[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ECOSYSTEM-BASED FISHERY MANAGEMENT AND THE REAUTHORIZATION OF THE
MAGNUSON-STEVENS FISHERY CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
June 14, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-38
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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house
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_______
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska, George Miller, California
Vice Chairman Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Jim Saxton, New Jersey Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Elton Gallegly, California Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Samoa
Joel Hefley, Colorado Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Ken Calvert, California Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Scott McInnis, Colorado Calvin M. Dooley, California
Richard W. Pombo, California Robert A. Underwood, Guam
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Adam Smith, Washington
George Radanovich, California Donna M. Christensen, Virgin
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Islands
Carolina Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Mac Thornberry, Texas Jay Inslee, Washington
Chris Cannon, Utah Grace F. Napolitano, California
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Tom Udall, New Mexico
Bob Schaffer, Colorado Mark Udall, Colorado
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Mark E. Souder, Indiana James P. McGovern, Massachusetts
Greg Walden, Oregon Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Hilda L. Solis, California
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Brad Carson, Oklahoma
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Betty McCollum, Minnesota
C.L. ``Butch'' Otter, Idaho
Tom Osborne, Nebraska
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana
Allen D. Freemyer, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
James H. Zoia, Democrat Staff Director
Jeff Petrich, Democrat Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland, Chairman
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Samoa
Jim Saxton, New Jersey, Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Vice Chairman Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Richard W. Pombo, California Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North
Carolina
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 14, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Gilchrest, Hon. Wayne T., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland...................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Underwood, Hon. Robert A., a Delegate in Congress from Guam.. 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Crowder, Dr. Larry B., Professor of Marine Biology, Duke
University Marine Laboratory............................... 39
Prepared statement of.................................... 41
Fluharty, Dr. David L., Chairman, National Marine Fisheries
Service Ecosystems Principles Advisory Panel, University of
Washington................................................. 10
Prepared statement of.................................... 12
Hinman, Ken, President, National Coalition for Marine
Conservation............................................... 51
Prepared statement of.................................... 53
Hogarth, Dr. William T., Acting Assistant Administrator for
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S.
Department of Commerce..................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Response to questions submitted for the record........... 78
Livingston, Patricia A., Program Leader, Resource Ecology and
Ecosystem Modeling, Alaska Fisheries Science Center,
National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of
Commerce................................................... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 30
Murawski, Dr. Steven A., Chief Stock Assessment Scientist,
Northeast Fisheries Science Center, National Marine
Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of Commerce............. 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 18
ECOSYSTEM-BASED FISHERY MANAGEMENT AND THE REAUTHORIZATION OF THE
MAGNUSON-STEVENS FISHERY CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT
----------
Thursday, June 14, 2001
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans
Committee on Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Wayne T.
Gilchrest, [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WAYNE T. GILCHREST, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Gilchrest. The meeting will come to order. I want to
welcome all of the witnesses here this morning. We look forward
to your testimony to discuss a rather fascinating, sometimes
mysterious issue that we are referring to as Fisheries'
Ecosystem Plans, and are they possible? Do we have the
technology? Can they or we put this into the Magnuson Act so
that the councils will implement this policy, this scientific
understanding? It is my perspective that one of the most
important things we can do to save the fisheries in the
Nation's oceans is to, as best as we can, continue to try to
understand the complex dynamics of the mechanics of natural
processes in all of their infinite, varied forms.
And so I guess since E.O. Wilson, in his book
``Consilience,'' said that we have a brain that is the most
complex organism in the known universe, we are up to the task.
So we have had a series of hearings on the Magnuson Act, and we
will continue to do so that we understand all of the various
aspects of that rather extraordinary piece of legislation, and
we want to make sure that all parties are treated equally and
fairly, whether it is nymphs or NOAA, the fish processors, the
fishermen themselves, the scientists, everybody involved in
this issue.
So we will do everything we can to make sure that we
collect the best data and that the best data and pieces of
information that we have are disseminated to every interested
party, even if that means holding not only workshops for
scientists, but workshops for the fishermen to explain, for
example, the process of a Fishery Ecosystem Plan. And one of
the examples of that is agriculture. Nutrient management plan,
best management practices all over the country, scientists and
farmers almost routinely get together to discuss those issues,
and so this is no less important.
But welcome, all of you, and we look forward to your
testimony.
I yield now to the gentleman from Guam, Mr. Underwood.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilchrest follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Wayne Gilchrest, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans
I would like to welcome our witnesses to the third of what I hope
will be a number of hearings on the important topic of the
reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act.
This hearing will focus on the important issue of ecosystem-based
management in fisheries. To further this discussion, Congress asked the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to establish an Ecosystem
Principles Advisory Panel to assess the extent that ecosystem
principles are currently used in fisheries management and research, and
to recommend how such principles can be further implemented to improve
our Nation's management of living marine resources.
I think this report provided a good outline for incorporating
ecosystem-based principles into federal fisheries management. While
there is seemingly broad agreement on the need for ecosystem-based
fisheries management, there may be debate on how best to implement such
measures into existing fishery management plans and research programs.
This debate is healthy and I hope that today's hearing will provide
some examples of how ecosystem-based management is currently
incorporated into fisheries management and provide suggestions for
improving fisheries management through the use of ecosystem-based
principles.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
______
STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, A DELEGATE TO
CONGRESS FROM THE TERRITORY OF GUAM
Mr. Underwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
pointing out that all of us have a brain.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Gilchrest. I was going to say something, but it would
sound partisan, so I won't say it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Underwood. We have bipartisan brains.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that you have raised
the issue of ecosystems, and the ecosystem base management of
natural resources. As we all know, everything in the ecosystem
is mutually dependent on everything else, and it seems logical
that we apply this concept to fisheries management. The
question is whether we have the capability, and the knowledge,
and the willpower to do so.
Unfortunately, ecosystems are not that easily defined. It
takes vast amounts of time and money to conduct accurate
research of where boundaries are between ecosystems and how the
living resources within them interact. Research is further
complicated by some species that cross ecosystem boundaries,
which may be great for them, but make things infinitely more
difficult for us as we work to utilize these species in a
sustainable manner.
The true interconnectedness of ecosystems is only beginning
to be researched. Over the past 30 years, when total allowable
catch quotas have been set, only the impact of these catches on
the stock itself were evaluated. We are now learning that
catching fish not only affects the species being caught, but
their predators and prey as well. We, as fishermen, can throw
off the balance of an ecosystem even if fishing only one
species.
My own experience with ecosystems is predominantly through
coral reefs. Coral reefs of the Pacific not only enhance the
beauty of the region, but also add to the economy through
tourism and fishing industries. For the good of all people
dependent upon them, as well as for those who have yet to have
the thrill of seeing them firsthand, we must manage the
resources of the coral reefs and the reefs themselves in a
sustainable manner. This includes the need to engage in
sustainable development and exploration.
The natural benefits of reefs may extend much further than
ever expected into areas of pharmaceuticals and other research.
And if we do not work to keep what now exists, how would we
know what the future might find and hold for us. And current
science leads to the conclusion that the best way to insure the
future is through managing the ecosystem as a whole. We must
learn about the relationship between fishes, between prey and
predators, between the environment itself, and the living
resources and our own impact on that environment.
The ecosystem includes weather phenomena, tides and
currents, and human impact such as pollution, runoff
particularly affects coral reefs, as it does all ecosystems
that are in the water. Only by furthering our understanding of
these actions can we truly begin to utilize our resources in a
sustainable manner.
As we are constantly reminded by marine scientists, right
now we know more about the moon than we do about our ocean.
Finding future uses for what lies within them is much more than
just a possibility, it is a near certainty. But as I mentioned
above with coral reefs, we must act to conserve now because we
might never know what we have missed if the ecosystems are
altered irreparably before we can fully explore in a
sustainable manner their potential.
We will hear views today about the possibility of
incorporating ecosystem management into a fisheries management
regime. The witnesses before us will discuss how costly it may
be, how long will it take for fisheries management councils and
the National Marine Fishery Service to formulate plans of
ecosystem management and how much research has been done and
how much more is needed. If ecosystem management will improve
the conservation and management of our resources, then it is
incumbent upon us to address these issues head on.
I want to thank the Chairman for holding this very
important hearing.
Thank you.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you, Mr. Underwood.
Again, thank the witnesses for coming this morning. We look
forward to your testimony.
Dr. Hogarth, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM T. HOGARTH, PH.D., ACTING ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR FOR FISHERIES, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Dr. Hogarth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. It is nice to be here today to talk about an
extremely important issue for the future of fishery management.
I am Bill Hogarth, the Acting Assistant Administrator for
Fisheries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
Landings of many marine fisheries worldwide have declined
in recent years. The causes of these declines include
overharvesting, habitat alteration and loss, pollution, and
natural environmental change. Fisheries managers are
increasingly required to address the potential direct and
indirect impacts on fisheries from protected resources and
other values and services the oceans provide.
In addition, we are required to address the impacts of
fisheries operations on protected resources such as sea turtles
and marine mammals. Ecosystem-based management is one approach
that will improve upon single-species management to ensure
sustainability of fisheries and a healthy marine environment.
Viewing fisheries in the ecosystem context, we can begin to
understand how multiple factors affect fisheries and how our
fishing activities affect the broader ecosystem.
Implementing ecosystem-based management requires a more
comprehensive understanding and approach to fisheries research
than traditional single-species management approaches. The
stock assessment models are limited only by our ability to
collect and assimilate the relevant data. Successful
implementation of ecosystem-based management requires
considerations of such things as habitat requirements,
hydrography, environmental and climate changes, predator-prey
relationships, and physical and biological processes. It will
also require adaptive management and a precautionary approach
for recognizing the limits to our understanding of ecosystems.
Information on human influences and impacts is as important
as that for natural systems and must be included in any
ecosystem research and management efforts. In particular, we
need to more broadly implement economically and socially
efficient management programs like the cooperatives in the
Alaska factory trawling fleet or the Individual Fishing Quota
(IFQ) system in the Pacific halibut sable fish fishery. These
programs allow the industry to apply the appropriate level of
capital investment and to make market-based allocations with
unnecessary interference from the Federal Government.
A reduction in capitalization will lessen the pressure to
overfish, will reduce economic impacts, and will increase the
safety of fishermen at sea. The complicated legislative and
institutional framework that governs resource management
decision-making poses a significant challenge for implementing
ecosystem-based fisheries conservation and management.
Although the Magnuson-Stevens Act is the principal
legislation governing U.S. marine fisheries, other Federal
laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the
Endangered Species Act (ESA), as well as international
agreements and state laws, provide for the conservation and
management of marine resources. Coordination of these
responsibilities, as well as the appropriate involvement of all
stakeholders in the decision-making processes, is critical if
we are to implement an ecosystem-based approach.
Two recent reports, the National Research Council's (NRC)
``Sustaining Marine Fisheries'' and NOAA's Fisheries'
``Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management,'' provide some excellent
insights and recommendations on ecosystem-based management,
which are outlined in my written testimony.
NOAA Fisheries applauds the panel's efforts to develop
pragmatic suggestions to incorporate ecosystem approaches in
the existing framework of the NOAA Fisheries Council system.
NOAA Fisheries will be looking to these reports, and elsewhere,
for ideas, as we continue to move toward ecosystem-based
fishery management.
NOAA Fisheries is also beginning to implement ecosystem-
oriented approaches to the management of a few living marine
resources, including the Fisheries Ecosystem Plan being
developed for the Chesapeake Bay, the Coral Reef Ecosystem
Management Plan that is being developed by the Western Pacific
Management Council, and the ecosystem-related provisions of all
Fishery Management Plans (FMPs), particularly relating to
essential fish habitat and ecosystem-based habitat restoration.
