118 



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their habitats. The Act only authorizes fishery managers to comment on activities 

 potentially damaging to habitat, and any recommendations are merely advisory. 

 The National Marine Fisheries Service, in particular, has no direct authority over 

 decisions on proposed federal projects, policies, or programs that would damage 

 habitat and thus reduce fish population size. The Act should be amended to 

 increase the consultative role of the regional Fishery Management Councils and to 

 provide the Secretary of Commerce (through the NMFS Office of Habitat 

 Protection) with the authority to restrict, modify, or prohibit actions that would 

 damage essential fish habitats. Finally, Congress should recapture some of the 

 costs spent for managing public marine resources, perhaps by creation of a trust 

 fund for marine taxes similar to the Highway Trust Fund, and then use these fees 

 to help protect habitat and regulate fisheries. 



Congress has the opportunity address our fishery problems this year. If it 

 does not, fewer fishers will be arguing over fewer fish during the next 

 reauthorization. Congress (House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and 

 the Senate Commerce Committee) is currently holding hearings on possible 

 changes to the Act. The Marine Fish Conservation Network, a new coalition of 

 conservation groups with over 50 endorsing fishing, environmental, and scientific 

 organizations, has developed a draft bill to take the loopholes and vagaries out of 

 the Magnuson Act, and is currently seeking Congressional sponsors. The 

 Network's draft bill offers a comprehensive 24-page set of amendments 

 addressing overfishing, recovery of depleted fish, bycatch policy and bycatch 

 reduction engineering, habitat safeguarding, management councils, and user fees. 

 Among other things, these amendments would define and prohibit overfishing 

 and, for overfished populations, require recovery plans with defined goals and a 

 timetable. Importantly, the prohibition on overfishing would not penalize people 

 who fish. Rather, it would merely authorize and require the Fisheries Service to 

 intervene when councils failed to develop adequate management and recovery 

 plans for overfished populations. It would also allow councils to impose interim 

 conservation steps, such as setting a minimum size that corresponds with size a 

 breeding maturity, without having to construct an entire fishery management 

 plan. The other amendments are similarly designed to compel implementation of 

 the Act in a way that is more reflective of the Act's original intent of restoring 

 the nation's fish and fishing activities. 



In Conclusion 



The point of the foregoing discourse is not that the Magnuson Act does not 

 provide the legal potential to conserve and restore living marine resources. It 

 does. But it does not provide the legal imperative to do so. It could. In order 

 for that to happen, it must be amended to bring to fruition Congress' intended 

 purpose of restoring and sustaining the economic and biological power of living 

 marine resources so they can support a productive ocean, a robust American 

 fishing fleet, and healthy food for our tables. 



Carl Safina earned his Ph.D. in ecology at Rutgers University and studied 

 natural dynamics among seabirds, prey fishes, and predatory fishes during the 

 1980s. He is founder and director of the National Audubon Society's Living 

 Oceans Program, a founding member of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, 

 and currently serves as an appointed voting member of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries 

 Management Council. He is a recipient of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Scholars 

 Award in Conservation and the Environment. 



Living Oceans Program, National Audubon Society, 306 South Bay Ave., Islip, N.Y. 11751, 

 fax: 516-581-5268 



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