 

 port by month, at a minimum. We need price and quantity data at the harvest, 

 wholesale, and retail levels. The absence of information of this kind makes it nearW 

 impossible to assess the true extent of the problems in the fisheries, to identify 

 those who suff'er the greatest damage as the fisheries decline. 



As Congress deliberates the reauthorization of the Magnuson Act, there are no 

 good examples of successful fisheries management elsewhere in the world to guide 

 us. Overfishing is a worldwide phenomenon that is occurring in nearly every com- 

 mercially harvested fishery. It appears that no one else has been much more suc- 

 cessful than the United States in devising approaches to manage fisheries. Fisheries 

 management is an extraordinarily difiicult process. 



A variety of approaches have been taken by other nations to fisheries manage- 

 ment. An example of S-op-down" management is Canada. The central government 

 has simply closed fisheries and put fishermen and processors on the dole. It seems 

 likely that fishermen themselves would have elected this approach; it had to be im- 

 posed, from the top down, by the central government. It is expensive and may re- 

 quire financial resources for years or possibly an entire generation before fish stocks 

 recover. 



An alternative approach would give fishermen a greater role in the management 

 process. Indeed, a key to any successful management system is direct participation 

 by fishermen. This has not been the case in the previous amendments to the Mag- 

 nuson Act. The port of New Bedford, for example, has not been directly represented 

 on the New England Fisheries Management Council. When fishermen feel they have 

 no say in the management plans, they are unlikely to support them. This reauthor- 

 ization of the Magnuson Act should provide for a more democratic approach to creat- 

 ing, implementing, and enforcing a management plan. 



Another key to successful fisneries management will be to create incentives to 

 conserve fish stocks. One possible approach to creating such incentives, and thus to 