Last July, the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office convened a number
of regional and national expert scientists and managers to
build a framework and establish the guidelines of a Fishery
Ecosystem Plan (FEP). Since then, the NOAA Chesapeake Bay
Office and the interagency Chesapeake Bay Program have
appointed a technical advisory panel of 16 prominent Bay
scientists to guide the development of the FEP. The draft plan
will include such important elements as ecosystem boundaries, a
conceptual model of the food web, and indices of ecosystem
health.
Ecosystem effects of fishing and economic and social
aspects also will be included. The draft is expected by the end
of 2001, with a completed FEP by the spring of 2002. The FEP
will undergo continual development, as understanding of the Bay
ecosystem increases.
Mr. Chairman, details of other ecosystem-based management
plans that I mentioned are also included in my written
testimony.
Finally, I want to emphasize where we go from here. Based
on good direction from the National Research Council's and the
NOAA Fisheries, reports on the merits of an ecosystem approach
to fisheries management, plus lessons learned from the
Chesapeake Bay, the Bering Sea and the Northeast, I have asked
my staff to host a national workshop this fall to develop the
technical guidelines for marine ecosystem-based management.
This workshop will lead to a better initial discussion and
product as we pursue the ecosystem approach.
As my testimony outlines, while we have a considerable way
to go in conducting the types of research that would support
true ecosystem management plans, some important steps have been
made. I look forward to making additional progress in this
area.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. However, Dr.
Steve Murawski and Ms. Patricia Livingston, both of whom are
well-known experts in the field, will provide a more detailed
analysis of what NOAA Fisheries is doing in ecosystem
management, as well as a more thorough discussion of the
mechanism of this approach to fisheries management.
Again, thank you for this opportunity, and we look forward
to answering any questions you may have.
Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hogarth follows:]
Statement of William T. Hogarth, Ph.D., Acting Assistant Administrator
for Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of
Commerce
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to this hearing on ecosystem-based fishery management. I am
William T. Hogarth, the Acting Assistant Administrator for Fisheries
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
ECOSYSTEM-BASED FISHERY MANAGEMENT
Landings of many marine fisheries worldwide have declined in recent
years. The causes of these declines are complex and include
overharvesting, habitat alteration and loss, pollution, and natural
environmental change. At the same time, fisheries managers are
increasingly called upon to address the potential direct and indirect
impacts of fisheries on protected species and other values and services
the ocean provides. Ecosystem-based management is one approach that is
being developed to improve upon single species management to ensure
sustainable fisheries and a healthy marine environment. By viewing
fisheries in an ecosystem context, we can begin to understand how these
multiple factors affect fisheries, and how our fishing activities
affect the broader ecosystem.
A basic premise of ecosystem-based management is that the
relationships among living marine resources and the ecosystem within
which they exist must be addressed. This requires a more comprehensive
understanding and approach to fisheries research than is necessary for
traditional single-species management approaches, although single-
species stock assessments have become increasingly sophisticated and
some now incorporate environmental parameters. The stock assessment
models are only limited by our ability to collect and assimilate the
relevant environmental data. Successful implementation of ecosystem-
based management will require consideration of, among other things,
habitat requirements, hydrography, environmental and climate changes,
predator-prey relationships, and physical and biological processes. It
will also require adaptive management and implementation that
recognizes the current limits of our understanding of ecosystems.
Humans, too, are part of the ecosystem. The interests, values, and
motivations of participants in a fishery and others who use or benefit
from the ocean must be understood and factored into fishery management
decisions. Information on human influences and impacts is as important
as that from natural systems and must be included in any ecosystem
research and management effort. In particular, we need to more broadly
implement economically and socially efficient management programs like
the cooperatives in the Alaska factory trawling fleet or the individual
fishing quota system in the Pacific halibut fishery. These programs
allow the industry to apply the appropriate level of capital investment
and to make market-based allocations without unnecessary interference
from the federal government. A reduction in capitalization will reduce
the pressure to over fish and its attendant economically disastrous
side effects and increase the safety of fishermen at sea.
In developing an ecosystem approach to research and management, it
is important to recognize that a good deal is already known about
marine ecosystems. Research into the oceans' role in climate
variability has unlocked new understandings about how marine ecosystems
function. However, this scientific information is not consistently
applied in current management efforts, is insufficient data to
construct the necessary models from which management frameworks can be
derived. Therefore, emphasis must be placed on what new information is
required and on how to effectively apply existing information. It must
also be recognized that both science and management are ongoing
processes and that new scientific, social, cultural, economic, and
institutional information must be incorporated into the management
process as it becomes available.
The complicated legislative and institutional framework that
currently governs resource management decision-making poses both a
significant challenge to, and an opportunity for, the implementation of
ecosystem-based fisheries conservation and management. Although the
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-
Stevens Act) is the principal legislation governing U.S. marine
fisheries, other Federal legislation including the Marine Mammal
Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, as well as state laws
and international agreements, provide for the conservation and
management of marine resources. Coordination of these legislative and
institutional responsibilities, as well as the appropriate involvement
of all stakeholders in the decision making process, is currently
conducted on a case-by-case and often ad hoc basis. Implementing an
ecosystem-based management approach requires making this coordination
far more integral and explicit.
Ecosystem-Based Management Reports
Two recent reports addressed the use of ecosystem-based management
in marine fisheries. The National Research Council published Sustaining
Marine Fisheries and the National Marine Fisheries Service published
Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management. I will briefly highlight the
findings from both of these reports.
The National Research Council's Sustaining Marine Fisheries Report
The National Research Council's Ocean Studies Board established the
Committee on Ecosystem Management for Sustainable Marine Fisheries
(Committee) to assess the current state of fisheries resources; to
determine the basis for success and failure in marine fisheries; and to
evaluate the implications of fishery activities for ecosystem structure
and function. The Committee's findings are contained in its 1999
Sustaining Marine Fisheries report. The Committee concluded that the
most comprehensive and immediate ecosystem-based approach to rebuilding
and sustaining fisheries and ecosystems is a significant overall
reduction in fishing mortality. The Committee also recommended an
ecosystem-based approach to fishery management that addresses overall
fishing mortality. The Committee's specific recommendations were to use
a conservative approach to single-species management; incorporate
ecosystem considerations into management; deal with uncertainty; reduce
excess capacity and use assignment of rights; use marine protected
areas; reduce bycatch and discards; develop institutional structures;
and get a better understanding of the structure and functioning of
marine ecosystems.
The NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel Report
An amendment to the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1996 directed NOAA
Fisheries to establish an Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel (Panel)
to provide expert guidance on how to incorporate an ecosystem approach
in NOAA Fisheries' research, conservation and management activities.
Composed of individuals with expertise in the structures,
functions, and physical and biological characteristics of ecosystems,
as well as representatives from the Fishery Management Councils,
states, fishing industry and conservation organizations, the Panel
produced a report that outlines basic principles, goals, and policies
necessary to implement an ecosystem approach. It includes specific
recommendations, including the adoption of Fishery Ecosystem Plans
(FEP) for each ecosystem under the Regional Fishery Management
Councils' (Council) areas of authority. The FEP is envisioned to be a
document that serves as an umbrella under which individual Fishery
Management Plans (FMPs) would be developed and with which they must be
consistent. An FEP would contain information on the structure and
function of the ecosystem in which fishing activities occur, so that
managers can be aware of the effects that their decisions have on the
ecosystem, and the effects other components of the ecosystem may have
on fisheries. The adoption of this approach would help to ensure that
individual FMPs do a better job of incorporating ecosystem
considerations. The report concluded that the ultimate benefits of
adopting ecosystem-based fishery management and research would be more
sustainable fisheries and marine ecosystems, as well as more prosperous
coastal communities.
The Panel specified several steps that Councils should take to
develop FEPs. These include: delineate the geographic extent of the
ecosystems that occur within the Council's authority; develop a
conceptual model of the food web; describe the habitat needs of the
significant food web; calculate total removals, including incidental
mortality; assess stock assessment uncertainty; develop indices of
ecosystem health as targets for management; describe available long-
term monitoring data and how they are used; and assess elements of the
ecosystem that most significantly affect fisheries. Taken together,
these provide the information necessary for a Council to make fisheries
decisions in an ecosystem context.
NOAA Fisheries' Response to the Reports
Based, at least partially, on the Panel's report and on the NRC's
report, ``Sustaining Marine Fisheries,'' the concept of ecosystem-based
fishery management is gaining momentum. Taken as a whole, NOAA
Fisheries applauds the Panel's effort to develop pragmatic suggestions
to incorporate ecosystem approaches into the existing framework of the
NOAA Fisheries/Council system. NOAA Fisheries is developing plans for a
workshop to develop technical guidelines for implementation of the
Panel's recommendations. NMFS will be looking to these reports and
elsewhere for ideas as we continue to move toward ecosystem-based
fisheries management.
For example, NOAA Fisheries focused its National Stock Assessment
Workshop last year on ecosystem based management. About 100 NMFS and
academic scientists attended the workshop and evaluated where we are in
developing ecosystem based management, and what research must be done.
The research needs are broad and include economic analyses on the
desirability of alternative ecosystem states; effects of changes in
ocean conditions on species and the ecosystem; how fishing affects
productivity; effects of discard of undersized or unwanted species on
the target species and on energy flow in the ecosystem. They noted the
importance of long-term, fishery independent ecosystem monitoring and
research, and on observer programs for tracking ecosystem changes and
building predictive models. Because there is much information needed,
they noted the need for partnerships to collect and share data from
comprehensive ecosystem monitoring programs. To have effective
ecosystem based management, there is much we will need to learn and
understand about ecosystems.
NOAA Fisheries and the eight Councils have already begun
investigating how ecosystem considerations can be incorporated into the
existing fisheries management structure. Generally, the approach is to
conduct detailed single-species assessments and embed them in an
ecosystem context. In other words, consideration of ecosystem effects
tends to be qualitative or semi-quantitative, rather than fully
quantitative. Multi-species and ecosystem models are being developed in
all NOAA Fisheries Science Centers and by a few academic institutions,
but they are usually difficult to validate and frequently suffer from
lack of adequate baseline biological and environmental data. Extensive
monitoring programs for federally managed species, associated and
dependent species, oceanographic data, habitat mapping, and climate
effects are needed to completely fulfill the data requirements of
ecosystem models.
To address such needs and to implement the recommendations of the
National Research Council report Improving Fish Stock Assessments, NOAA
Fisheries is currently preparing a Stock Assessment Improvement Plan.
The Stock Assessment Improvement Plan identifies three ``Tiers of
Excellence.'' In brief, these Tiers are to enhance stock assessments
using existing data, to elevate all assessments to nationally
acceptable standards (which, among other things, will require adequate
baseline monitoring for all managed species), and to develop and
conduct ``next generation'' assessments involving ecosystem
considerations and environmental and spatial effects. As part of the
fiscal year 02 Budget Request, NOAA Fisheries has requested funding
that will enable achievement of Tier 2, which includes adequate
baseline monitoring of all managed species. When Tier 2 of the NOAA
Fisheries Stock Assessment Improvement Plan is achieved, an important
step towards ecosystem-based fisheries management will have been made.
The next step will be to conduct the assessments needed to incorporate
the baseline information into the decision making process for ecosystem
and fishery management planning.
