The Battles Ahead

For advocates of tabular array salt H2O fish conservation, 2017 was non a practiced year.

It marked the commencement yr of an direction that appears to arrive at got no connector alongside the natural world, on either dry soil or water, too perchance for that reason, has a seeming contempt for conservation issues.  Such direction serves as the perfect partner for a Congress heavily biased toward extractive users of all stripes, too every bit hostile to the concept of conserving natural resources of all sorts.

Thus, in June, nosotros saw the Department of Commerce reopen the private-boat recreational blood-red snapper flavor inwards the Gulf of Mexico, knowing as they did too thus that such reopening was illegal too would atomic number 82 to substantial overfishing.

That determination was followed up, in July, past times the Secretary of Commerce overruling the Atlantic U.S. Marine Fisheries Commission’s finding that New Bailiwick of Jersey had gone out of compliance alongside ASMFC’s summertime flounder direction plan.  It was the commencement fourth dimension inwards to a greater extent than than 23 years that such an ASMFC determination was overturned.  The consequences were much to a greater extent than far-ranging than simply allowing New Bailiwick of Jersey anglers to savour too-lax rules; other states, which formerly feared having fisheries near downwards if they defied ASMFC, are at nowadays to a greater extent than willing to force the boundaries of fishery direction plans, knowing that in that place is a practiced peril that Commerce volition ultimately vantage their noncompliance.

That variety of thinking, too the resulting fearfulness that ASMFC’s remaining authorisation to contend coastal fisheries mightiness live on effectively erased, may arrive at got played a purpose at a Nov coming together of the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, when that board surprised too dismayed the conservation community past times non adopting interim ecological reference points that would arrive at got required managers to consider the species’ purpose as a provender fish when setting annual grab limits for the menhaden stock.  Faced alongside the threat of Virginia going out of compliance alongside an adverse Management Board decision, too the possibility that Omega Protein, the largest harvester of menhaden, mightiness convey suit, ASMFC voted 16-2 against adopting such ecological reference points, when well-informed vote-counters predicted, ahead of the meeting, that the reference points would, instead, live on approved 11-7.

On the West Coast, the Environmental Protection Agency, right away later on speaking to representatives of the mining industry, reversed the previous administration’s determination to halt evolution of the so-called Pebble Mine, which threatens the watershed of Bristol Bay, Alaska.  While the mine hasn’t yet been approved—the EPA determination simply allows the permitting procedure to motion forward—given that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is, too long has been, a lapdog for diverse extractive industries, in that place is scant argue to promise that the permit volition live on withheld; the odds arrive at got gotten practiced plenty that The Northeast Canyons too Seamounts Marine Monument off New England, created to protect unique deep-water ecosystems, is nether siege, exactly as other monuments were besieged on land, too for the same reasons—short term gain from resources extraction trumps, inwards this administration’s mind, whatsoever other values.

Regulations governing mako shark harvest are probable to live on revised; shortfin makos are declining badly, too though ICCAT’s recent actions weren’t plenty to ensure a recovery, nosotros demand to live on certain that whatever actions the National Marine Fisheries Service takes inwards answer to ICCAT volition maximize benefits to the resource.

Forage fish are withal targeted past times high-volume fisheries inwards the northwest Atlantic.  

Anadromous fish on both the East too West Coasts are having their migrations blocked past times dams too their spawning too plant nursery grounds threatened past times siltation from unsound logging practices, drawdowns for irrigation, agricultural runoff too other pollutants.  

Nitrogen too phosphorus runoff from agriculture, septic systems too other sources is causing harmful algae blooms inwards our bays, piece beds of eelgrass too other aquatic plants decline.  

Proposed budget cuts threaten existing programs to build clean upwards rivers, estuaries too bays.

So yes, those who back upwards the conservation too restoration of our marine fish stocks arrive at got a lot of battles ahead.

They volition live on hard fights.  There volition live on losses.

Nevertheless, if nosotros are to arrive at got salubrious fish stocks inwards our future, they are fights that nosotros cannot avoid.

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The Battles Ahead

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