Examples of Ecosystem Approaches to Fishery Management
Although fishery management based on an ecosystem approach is still
a relatively new and evolving concept, NOAA Fisheries is beginning to
implement ecosystem-oriented approaches to the management of a few
living marine resources. Some examples of ecosystem-based approaches
are: the FEP being developed for the Chesapeake Bay; the Coral Reef
Ecosystem FMP being developed by the Western Pacific Council; the
ecosystem-related provisions of all FMPs, particularly relating to
essential fish habitat (EFH); and the ecosystem-based restoration
planning that guides many of our habitat restoration projects.
Development of a Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Ecosystem Plan
NOAA is a strong Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partner and is relied
upon as an objective voice of science. The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office
(NCBO) is leading an exciting initiative to develop an FEP for the Bay
that will result in gradual implementation of ecosystem-based fishery
management. The Chesapeake Bay FEP will clearly describe the structure
and function of the Bay ecosystem, including key habitats and species
interactions. It will recommend actions to gradually implement
ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management for Bay resident and
coastal species, and specific research needed to acquire knowledge of
the ecosystem and its fisheries that will achieve long-range management
objectives.
In response to the Ecosystems Advisory Panel's recommendation to
develop a demonstration FEP, and commitments in the Chesapeake 2000
Agreement, the NCBO, together with the Program's Scientific and
Technical Advisory Committee, convened regional and national experts,
scientists, and managers to participate in the Chesapeake Bay FEP
Workshop to build the framework and establish guidelines from which to
develop an FEP for the Chesapeake Bay.
As follow-up to the FEP Workshop, NCBO has appointed an FEP
Technical Advisory Panel of sixteen prominent Bay scientists to: (1)
develop an FEP for the Chesapeake Bay (with strong support from NCBO),
(2) guide the implementation of ecosystem-based management of
Chesapeake Bay fisheries, and (3) foster the continual development of
the FEP to reflect expanded knowledge of the ecosystem.
A draft of the initial FEP, which will include such important
elements as ecosystem boundaries, a conceptual model of the food web,
indices of ecosystem health, ecosystem effects on fishing, and economic
and social aspects, is expected by the end of 2001, with a completed
FEP by spring 2002. The FEP will be an iterative process; it will
undergo continual development as understanding increases of the Bay
fisheries within an ecosystem context.
Draft Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishery Management Plan
The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, with the assistance
of NOAA Fisheries, is preparing a new Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishery
Management Plan (CRE-FMP). Over 90% of coral reefs under U.S.
jurisdiction are in the Pacific Ocean. However, the Council foresees a
significant expansion of new fisheries for food, aquarium fishes,
corals, and pharmaceuticals, especially given the increasing
overfishing occurring in state waters. Addressing the potential
ecosystem impacts of fisheries on protected species such as the
Hawaiian monk seal is also an increasing concern. Key approaches that
are being incorporated in the draft CRE-FMP are: including all reef
species not currently covered by existing FMPs; using a precautionary
approach based on a system of permits and reporting; incorporating
zoning, which includes fully protected marine reserves as an integral
component; prohibiting fishing gears known to damage coral reef
habitats; and providing a framework for adaptive management. The
Council hopes to finish work on the CRE-FMP in the near future.
Essential Fish Habitat
The EFH provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act emphasize the
importance of habitat in sustainable fisheries and the need to address
unintended adverse effects of fishing activities on important habitats.
The EFH provisions require every FMP to identify and describe EFH,
minimize to the extent practicable the adverse effects of fishing on
EFH, and identify other actions to encourage the conservation and
enhancement of EFH.
NOAA Fisheries and the Councils have identified EFH for all 41
existing FMPs. The EFH designations take an ecosystem approach,
consistent with the definition of EFH in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, by
encompassing habitats needed throughout the full life cycle of managed
species. Thus EFH designations include important habitat areas for all
life stages of fish and not just the spawning grounds or the areas
where adult fish are found in high densities. To provide additional
focus for conservation and management, NOAA Fisheries encourages
Councils to identify Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPCs) within
EFH to highlight priority areas that have especially important
ecological functions, and/or areas that are particularly vulnerable to
degradation. Importantly, the Councils are beginning to use EFH and
HAPC information in fishery management decisions. For example, when the
New England Council voted to reopen closed areas on Georges Bank to
scallop harvesting, the Council specifically decided to exclude an HAPC
for juvenile cod as well as other hard bottom habitats that are
susceptible to impacts from scallop dredging. Likewise, the North
Pacific Council last year approved a measure to prohibit directed
fishing for corals and sponges because it recognized that those living
substrates provide essential habitat for a variety of fishery
resources. These types of ecosystem considerations are becoming
increasingly important to the sustainable management of our nation's
fishery resources.
Habitat Restoration Planning
NOAA Fisheries is also applying ecosystem principles to our habitat
restoration planning. Through the NOAA Restoration Center, we work with
other agencies, industries, and interest groups to develop regional
restoration plans at the spatial scale of a watershed or larger
ecological unit. We are using regional restoration plans to restore
important coastal and anadromous fish habitats in Washington State, New
York, and Florida. These bay-wide approaches address habitat
restoration needs in a comprehensive and systematic fashion,
prioritizing and linking individual projects to increase the
effectiveness and efficiency of restoration activities.
SUMMARY
The need for a much more comprehensive understanding of living
marine resources and the ecosystems that support them is clear. While
we have a considerable way to go in conducting the types of research
and implementing integrated and adaptive decision making processes that
would support true ecosystem management plans, some important steps
have been made. I look forward to continuing to work with the House
Resources Committee and a wide range of stakeholders to make additional
progress in this area.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. With me on the panel
today are two of NMFS's finest scientists, Dr. Patricia Livingston and
Dr. Steve Murawski. Dr. Livingston is the leader of our fishery
ecosystem research in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Dr. Murawski
is our chief stock assessment scientist for our northeastern fisheries.
They will each give you a synopsis on the state of our ecosystem
knowledge and research in their respective geographic areas. Again, I
want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today and discuss
ecosystem management. I am prepared to respond to any questions that
you and other Members of the Committee may have.
______
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you, Dr. Hogarth.
Dr. Fluharty, welcome.
STATEMENT OF DAVID L. FLUHARTY, PH.D., CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL
MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE ECOSYSTEMS PRINCIPLES ADVISORY PANEL,
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Dr. Fluharty. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the
Subcommittee, I am Dave Fluharty, associate professor, School
of Marine Affairs, University of Washington, also a member of
the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
I have prepared three topics that I think may be of
interest. I had the distinct honor to chair the panel that
developed the Ecosystem Based Fisheries report for you in
Congress, and I am very pleased to have an opportunity to be
here to discuss it with you; secondly, I wanted to touch on
some of the implementation difficulties that we are
experiencing and are likely to experience, as we move ahead
with developing Fisheries Ecosystem Plans; and, finally, I
would like to touch on some of the recommendations of where to
go from here.
The Ecosystem Principles Panel deliberately chose the term
``ecosystem-based fishery management,'' as opposed to
``ecosystem management,'' because we felt that that was
something that we could actually get our hands around, that we
didn't have to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, in
terms of our understanding of the scientific basis and social
basis for developing Fisheries Ecosystem Plans. We felt that
ecosystem-based management, where we actually used the
knowledge that we do have at the present time, is a way to get
moving much more quickly than waiting until we have finished
everything up. We, of course, acknowledged that there are many
difficulties, many holes that we need to fill in with research.
Secondly, and very importantly, ecosystem-based fishery
management does not substitute for good fishery management. We
need good fishery management measures such as have been
developed and are being implemented under the Sustainable
Fisheries Act to actually make progress to go beyond single
species approaches and into a more ecosystem-based approach. So
it is an absolute prerequisite to have full implementation of
the Sustainable Fisheries Act.
Our goal as a panel was not to produce another report that
would land up on the shelf and get dusty. We wanted this one to
get wet, to get in the water, and to make pragmatic
recommendations that could be put into effect immediately, and
we think that the Fisheries Ecosystem Plan is one of those
measures.
Our goal of sustaining ecosystem health is a shorthand way
of basically expressing a desire for an improved state of the
environment compared with today. We didn't define it, as you
probably have seen, in any great detail, but we did try to make
it very clear that the goal is important. It is one that
fishing interests and environmental interests can attach to and
find a great deal of meaning in.
The Fisheries Ecosystem Plan that we propose is a way of
starting to move regional fishery management councils, through
existing institutions and processes, into consideration of
ecosystem-based management, and I think will let Dr.
Livingston's testimony explain how that is being done in the
context of the North Pacific Council.
While it should be possible to institute ecosystem-based
management in the United States without additional legislation,
the fact is it sometimes is necessary, one, to make clear the
intent of Congress; two, to develop enforceable pathway to
implementation; and, three, to provide a vehicle for funding
and oversight.
The biggest impediment that we see right now in terms of
the development of a Fisheries Ecosystem Plan is the backlog of
compliance with some of the basic environmental and
administrative laws, as well as with the Sustainable Fisheries
Act. I observe, and I think many people would also agree with
me, that the Agency is working flat out. It is overtaxed, and I
don't know quite how we get around this, but it has been given
a lot of major tasks and has had relatively level funding. And
this combination has made us very vulnerable to not doing the
job that we do. I am speaking of this as a council member right
now, watching in the North Pacific just how difficult it is to
get Essential Fish Habitat in places, to comply fully with the
National Environmental Policy Act, and with developing all of
the measures that we need to, to properly manage the fisheries.
This is really something that it is hard to expect the
Agency to do more, in my opinion, if we don't provide it with
adequate resources, and that is definitely a concern when it
comes to the issue of whether or not to add or how to add the
Fisheries Ecosystem Plan.
In conclusion, I would say that I very much support the
recommendation of Mr. Gilchrest and Dr. Hogarth to have more
workshops, not only for the fishing industry, but for the
council members and others with interest in fisheries
management. All of us need to come to a better understanding of
how ecosystem-based fishery management works. We are
transitioning from a basically flawed system into one that will
help us manage fisheries much better, and it is going to take
some time, it is going to take resources, and it is going to
take a lot of education.
The most critical step I think right now is for Congress to
understand, and that is what I understand is the purpose of
this hearing, the need to move forward with developing
ecosystem-based fisheries management. A good coach know what a
team needs to motivate it and to fuel its performance, and a
coach also recognizes when it is necessary to raise the bar
higher, to challenge, but not discourage the team.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fluharty follows:]
Statement of David Fluharty, Associate Professor, School of Marine
Affairs, University of Washington
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on ecosystem-based fishery
management and Reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA). I am David Fluharty,
Associate Professor, School of Marine Affairs, University of Washington
and voting-member since 1994 of the North Pacific Fishery Management
Council (NPFMC). I had the distinct privilege to serve as the Chair of
the Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel developing the report to
Congress, Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management. Most recently, I was a
member of the study committee of the National Research Council that
produced the report, Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean
Ecosystems. This combination of academic orientation and practical,
direct involvement in fisheries management gives me a unique
perspective to offer this Committee. The NPFMC has subvened my travel
costs to this Hearing. However, the views I express are my own. While
many of my views are informed by my work in the North Pacific area, I
think there are similar issues and opportunities in the context of
other regional fisheries management councils.
I have prepared a series of talking points that touch on three main
topics in response to your invitation to address the benefits and
difficulties of developing and implementing ecosystem-based fishery
management plans. First, I review some of the intent and rationale of
the Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel. Next, I discuss status of
implementation of ecosystem-based fishery management with a focus on
impediments to achieving that goal. Third, I will make observations
about the steps and time frame needed for transition to ecosystem-based
fishery management.
The basic theme of this testimony is how to make the ``E'' word
stand for Excellence in fishery management and Excellence in care for
the environment. Ecosystem-``anything'' tends to scare the fishing
industry. Similarly, ecosystem-``anything'' tends to give false comfort
to the environmental community. I believe it is time that we translate
ecosystem-based management from an abstract concept into practical
management measures. In so doing, I detect that is a very important
need to recognize a common goal, i.e., to maintain ecosystem health and
sustainability. A healthy ecosystem is good for fisheries and good for
the environment.
I regard the benefits to be derived from ecosystem-based fishery
management to be a perpetual, but limited, supply of fish for
commercial and recreational use and an ecosystem that sustains
biodiversity and habitats as well as other non-monetary conceptions of
the environment. In the most simplistic sense, a conservative yield of
fish from a healthy ecosystem is most likely greater than the yields
currently extracted from stressed and overfished ecosystems. Even
within the natural variability of ecosystem regimes there is greater
resilience to effects of fishing and other uses under healthy versus
stressed ecosystems. It is my view that experience over the last 25
years under the MSFCMA in fisheries off Alaska demonstrates this point,
however, fishery management there is still working hard to more fully
incorporate ecosystem concerns [Attachment]. What achieves success in
fishery management in terms of sustained yield may still have effects
on other ecosystem components. Fishery management is increasingly being
called to address these other interactions. I am convinced that the
current fishery management institutions if given the right kinds of
legislative mandates, incentives and support can make the transition to
sustainable fisheries in an ecosystem context.
Ecosystem-Based Fisheries
The previous speaker summarized very well the Ecosystem Principles
Advisory Panel report. Some background on the Panel deliberations and
intent may be useful to add. The Panel consciously chose to use the
term ``ecosystem-based'' fishery management instead of ``ecosystem
management.'' To us, ecosystem-based'' fishery management means using
what is known about the ecosystem in the management of fisheries.
Ecosystem management is much broader in scope and less defined in terms
of management--especially for the marine environment. Using what is
known about the ecosystem is a main component of scientific fishery
management. The Panel is very aware of the inadequacies of fisheries
and ecosystem data. We advise that precautionary policies be adopted
where there is high uncertainty. What we are calling attention to is
the failure to use what we know about ecosystems and the way they
function. Overfishing is a ``no-brainer'' as far as ecosystems are
concerned. At the same time fisheries managers, using fisheries
dependent and independent data, do have a good understanding of how the
fisheries work in an ecosystem context. Thus, ecosystem-based fishery
management is using ecological knowledge to advise the policies under
data limited conditions. Clearly, the Panel advises to avoid making
perfect knowledge of the ecosystem the enemy of using the good
knowledge we have.
A second precept of the Panel was that ecosystem-based fishery
management is not a substitute for full implementation of the fishery
management requirements under the MSFCMA and especially the amendments
in the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996. The SFA challenges fisheries
managers to end overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, address
Essential Fish Habitat and fishing effects, account for and reduce
bycatch, etc. If these basic fishery management functions are not
carried out, there is no hope for an ecosystem-based approach being
implemented. Ecosystem-based fishery management is not a panacea and it
has prerequisites.
Third, the Panel's goal was to make pragmatic recommendations that
could be put into effect immediately without additional legislation and
within the existing framework of fishery management councils.
Fourth, the Panel's goal of sustaining ecosystem health is a
shorthand way of describing a more desired state than the current one
in most marine ecosystems in the United States. At a minimum, the
benefits of a healthy ecosystem in terms of fisheries are modest but
continuous yields from abundant fish stocks instead of low yields from
overfished stocks. Managing to maintain abundance of fish means stocks
have greater resilience to all forms of stress.
Fifth, while much of the emphasis on ecosystems relates to
biological and social processes, the socio-economic and institutional
dimensions of fisheries management are, in some, respects more
important especially with regard to managing human activities, like
fisheries. Without the right kinds of incentives to conserve, fishing
interests tend to ratchet up levels of fishing to compete with each
other and this results in a downward spiral of fish stocks and
eventually overfishing. Much discussion has been focused on the
combined economic and political pressures to overfish under current
management. The Panel observes that with political support, the
necessary measures to start ecosystem-based management are largely
economic and social dealing with allocating fishing rights and
responsibilities. The Panel recommendation is very broad in this
respect ``to make local incentives compatible with global goals''. We
did not emphasize this as much as we might given the other charge given
to the National Research Council under the SFA to investigate this
component of fishery management [See NRC 1998, Sharing the Fish ; OECD
2001, Sustaining Marine Fisheries]. Transition to healthy ecosystems
demands making tough decisions, having adequate funding and people
committed to making the system work. The strategy for implementing
ecosystem-based fishery management depends heavily on economic and
social as well as ecological understanding to inform the choice of
measures
Finally, the Panel's basic recommendation is the development of
Fishery Ecosystem Plans [FEP] for each of the US ecosystems under
fishery management. These FEPs provide directions for management into
which the regular Fishery Management Plans could be assessed. The
reason why the Panel did not choose to utilize the FMP process is
because the FEP must look more broadly at ecosystem trends and the
linkages between fisheries and the ecosystems. Cumulative effects of
fishing for all species must be considered to the best of our knowledge
while FMPs focus on species or groupings of like species..
While it should be possible to institute ecosystem-based management
in the United States without additional legislation, the fact is that
it is sometimes necessary 1) to make clear the intent of Congress, 2)
to develop an enforceable pathway to implementation and 3) to provide a
vehicle for funding and oversight.
Impediments to Implementing Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management
While there are scientific and other questions about how to move
forward with ecosystem-based fishery management, I believe the largest
set of issues concerns the backlog of implementation of basic
environmental and administrative measures as well as the MSFCMA
measures. How much additional work can be expected from an agency that
is, in my view, overtaxed? Further, I believe there is confusion about
the management goal for fisheries and ecosystems that needs resolution
or, at least, additional direction. I will focus on the situation with
which I am most familiar, the NPFMC region but I think that much of
what I note can apply or soon will apply to other regions.
Repeated law suits have demonstrated that the National
Environmental Policy Act [developing of PEIS, SEIS] is not fully
implemented in the current fishery management context in both its
procedural and substantive aspects. NMFS is making compliance a top
priority based on the statements of its leadership. This is a major
task and one that in many cases is overdue. In the North Pacific
Fishery Management Council we are literally wrestling with a 3,400 page
document weighing in at 27.5 pounds Draft Programmatic Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and
Gulf of Alaska Groundfish. This is the second update from the first
document prepared in 1978 and redone in 1988 although Environmental
Assessments of discrete management actions like annual setting of TACs
and amending the management plans were done. Full Programmatic EIS work
had not been done.
This effort, being done under court order has produced this a
tremendous reference document on the fisheries in this region and their
management. The process which produced it and will lead to decisions on
policies will help us move further toward ecosystem-based fishery
management. Why did it take a legal challenge to push us into doing
this review? I would argue that it has mostly to do with two factors.
First, the perception that Council/NMFS NEPA was compliant given its
string of EAs and high reliance on scientific analysis and advice in
the management process. Second, given the enormous work load on Council
and NMFS staffs it seemed a luxury we could ill-afford in terms of
staff tasking. Development of full programmatic review of the
groundfish fisheries is at least a 3-year process involving nearly
every staff member of NPFMC, NMFS Regional offices and Science Centers,
Consultants, staff from the States of Alaska and Washington and we hope
that it will pass muster. Why, because, I believe, this same
undertaking will be expected for every major fishery in the United
States--as soon as possible. This is reality. While dealing with this
major effort, nothing was taken off of the Council/NMFS plate and more
was added.
A second package of issues is very actively raised by Endangered
Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act challenges with respect to
Steller sea lions. I will not dwell on this issue as it is very complex
and controversial but I will say that efforts to deal with findings of
jeopardy in three fisheries has required a huge amount of effort in the
development of Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives. This process also
requires the completion of a NEPA EIS to precede final decisions.
Again, not an easy set of responsibilities under other circumstances.
This illustrates the point that conservative scientifically based
fisheries management may not take into account the broader ecosystem
issues that would be done in an ecosystem-based approach. Also, not
having the NEPA Programmatic EIS from which to tier off, makes it
difficult and somewhat redundant to perform a separate analysis
simultaneously
Again, with a focus on the NPFMC at the same time we were ramping
up on the NEPA compliance issues, SFA was passed with its many
requirements to upgrade fishery management. Implementation of Essential
Fish Habitat provisions is a major stretch for the agency and for the
NPFMC in particular. Even before the formal regulations were approved
the Council and NMFS started to devote a large amount of effort to
identifying EFH and amending all FMPs to take it into account. The
initial focus was on getting the first part of the requirements done. I
know that finishing the first part was seen as a major accomplishment
by the NPFMC. We felt our record with respect to setting up no trawl
habitat areas for red king crab in the Bering Sea [30,000 square
nautical miles, which is considered twice the area of Georges Bank
NPFMC Draft PSEIS 2001] and no trawl zones in the Southeast Gulf of
Alaska [45,000 square nautical miles], plus requirements to use pelagic
trawls, and an FMP banning fisheries on forage fish was a good start.
We planned [and are] building further under the EFH provisions
concerning Habitat Areas of Particular Concern. However, as was quickly
pointed out in litigation, the fishing effects identification and
mitigation components of EFH were performed inadequately. Now we are
engaged in a major scoping process and NEPA process for actions to
further define and mitigate fishing effects.
The foregoing EFH discussion raises a very important point where
policy direction is needed. The EFH and HAPC mechanisms can move the
development of Marine Protected Areas ahead in the fishery management
process. I am aware that new protective measures have been developed
with regional fishery management council involvement in the Florida
Keys National Marine Sanctuary [Dry Tortugas] and are under way in
Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary. Further, the State of
California has a major initiative to establish a network of marine
protected areas in State waters. More and more interest is being
expressed in the use of MPAs in fisheries management [NRC 2001 Marine
Protected Areas: A Tool for Sustaining Marine Ecosystems]. Time and
area closures and gear restrictions have long been part of fishery
management and many measures taken have been significant. These types
of areas are familiar to fishing interests and are one of the many
types of MPAs recognized by the IUCN and in the MPA Executive Order of
May 25, 2001. However, there is a large amount of pressure to discount
any MPA that is not a ``fully-protected'', i.e., ``no-take'' zone in
terms of fisheries. Clarifying the role of NMFS in developing MPA
measures under the EFH/HAPC process could be very beneficial.
Response to the SFA requirements to halt overfishing and to develop
rebuilding plans is another key provision but one that takes time and
resources to accomplish. Fortunately none of the groundfish stocks in
the NPFMC area are overfished under the SFA definition [one crab
species meets the overfishing definition and is so declared, despite
scientific questions about the applicability of the definition to
invertebrate stocks]. Formal procedures necessitate a couple of years
to develop regulations, get regulations approved, develop rebuilding
plans, get them approved and implemented. Then it takes time for the
fisheries to respond. Most groundfish species require 3-10 years before
results can be observed in the fisheries and, in some cases, much more
time than that is necessary due to the life histories of the fish. In
addition, favorable or unfavorable environmental conditions can
accelerate or depress rate of recovery even without fishing taking
place.
Implementing the full force of the MSFCMA has proved problematic
and the experience from SFA amendments should be instructive as we
contemplate the more integrative step of ecosystem-based fishery
management. This litany of just some of the environmental,
administrative and MSFCMA issues before councils and NMFS is provided
to illustrate the daunting realities facing fisheries managers [e.g.,
bycatch, observer programs, Vessel Monitoring Systems, etc. See Council
Chair's Report on MSFCMA Reauthorization, June 2001]. More importantly
for the standpoint of this hearing, it shows how many of the actions
are building the information base and understanding that is needed to
take the next steps toward ecosystem-based fisheries management. And
they point to how ecosystem-based fisheries management could be useful
in providing a strategic focus for what right now seems like a series
of disparate actions.
Steps to Ecosystem-Based Management
The United States is a leader in the development of theoretical and
empirical studies of fisheries ecosystems. I would venture to say that
we have more ecologically trained fisheries managers than any other
nation. Does that translate into full use of what we know?
Unfortunately, it does not. What we found in the Panel is there are
very good examples of use of ecosystem knowledge but the application is
inconsistent.
The Fishery Ecosystem Plan is a logical extension of fishery
management under the regional council process. The Panel has provided a
sketch of what we believe to be key elements of how such a FEP could be
constructed and put into use. We anticipate that, as with any new
approach, it makes sense to phase-in the FEP concept by a process that
allows experimentation and innovation at the regional level. The NPFMC
Ecosystem Chapter, a part of the annual stock assessment and fishery
evaluation documentation is an important example of what could be done.
Ideally, Congress could encourage the further development and
implementation of this concept. However, it is important to keep in
mind that the success of ecosystem-based fishery management is
contingent upon substantially complete implementation of the
Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 an other environmental and
administrative mandates. Fortunately, full implementation of these laws
provides the building blocks for ecosystem-based fishery management.
Adequate funding is critical for success. I do not know much about
budgetary processes or allocations. I can observe that before SFA in
1996 I felt the agency was already overtaxed in terms of work. SFA
added a number of additional tasks and some modest increases in
funding, which, due to budgetary cycles was not in agency hands until a
significant amount of time had passed. In addition, since 1996, the
urgency to deal with the backlog of NEPA compliance has become more
acute. Please understand. This is not a whine. I understand and support
the full implementation of federal laws and I believe that the fishery
management system is equally committed, but frankly, NMFS, the
Councils, the fishing industry and environmental advocacy groups are
swamped with efforts to rapidly respond to the backlog and the new
responsibilities.
One discreet measure that would give Councils and NMFS more control
over things that go on in the ecosystem would be to do as a few states
have done and preclude new fisheries for species not under an FMP.
Councils and NMFS could open these areas under experimental fishing
permits or similar regulations with reporting and other controls that
would identify the benefits and costs [ecological and economic] and
would avoid rapid swings of effort into such fisheries
Another set of measures that needs to be considered as well are
those that focus on the human dimensions of fisheries and the need to
develop the right kinds of incentives for support for ecosystem-based
management. This is being dealt with in other legislative proposals,
e.g., the IFQ proposal of Senator Snowe and Sen. McCain. Suffice it to
say that the Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel strongly urges the
interrelationships to be recognized.
The most critical step is for Congress to understand what is needed
to move all of us forward who are involved in developing ecosystem-
based fishery management--forward as a team. A good coach knows what
the team needs to motivate it and fuel its best performance. Above all,
a coach recognizes when it is necessary to raise the bar higher to
challenge but not discourage the team.
Raising the bar. Congress needs to keep the pressure on fisheries
management reform and to be a great coach for the ecosystem-based
fishery management team. With time, financial support and legislative
incentives, I believe US fisheries are already turning the corner and
we will have healthy and sustainable marine ecosystems from which all
of the natural service benefits can be supplied. Already there are
signs of progress but it takes a lot of pressure, consistently applied,
over substantial time to turn a large ship.
______
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you very much, Dr. Fluharty.
Dr. Murawski?
STATEMENT OF STEVEN A. MURAWSKI, PH.D., NORTHEAST FISHERIES
SCIENCE CENTER, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE
Dr. Murawski. Good morning, Mr. Chairman
Mr. Gilchrest. Good morning.
Dr. Murawski. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify before the Committee. My name is Steven Murawski, and I
am the chief stock assessment scientist for the National Marine
Fisheries Service in the Northeast Region. Today, I would like
to discuss with you and share some insights about the role of
ecosystem-based management and what it can, and perhaps has
done in the past, specifically related to the Northeast Region.
The Northeast shelf ecosystem supports about four dozen
important species that contribute to the fisheries. These
include species groups such as New England groundfish, summer
flounder, sea scallops, monkfish, surfclam, ocean quahog, and a
variety of other species. These species occur in perhaps one of
the most well-studied ecosystems in the world. We have the
benefit of a very long-time series of fishery monitoring data
that has collected information about the abundance of fish
species across the board for nearly four decades. As well, we
have significant programs that Congress has funded in GLOBEC
and NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program that have generated
information on how various species interact between themselves
and also with the environment.
One of the most compelling issues relating to these four
dozen species is that almost all of them have undergone bouts
of serious decline and overfishing in the last two to three
decades and one would ask the question whether the lack of an
ecosystem approach has contributed to that. Generally speaking,
it is well-understood now that had fishery managers followed
prescriptive advice for single-species management, we probably
wouldn't be in the circumstances we are. Nevertheless, there is
a very compelling reason for us to go to some form of
ecosystem-based management for this system, and there is a lot
of things that are contributed by the development of Fishery
Ecosystem Plans that we simply can't get out of the current
system.
There seems to be a general consensus forming around four
basic questions that we, as fishery scientists and managers,
have as it relates to the potential contributions of an
ecosystem basis rather than simply doing more single-species
work. The first of these is what might be accomplished by
developing criteria for defining ecosystem overfishing and what
could we get in addition to effective single-species
management?
Secondly, are single-species recovery strategies possible
or desirable for complex ecosystems? Can we really restore the
fishery biomass and yield potential on a species-by-species
basis, given the limits of ecosystems.
The third question we have is can fisheries research
provide a quantitative basis for defining ecosystem
overfishing, as opposed to single-species overfishing, and what
are the standards by which we could measure ecosystem
overfishing, and this is a challenge for us as scientists.
And, fourth, what are the additional monitoring and
research needs that would be necessary to support an ecosystem
basis for fisheries management?
To the first question, what might be accomplished, we
really see four major things that can be accomplished in a
Fishery Ecosystem Plan, as opposed to the single-species and
species group approach. First of all, we can take a better look
at predator-prey relationships. The way that Fishery Management
Plans are done in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, they tend
to focus around groups of interrelated species that are caught
together, and that leaves predator-prey relationships and the
tradeoffs between predators and prey in the margins. A Fishery
Ecosystem Plan could certainly help there.
Secondly, bycatch management. We have numerous examples
where we have target species that are managed in one FMP that
generate bycatch interactions that are regulated in another
FMP, and that is not well-done.
A third issue that we could address in this context is the
issue of comprehensive effort control. We have seen effort
regulated, for example, in New England groundfish and scallops,
with the excess effort being pushed off to different fisheries
to create other problems. A comprehensive approach is certainly
necessary.
And last, the inclusion of accounting for impacts of mobile
fishing gear is certainly important to issues of habitat
research, and that is not well-covered in the current
management approach.
To the second question, single-species recovery strategies,
we certainly need to look more deeply at issues related to the
possibility to have BMSY and MSY values for all individual
species and is the whole less than the sum of its parts, which
is an important question.
Now, as far as canned fishery science, provide us new
insights, on a quantitative basis, for ecosystem overfishing
definition. This is an area of current active research. There
are a whole host of things like species diversity indices that
have only started to be applied to these kinds of problems. We
see this as an area of great importance, and certainly in terms
of the definitions, a very critical issue.
And last, what new research should we do? First of all, we
think that predation studies need to be improved and completed,
and that includes things like food habits, estimates of
consumption not only by the fish species, but also marine
mammals and other species, and a greater reliance on the
spatial processes that happen, rather than looking at fish, as
a group, as if they didn't spread out and interact at the
margins.
Secondly, we need to develop quantitative measures of
biodiversity. We hear a lot about managing for increased
biodiversity, but we, as scientists, and certainly the managers
don't really have a good working definition of that.
Third, we need more field studies of the Marine Protected
Areas (MPAs) and other closed areas that currently exist. In
our region, we have about 20,000 square kilometers closed.
These are providing new insights into the potential use of MPAs
as an ecosystem tool. We need to improve our models of species
and habitat interactions and, last, we need to improve our
monitoring capabilities to work across the trophic levels.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Murawski follows:]
Statement of Steven A. Murawski, Ph.D., Chief Stock Assessment
Scientist, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries
Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind invitation to provide
testimony regarding ecosystem-based management and specifically aspects
related to the Northeast United States continental shelf. My name is
Steven Murawski, and I am the Chief Stock Assessment Scientist for the
Northeast Fisheries Science Center, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In my
oral and written testimony I will detail a case history of overfishing
on an ecosystem-wide basis. The Northeast shelf ecosystem is one of the
best-studied areas of the world's oceans. Fishery-independent
monitoring programs have been in place for nearly four decades, and the
predator-prey interrelationships and effects of variation in the marine
environment on species of the Northeast have been extensively studied.
Had prescriptive scientific advice, based on traditional models and
data, been followed, many of the difficulties we now face in stock
rebuilding could have been avoided. Nevertheless, there is a critical
need for the inclusion of ecosystem considerations in the management of
this system, and ecosystem issues will have an increasingly important
and central role in setting biomass rebuilding targets, optimizing
yields from interrelated species and fisheries, minimizing habitat
damage caused by gear, and in dealing with overcapacity of a mobile,
efficient, and adaptable fishing fleet.
The Northeast USA: A Case History of Ecosystem Overfishing
Off the Northeast USA (Cape Hatteras to the Canadian Maritimes)
there are about four dozen important finfish and shellfish stocks that
require intensive monitoring and scientific advice to support fishery
management plans. These stocks include New England groundfish (a
complex of about 15 species and 25 managed stocks), summer flounder,
sea scallop, Atlantic herring and mackerel, striped bass, surfclam and
monkfish, to name a few. Virtually all of these important stocks have
undergone dramatic population declines during the past two or three
decades, necessitating the development of restrictive management
measures to address overfishing (Exhibit 1). In a number of important
cases these plans, which have usually been developed for individual
species or sets of species caught together when fishing, have resulted
in some level of stock rebuilding. Thus, for example, we have seen
increases in the stock sizes and landings of striped bass, summer
flounder, sea scallop, and some stocks in the groundfish complex.
Rebuilding of these stocks has required substantial cuts in fishing
mortality through the imposition of strategies to reduce fishing
pressure (effort), the closure of large areas of productive ocean
waters to fishing, in some cases the adoption of low annual landings
quotas, and other measures.
It is often suggested that the depletion of these Northeast fishery
resources (and more generally those throughout the nation and the
world) stems in part from our failure to adopt an holistic ``ecosystems
approach''--fisheries management and resource conservation being too
focused on single-species stock status and control strategies (Murawski
2000). The primary cause of the collapse of many Northeast stocks
clearly was excessive fishing--scientific advice from single-species
stock assessments predicted as much. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to
consider how systems might be assessed and managed, and what additional
benefits could be expected from an explicit ecosystem orientation. The
important questions in this regard are, then:
LWhat might be accomplished by developing criteria for
defining ecosystem-level overfishing and management measures that could
not be accomplished under effective single- or multiple species fishery
management plans?
LAre single-species recovery strategies possible or
desirable for complex marine ecosystems, and if so, what
characteristics of ecosystems should be considered when developing
stock rebuilding targets and thresholds?
LCan fisheries research provide a quantifiable basis for
defining ecosystem overfishing and acceptable standards to measure
progress against those definitions?
LWhat additional monitoring and research would be
necessary (over and above that necessary to support species management)
to support ecosystem-based fishery management?
The situation off the Northeast USA provides some useful insights
into these questions; as a case history, these fisheries are often
regarded as a prime example of ecosystem-level overfishing (Hall 1999;
Fogarty and Murawski 1998).
While overfishing of some species was evident as early as the late
1920s (i.e., Georges Bank haddock and Atlantic halibut), overfishing on
an ecosystem scale did not occur in the Northwest Atlantic until the
early 1960s, with the massive influx of effort from European and later
Asian distant-water fleets. The scale of the effort increases in the
1960s and early 1970s was so massive that the system showed rapid and
broad-scale declines in the fish populations off the coast (Exhibit 1).
These fleets of large vessels could not survive on low catch rates and
thus the distant-water fleets engaged in a strategy of switching from
one abundant target species to another in a now classic pattern termed
``sequential depletion'' (Orensanz et al. 1998). In this fishing
pattern, multispecies catch rates are maintained, for a while, by re-
targeting fisheries to abundant or valuable resources, with fishery
management structures unable to anticipate or keep up with the changes
in fishing patterns. The severe depletion of traditional USA groundfish
species such as haddock, whiting (silver hake), red hake, and
yellowtail flounder was followed by shifts and collapses in herring,
mackerel, and other species important to the functioning of the fish
component of the ecosystem (Exhibit 1; Fogarty and Murawski 1998). The
fishery initially focused on predators and other high level consumers,
and later on fish species of lower position in the food web (Sissenwine
et al. 1984), consistent with a strategy of ``fishing down the food
web'' (Pauly et al. 1998). The collapse of herring and mackerel
stocks--primary prey for a number of predators such as cod, whiting,
dogfish, and pollock, resulted in substantial shifts in diet
composition and consumption rates by these predators (Overholtz et al.
2000), and resulted in substantial increases in other species including
sand eels (Fogarty et al. 1991).
A comprehensive fishery research strategy to index all the marine
fish components of the Northeast ecosystem was introduced in the early
1960s, coincident with the influx of distant-water fleet effort. The
delivery of the R/V Albatross IV in 1962 provided for the first time an
adequate platform from which to mount system-wide bottom trawl surveys
in the nearly 250,000 km2 Northeast continental shelf ecosystem. These
surveys, undertaken in a statistically rigorous manner for nearly 40
years, provide the basis for single-species stock assessments and other
data about the ecosystem. It is these data (Exhibit 1) that documented
clearly the impacts of fishing on individual stocks and species groups.
In addition to abundance and biological measurements of individual
stocks, stomach sampling information obtained from the surveys has
allowed for modeling of the impacts of predator-prey interactions
(Overholtz et al. 2000).
Fishery management in the 1970s was primarily undertaken through
the auspices of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic
Fisheries (ICNAF). Eventually ICNAF adopted comprehensive quota
management systems for primary target species, and an overall cap on
fisheries removals (similar to that now in effect in the Bering Sea) to
address predator-prey and bycatch problems. This regime ended in 1976
with the adoption of the Magnuson Act.
With the adoption of domestic management programs, most quota-based
management of finfish resources was phased-out in the early 1980s in
favor of ``indirect'' controls on fishing such as minimum fish and mesh
sizes. Although stock assessments showed increased fishing mortality
rates and declining biomasses of the valuable stocks, fishery
management responses were too slow to respond and generally inadequate.
Landings of groundfish stocks increased in the early 1980s due to good
recruitment from the mid 1970s, but later declined severely due to high
harvest rates and recruitment failure (Exhibit 2). Beginning in the
early 1990s, fisheries management again instituted systems of direct
controls including ``hard'' quotas for a number of Mid-Atlantic species
(summer flounder, surfclam, ocean quahog, mackerel, scup, squids), and
effort control for New England groundfish, sea scallop, and monkfish.
Combined with the large scale closure of productive fishing grounds in
New England (Exhibit 3), management has achieved lower mortality rates
for most valuable stocks and abundance has improved.
For some stocks such as herring and mackerel, domestic fisheries
have never generated fishing mortality rates as high as those achieved
under the foreign fishing regime, and these stocks increased rapidly to
very high levels after 1976 (Exhibit 1). Currently, herring and
mackerel are abundant and relatively productive, and are consumed by a
wide variety of fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. The recovery of
these species was an early indication that the effects of ecosystem-
level overfishing were not necessarily irreversible--that important
components of the ecosystem could be recovered despite the complexity
of species interactions and fisheries.
Studies of the food web supporting the shelf fisheries have
demonstrated just how complex the system is (Link 1999). However,
despite this complexity, research has demonstrated that the system is
not so tightly bound that recovery potential is severely limited by
dominant predator-prey relationships. One of the most important
observations of the Georges Bank GLOBEC research program is that
environmental variability has a significant influence of the survival
of young fish (Fogarty and Murawski 1998). Other recent studies have
also shown that there are substantially greater odds of getting strong
replenishment of groundfish occurring when spawning biomasses are high
(Brodziak et al. 2001). The empirical observations of the recovery of
prey species like herring and mackerel, combined with information
demonstrating the importance of adequate spawning biomass, and the
roles of oceanographic variability, have all strengthened the case for
aggressive management for stock recovery and eventual fisheries
sustainability at levels approaching MSY.
The Role of Ecosystem Considerations
All of the stocks regulated under Federal FMPs have, as their
fundamental basis, the definitions of overfishing and attendant control
rules set so that fishing mortality rates do not exceed the level that
is necessary to achieve maximum sustainable yield (MSY). Further,
biomass targets are established for each of the major stocks, based on
the likely recovery potential by using analyses of historical fisheries
and research data. It is clear that the establishment of target
biomasses under the single species approach leaves many unanswered
questions. A primary question of great current importance is: what is
the biomass and yield potential for stocks that have been chronically
overfished throughout the period for which there are landings and
population data? It is possible that the yield potentials of some
stocks, like Georges Bank haddock and yellowtail flounder, sea scallop,
and summer flounder are different than those indicated by single-
species models of stock recovery and yield. In these cases we simply
may not be able to ascertain these quantities de novo from the
historical data--an adaptive, cautious management approach to exploring
the yield and biomass potentials of stocks may be required. By the same
token, a comprehensive approach to defining biomass necessary for MSY
for each stock individually may not be feasible given the limits on
fish biomass and yield imposed by primary production (photosynthesis)
and zooplankton production. Simply stated, the whole may be less than
the sum of the parts. It is clear that the current approach, as
implemented in Northeast FMPs for individual species and species
assemblages, has no mechanism to incorporate ideas regarding predator-
prey relationships and the feasibility of biomass goals and possible
trade offs. Likewise, bycatch interactions, wherein the target
fisheries regulated in one FMP generate bycatches of species controlled
by another, are also not now addressed in a systematic manner. An
umbrella fisheries ecosystem plan would be a valuable addition to
address these concerns.
Another issue that could be better addressed with an ecosystem
focus to FMP development is the effect of effort control programs on
non-target species. The depletion of groundfish and other high values
species was followed by a more recent round of shifting fisheries to
alternative target species (Exhibit 4). In this scenario, effort from
the traditional groundfish and scallop fisheries was diverted to non-
traditional stocks including monkfish, spiny dogfish and squids. In the
case of groundfish, effort was halved in the mid-1990s, with some of
the remaining effort flowing to these alternative targets. Managers
have had to play catch up to address overfishing concerns of these
secondary target species. This scenario could have been addressed
through a comprehensive approach to fishing effort and capacity
management--the current system recognized the potential of effort
movement between fisheries but has not managed capacity in a
comprehensive manner. Clearly, recognizing that fishing effort can be
deployed in flexible and efficient ways should be an important
consideration in managing fishery ecosystems.
Fishery managers in New England and the Mid-Atlantic have been
among the first to adopt the use of large-scale year round fishery
closures in order to achieve management goals for target species
(Exhibit 3; Murawski et al. 2000). Large areas (over 20,000 km2 in the
case of groundfish closures) of productive fishing grounds were closed
beginning in 1994. These areas have proved to be a significant element
in the plan to increase groundfish abundance. At the same time, the
enactment of these areas have had serendipitous effects demonstrating
the value of closed areas as a strategy for increasing the abundance of
sea scallop and other species (Murawski et al. 2000). These closures,
although enacted for very specific and limited fishery management
goals, have coincided with a heightened interest world-wide in the use
of marine protected areas (MPAs). Although most monitoring studies have
focused on the overall status of regulated stocks, some limited field
study conducted by the NEFSC and academic partners have revealed
changes in the benthic community structure and habitat associated with
the closures (Collie et al. 1997). Prior to the limited resumption of
scallop dredging in portions of the groundfish closure areas,
comparative habitat studies were initiated--the results of which are
only now being interpreted. Based on preliminary analyses, it is clear
that the cessation of fishing in these habitats has had measurable
effects on the biota in the closed areas. We do not yet know the
significance of these changes to either the target species (improved
juvenile survival?) or on other non-resource species. There is an
indication of increased biodiversity of the fish component of the
resource since the adoption of these closures, and there are some
similar effects outside the closures (Exhibit 5; Brodziak and Link
2001). However, intensive studies of the effects of these closures and
their roles within the broader ecosystem have not been initiated.
Closed areas (rotational, seasonal, year-round, and marine reserves
wherein no fishing activity at all is allowed) will be a significant
component of fishery and ecosystem management in the years to come, and
programs to evaluate the potential costs (through lost fishing
opportunities) and benefits of such closed areas are a priority.
Fishery closures in New England have resulted in trawl fishing effort
moving into habitats that heretofore were not as heavily utilized
(Exhibit 6). These effects need to be better understood as MPAs become
more widely established as fishery and ecosystem management tools.
Summary
Overfishing of Northeast fishery resources occurred primarily as a
result of the lack of direct controls on fishing mortality. As a wider
array of species comes under intensive management, and stocks begin to
recover, there is an even greater need to address ecosystem
considerations. It is not clear that we can achieve biomass targets
determined based on single-species models and data for all managed
stocks simultaneously, and it is likely that species interactions will
increasingly modify the rates of recovery of stocks. Fishery management
plans for individual species and species groups do not allow a
convenient forum in which to assess inherent tradeoffs due to predator-
prey or bycatch interactions. Furthermore, the current structure does
not allow a comprehensive effort control and management system.
Comprehensive effort management has been identified as an essential
component of ecosystem-based fishery programs. The effects of mobile
fishing gears on the characteristics and productivity of benthic
habitats has also been identified as a priority, but studies of these
phenomena and their importance in managing exploited ecosystems has not
been adequately assessed anywhere in the world. The Northeast USA shelf
ecosystem has been intensively trawled and dredged for 100 years, and
changes in these habitats have no doubt occurred. Marine protected
areas have the potential to mitigate some of these effects, but the
extent and direction of habitat changes with the cessation of trawling
and dredging is only now beginning to be appreciated, especially in New
England. This issue will take on a central role in fisheries management
and research in the years to come.
In the absence of a quantitative understanding of species
interactions and impacts of habitat alterations, there is a growing
consensus of scientific opinion that prescriptive management provided
by conservative single-species approaches will provide the balance
among ecosystem components and high and relatively sustainable fishery
yields. A better understanding of these issues will allow managers to
assess the potentials and tradeoffs that will result from more active
management of the various components of the ecosystem.
Research Needs to Support Ecosystem Considerations:
Ecosystem approaches, whether implemented as perspectives on
traditional overfishing approaches, or through explicit ecosystem-based
definitions, require research and advisory services not typically
provided by fish stock assessment science. Regardless of the approach,
additional ecosystem monitoring and research is necessary with
increased emphasis on species interactions, diversity (at all levels of
organization) and variability (at various temporal and spatial scales).
However, this does not necessarily imply that traditional programs
collecting fishery-dependent and fishery-independent information should
be abandoned. On the contrary, existing programs will need to be
expanded to allow monitoring of catches and abundances of a wider array
of species, to complement research and modeling on trophic interactions
and other processes. Such research is necessary if ecosystem
considerations are to assume a greater role in resource management,
particularly as habitat protection becomes a priority, and measures
such as marine protected areas are used more widely to enhance resource
and non-resource species protection. Specifically, I foresee added
research emphasis in these areas:
Lpredation studies
Lmeasures of species diversity and their relation to
harvesting
Lfield studies of closed areas (emphasizing their role as
essential fish habitat)
Lmodels of species and habitat interaction (spatially
explicit)
Lenhanced capabilities to comprehensively monitor
components of the ecosystem through fishery independent surveys
References
Brodziak, J.T.K. and J.S. Link 2001. Ecosystem-based fisheries
management: What is it and how can we do it? Bulletin of Marine Science
(in press).
Brodziak, J.K.T., W.J. Overholtz and P.J. Rago. 2001. Does spawning
stock affect recruitment of New England groundfish? Canadian Journal of
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58(2): 306-318.
Collie, J.S., G.A. Escanero, and P.C. Valentine. 1997. Effects of
bottom fishing on benthic megafauna of Georges Bank. Marine Ecology
Progress Series 155: 159-172.
Fogarty, M.P., E.B. Cohen, W.L. Michaels, and W.W. Morse. 1991.
Predation and the regulation of sand lance populations: an exploratory
analysis. ICES Symposium of Marine Science 193: 120-124.
Fogarty, M.P. and S.A. Murawski. 1998. Large-scale disturbance and
the structure of marine systems: fishery impacts on Georges Bank.
Ecological Applications 8(1, Supplement): S6-S22.
Hall, S. 1999. The effects of fishing on marine ecosystems and
communities. Blackwell Science, London. 274 pp.
Link, J. 1999, (Re)Constructing food webs and managing fisheries.
Ecosystem Approaches for Fisheries Management. Alaska Sea Grant College
Program. AK-SG-99-01. 571-588.
Murawski, S.A. 2000. Definitions of overfishing from an ecosystem
perspective. ICES Journal of Marine Science 57: 649-658
Murawski, S.A., R. Brown, H.-L. Lai, P.J. Rago and L. Hendrickson.
2000. Large-scale closed areas as a fishery-management tool in
temperate marine systems: the Georges Bank experience. Bulletin of
Marine Science 66(3): 775-798.
Orensanz, J.M., J. Armstrong, D. Armstrong, and R. Hilborn. 1998.
Crustacean resources are vulnerable to serial depletion -- the
multifaceted decline of crab and shrimp fisheries in the Greater Gulf
of Alaska. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8:117-176.
Overholtz, W.J., J.S. Link and L.E. Suslowicz. 2000. Consumption of
important pelagic fish and squid by predatory fish in the northeastern
USA shelf ecosystem with some fishery comparisons. ICES Journal of
Marine Science 57: 1147-1159.
Pauly, D., V. Christensen, J. Dalsgaard, R. Froese and F. Torres,
Jr. 1998. Fishing down marine food webs. Science 279:860-863.
Sissenwine, M.P., E.B. Cohen and M.D. Grosslein. 1984. Structure of
the Georges Bank ecosystem. Rapports et Process verbaux des Reunion
International de Conseil de Exploration de la Mer 183: 243-254.
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Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you very much, Dr. Murawski.
Ms. Livingston, welcome.
STATEMENT OF PATRICIA A. LIVINGSTON, ALASKA FISHERIES SCIENCE
CENTER, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE
Ms. Livingston. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. I appreciate being invited to this hearing on
ecosystem-based fishery management. I am Patricia Livingston,
the program leader of the Resource Ecology and Ecosystem
Modeling Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center of
NMFS. Today, I want to tell you a little bit about the Alaskan
experience with implementing ecosystem-based management.
Our challenge in the last year or so has been how to
summarize our ecosystem knowledge and bring it to the attention
of fisheries management. We have produced three different
analyses this last year that attempt to do that.
The first one is the Ecosystem Considerations Chapter that
accompanies our Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Reports
that provide single-species stock assessment advice to the
North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. In this ecosystem
chapter, we have attempted to provide information on the status
and trends of various ecosystem components and ecosystem
indicators, including ecosystem management indicators, that we
can relate to the ecosystem-based goals of the Council, which
include maintaining diversity, habitat sustainability, and
humans as components of the ecosystem.
For example, we can compute an index looking at the trophic
level of the catch to see if we are fishing down the food web,
which is an issue related to diversity and sustainability. What
is lacking in this effort is its link to real quantitative
ecosystem-based management objectives. Right now it is serving
more of an information service.
We have also produced programmatic Alaska groundfish, SEIS.
It was a very broad-based ecosystem assessment, and it contains
virtually all of the elements of a Fishery Ecosystem Plan, as
envisioned by the NMFS Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel. It
covered a broad range of issues from habitat to predator-prey
interactions, protected species, target and nontarget species,
ecosystem effects of fishing and socio-economic benefits.
It was clear when we evaluated the present fishery
management regime, using the performance standards of the
Sustaining Marine Fisheries Report of the NRC, that we have
made progress in ecosystem-based management. We have
conservative single-species-based management. Our catches are
below the allowable biological catch levels recommended by
scientists. We have established substantial no-trawl zones.
There are significant controls not only on target species
discards, but also on the bycatch of prohibited species. We
have an overall cap on total catch. There is a prohibition on
new fisheries for forged species, and we have designated
sensitive bottom organisms, such as corals and sponges, as
prohibited species.
When we took the next step and tried to identify future
possible improvements to the system, with regard to protecting
various ecosystem components or improving socio-economic
benefits, it really highlighted our lack of quantitative
knowledge with regard to ecosystem processes. For example, when
we tried to recommend future habitat protection, it was
unclear, in a quantitative way, how that might translate into
increased fish production. We required more information on the
effects of fishing on habitat. We had inadequate space/time
resolution of our predator-prey information and abundance. We
need more information on nontarget species distribution,
taxonomy and life history and improvements in our fishery catch
statistics so that we can track nontarget species catches.
The final document we worked on was our Comprehensive
Biological Opinion, looking at groundfish fisheries from an ESA
perspective. Again, this was a qualitative analysis that
highlighted our lack of knowledge of the seasonal distribution
of key Steller sea lion prey, such as walleye pollock and
Pacific cod, and the seasonal distribution and foraging needs
of Steller sea lions.
In that opinion, we provided some conservation
recommendations that we hope would help us avoid future adverse
effects. The primary one was to expand our stock assessments to
consider the space and time distribution of stocks, and the
removals, and how those overlap with protected species, and
also to include environmental influences on fish stock
distribution and abundance. These are some of the same
recommendations that have been made in the NMFS Stock
Assessment Improvement Plan.
So it is clear that we have made incremental progress
toward ecosystem-based FMPs with various plan amendments we
have had. We have identified some possible policy directions
for future improvements. We require improvements in stock
assessments, as identified by the NMFS Stock Assessment
Improvement Plan. We need to continue in and enhance our long-
term monitoring of ecosystem components, and we need more
quantitative ecosystem-based objectives in order to move
forward.
I think the key elements here are the involvement of a
broad spectrum of scientific experts to reflect the concerns
beyond target species and enhancing our research to reflect
those concerns.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Livingston follows:]
Statement of Patricia A. Livingston, Program Leader, Resource Ecology
and Ecosystem Modeling, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National
Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of Commerce
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to this hearing on ecosystem-based fishery management. I am
Patricia A. Livingston, Program leader of Resource Ecology and
Ecosystem Modeling at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center of the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Implementing Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management: The Alaskan
Experience
Implementing ecosystem-based fishery management requires an
expansion of our fishery management advice beyond assessments of
species that are targets of fisheries. Although there have been
advances in multispecies and ecosystem modeling approaches, these
approaches have not yet been completely embraced by the scientific
community for purposes of fishery management. In some cases this is so
because of the difficulties in validating these models and in other
cases because of the lack of sufficient data and knowledge of the
critical processes to develop an appropriate model.
We are making progress, however, in providing ecosystem advice to
managers while we wait for these approaches to mature. There are many
GLOBEC and GLOBEC-like research efforts going on throughout the world,
which bring oceanographers, marine ecologists, and fisheries scientists
together to examine the potential impact of global climate change on
ocean ecosystems. Coordinated ecosystem research programs along these
lines are being conducted in the Gulf of Alaska through the U.S. GLOBEC
program, which is seeking to understand effects of climate variability
on marine production, particularly looking at salmon and zooplankton.
NMFS and NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research have been
working together in Alaska to understand the effects of climate on
pollock production through its Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated
Investigations joint program. These programs have highlighted the
significant gaps in knowledge in the link between zooplankton and fish
production. There is also increasing emphasis on habitat research,
ongoing trophic interactions work, and long-term monitoring of non-
commercial species, which all provide useful information on ecosystem
status and trends. Some of this ecological information can be used to
gauge the success of various management schemes that have been put in
place to meet ecosystem-based management goals that have been put
forward by the scientific community.
The Alaska Fisheries Science Center and other collaborators have
provided the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) with some
of this ecosystem research information in an Ecosystems Considerations
document that accompanies the traditional single-species stock
assessment advice to the Council. We have also just completed a draft
programmatic Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for our
Alaskan groundfish fisheries that provides a comprehensive analysis of
our present knowledge of the effects of the groundfish fisheries on the
environment. This draft programmatic SEIS takes a broad view of the
present fishery management regime and examines policies and potential
future actions from a variety of environmental perspectives. A
comprehensive Biological Opinion on Alaskan groundfish Fisheries
provides a protected species impacts analysis and management approaches
to be used to avoid jeopardy under the Endangered Species Act. A broad
range of scientific expertise is required to provide the ecosystem-
based advice in these types of documents. I will discuss aspects of
these documents, their relationship to development of ecosystem-based
fishery management plans, and some of the present gaps in our
scientific knowledge.
Ecosystem Considerations Chapter
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Groundfish Plan
Teams began in 1994 to broaden the scientific information provided to
the plan teams beyond the single-species stock assessment advice
contained in the Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report (SAFE)
provided to the Council. A new Ecosystem Considerations Chapter was
added to this SAFE document. Originally, the chapter contained
information summarizing ecosystem-based management objectives from
recent research articles, status and trend information of protected
marine mammal species such as Steller sea lions and northern fur seals,
and research summaries of a variety of ecosystem-related research.
There was not much standardization of the content of the report from
year to year. However, it served as information to the plan teams and
as a vehicle for discussing research priorities.
Three years ago, NMFS proposed that the chapter serve as an
ecosystem status and trends document with a more standardized content
from year to year. The idea was to draw upon a broad range of
scientific experts in the areas of physical oceanography and climate,
biological oceanography, habitat and effects of fishing research,
marine pollution, predator-prey interactions, forage fish and other
non-target species, and marine mammals and seabirds. Information would
be presented on the time trends of these ecosystem components in the
document and discussion would include the possible factors influencing
change. Experts providing information to this chapter include those
from NMFS, other NOAA components, state agencies, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, academia, and those representing native or other
local-based knowledge groups.
The purpose of these ecosystem status and trends indicators is to
1) bring the results of ecosystem research efforts to the attention of
stock assessment scientists and fishery managers in order to provide
stronger links between ecosystem research and fishery management and 2)
bring together many diverse research efforts into one document, which
would spur new understanding of the connections between ecosystem
components and the possible role that climate, humans, or both may have
on the system.
In addition to the ecosystem status and trend information, NMFS
proposed that the document also contain ecosystem management
indicators. These indicators would be ones that measure how we are
meeting ecosystem-based management goals. The indicators would: 1)
provide early signals of direct human effects on ecosystem components
that might warrant intervention by management or 2) provide evidence of
the efficacy of previous management actions. The North Pacific Fishery
Management Council adopted an ecosystem policy that has the following
four ecosystem-oriented management goals and the indicators are
arranged to measure aspects of the management system that could
influence achievement of those goals.
1. LMaintain biodiversity consistent with natural evolutionary and
ecological processes, including dynamic change and variability.
2. LMaintain and restore habitats essential for fish and their
prey.
3. LMaintain system sustainability and sustainable yields for human
consumption and non-extractive uses.
4. LMaintain the concept that humans are components of the
ecosystem.
For example, Exhibit 1 shows an ecosystem measure, trophic level of
the catch, that can be used to examine whether we are ``fishing down
the food web,'' an issue related to system biodiversity and
sustainability. We have now completed two annual revisions of the more
standardized ecosystem considerations document of the NPFMC (Livingston
1999, 2000). The documents are available on the web at:
http://www.refm.noaa.gov/docs/ecocons99.pdf
http://www.refm.noaa.gov/docs/Ecocon2000.pdf
NMFS is working closely with the North Pacific Fishery Management
Council to apply ecosystem level information to fishery management
decisions. The Ecosystem Considerations Chapter now contains some parts
of a Fishery Ecosystem Plan such as ecosystem status and trend
information for many ecosystem components. It also has management
indicators such as: amount of habitat closed to fishing, changes in the
amount of fishery discards over time, and trophic level of the catch.
The document provides a way for ecosystem research scientists from a
variety of organizations to inform stock assessment scientists of their
results and for managers to link management actions with ecosystem
observations and ecosystem-based management goals such as protection of
habitat, maintaining diversity, and sustainability.
Future work includes the development of more quantitative
management objectives and ecosystem indicators linked to management
triggers. Semi-quantitative approaches, such as those used in
Environmental Impact Analysis, linked to a pre-negotiated set of
management actions are now being discussed by the scientific community
(e.g., Caddy 1999; Koeller et al. 2000). This is a key step needed to
advance this ecosystem considerations chapter beyond research
communication towards a true ecosystem assessment that triggers
ecosystem-based management actions.
Draft Alaska Groundfish Fisheries Programmatic Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal
agencies to analyze potential impacts of federal actions on the
environment. The draft SEIS examines the impacts of the authorization
of the groundfish Fisheries off Alaska. It is an ecosystem-based
assessment in that it covers the broad range of issues from the effects
of groundfish Fisheries on the decline of sea lions and other protected
species, the effects of fishing gear on benthic habitat, excess fishing
and processing capacity, target and non-target species effects, and the
effects of harvesting on the North Pacific marine ecosystem. The
programmatic SEIS identifies and evaluates combinations of management
tools available for improving the fishery management regime with
respect to protecting and conserving various ecosystem components and
increasing socioeconomic benefits.
The SEIS document also contains virtually all of the elements of a
Fisheries Ecosystem Plan as outlined by the Report of the NMFS
Ecosystem Advisory Panel including:
LDelineation of the ecosystems within Council authority,
including characterization of the biological, chemical and physical
dynamics of those ecosystems (Chapter 3)
LDescription of the food webs of the ecosystems (Chapter
3)
LDescription of the life history characteristics and known
habitat needs of different life stages of animals (Chapter 3)
LTotal fishery removals including incidental mortality and
assessment of how those relate to ecosystem effects (Chapters 2 and 4)
LA description of the Fisheries management plan policy
statements, goals, and objectives that includes how uncertainty is
included in conservation and management actions (Chapter 2)
LEcosystem indicators are used in the assessment process
(Chapter 4)
LDescription and, through the cumulative effects analysis,
an assessment of the ecological and human elements of the ecosystem
which most significantly affect Fisheries (Chapter 4)
The status quo fishery management regime is explained and evaluated
with respect to the performance standards for fishery management
outlined in the Sustaining Marine Fisheries report of the National
Research Council. It is clear from this evaluation that Alaska has
already accomplished a great deal in terms of ecosystem-based
management through conservative single species management (Exhibit 2),
establishment of substantial no-trawl zones (Exhibit 3), programs to
reduce overcapacity , significant controls on discards and monitoring
of bycatch (Exhibit 4), and reducing fishery interactions with
protected species. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has
established an Ecosystem Committee, whose purpose is to discuss and
recommend possible approaches to incorporating ecosystem concerns into
the fishery management process and to provide the Council and
stakeholders with information on ecosystem-based management in the
North Pacific Ocean. Other precautionary measures that have been taken
include a 2 million mt per year optimum yield upper limit to restrict
total allowable catch of the Bering Sea groundfish complex, a
prohibition on new Fisheries for forage fish species, and designating
sensitive bottom organisms such as corals and sponges as prohibited
species.
It is intended that the programmatic SEIS will serve as the central
environmental planning document for both the BSAI and GOA Groundfish
FMPs, which are presently not oriented to promote ecosystems. The full
document can be viewed on the web at: http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/
sustainablefisheries/seis/intro.htm
The SEIS is Alaska's most complete analysis to-date of our
scientific understanding of the effects of groundfish Fisheries on the
environment and it highlighted many of our gaps in knowledge in
determining ecosystem effects, particularly in a quantitative way. We
had incomplete knowledge of the seasonal distribution and habitat needs
of important groundfish in order to make determinations of how
protection of habitat might improve stock abundance. Similarly, lack of
knowledge of both the seasonal foraging requirements of Steller sea
lions and the seasonal changes in distribution of key prey stocks such
as walleye pollock and Pacific cod prevented us from making
quantitative assessments of the effect of fishing removals of these
species on Steller sea lions. The effects of fishing on benthic habitat
research is just beginning and we require additional work to understand
how fishing gear and fishing removals affect benthic diversity.
Increased benthic habitat mapping in conjunction with fishing gear
experiments are needed. Although we have a variety of predator-prey
models, we need data at finer space and time scales and better
knowledge of the space/time distribution of prey, particularly forage
fish and zooplankton to determine how predators may switch according to
prey availability. More research on non-target species distribution and
taxonomy in association with improvements to our fishery reporting
system are needed to move some of these species into tier 1 assessments
defined in the NMFS Stock Assessment Improvement Plan. Moving towards
more quantitative or semi-quantitative analyses on which to base our
ecosystem-based management advice and to advance our stock assessments
beyond tier 1 will require additional research along these lines.
Comprehensive Biological Opinion on Alaska Groundfish Fisheries
NMFS has put considerable effort into analyzing ecosystem level
impacts of Fisheries pursuant to the requirements of the ESA. On
November 30, 2000, NMFS released a biological opinion which evaluates
the impacts of Alaskan groundfish Fisheries on listed species. The
purpose was to determine if the FMP framework contained the necessary
conservation and management measures to insure protection of listed
species and their critical habitats. The scientific analysis in this
opinion was qualitative and highlighted our lack of understanding of
seasonal distribution of key Steller prey and the seasonal distribution
and foraging needs of Steller sea lions.
The comprehensive biological opinion provides conservation
recommendations to minimize or avoid adverse effects of a proposed
action. Key conservation recommendations were first to expand stock
assessments to consider space/time distribution of stocks and removals
and include environmental influences on fish stock distribution and
abundance. Multispecies considerations and risk analyses would also be
included as part of the growing trend towards a ``comprehensive
assessment'' process. Fishery rationalization programs for all
groundfish Fisheries were also recommended to reduce the ``footprint''
of Fisheries at smaller time/space scales. Appropriate improvements to
the existing catch monitoring programs (i.e., observer program,
reporting and record keeping requirements, and vessel monitoring
programs) would also be necessary. Many of these recommendations are
also being made under the NMFS Stock Assessment Improvement Plan.
Relationship to Ecosystem-based Fishery Management Plans
As we discussed in the analysis contained in the programmatic SEIS,
we are moving incrementally towards ecosystem-based fishery management
plans with various ecosystem-based plan amendments. Both the
programmatic SEIS and Comprehensive Biological Opinion for Alaska
Groundfish Fisheries have identified possible policy directions for
further improvement of ecosystem-based management under NEPA and ESA
and showed the qualitative status of our ecosystem-based scientific
advice. With the addition of a more structured assessment framework
similar to that used in the programmatic SEIS, the Ecosystem
Considerations Chapter of our SAFE has potential for providing year-to-
year advice in meeting our NEPA obligations for TAC setting.
Improvements in stock assessments identified by NMFS will advance our
ecosystem-based management advice and allow single-species stock
assessments to be embedded in an ecosystem context in a more
quantitative way. Key to all these activities is involvement of a broad
spectrum of scientific expertise to reflect concerns beyond species
that are targets of Fisheries and enhancing our research to include
those broader concerns.
Research and Data Gaps
Some important research and data gaps identified in the
programmatic SEIS, comprehensive Biological Opinion, and Ecosystem
Considerations Chapter include research and data collection on:
Lstructure and functioning of marine ecosystems
(including: the role of habitat, predator-prey interactions, factors
affecting stability and resilience including mechanisms at the
population and community levels of organization, and effects of fishing
on benthic habitat and overall ecosystems)
Llong-term research and fishery independent monitoring
programs on target and non-target species, oceanography and climate,
and habitat mapping
Ldevelopment of fishery stock assessment models that
incorporate unobserved fishing mortality, environmental variability,
spatial distribution of fish and Fisheries removals, and multispecies
interactions
Lbiological effects of fishing on gene pools and
population structures
Lmarine protected areas and using MPAs as research tools
Lextent and nature of Steller sea lion foraging habitat
Leffects and effectiveness of various forms of rights-
based management approaches
Limprovement in the observer program, reporting and record
keeping requirements, and vessel monitoring programs
Loverall improvement in the research and data collection
efforts with regard to understanding processes at finer time and space
scales
Summary
The Alaska region has done extensive work on analyzing and
incorporating ecosystem-based management objectives into its Fisheries
management but we still have far to go. These analyses have many of the
components identified in a Fisheries Ecosystem Plan as envisioned by
the NMFS Ecosystem Advisory Panel Report. We have identified policy
directions and management actions that need to be taken to make
substantial progress in moving towards more prescriptive and adaptive
ecosystem-based fishery management plans. We are broadening our stock
assessment advice to include ecosystem-based research and will be
working towards identifying more quantitative ecosystem-based
management objectives and ecosystem indicators linked to management
triggers and actions. Increased ecosystem-based research and
involvement of multidisciplinary analysis and management teams are key
to the process.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. Again, I want to thank
you for the opportunity to testify today and discuss ecosystem-based
management. I am prepared to respond to any questions that you and
other Members of the Committee may have.
References
Caddy, J.F. 1999. Deciding on precautionary management measures for
a stock based on a suite of limit reference points (LRPs) as a basis
for a multi-LRP harvest law. NAFO Sci. Coun. Studies, 32: 55-68.
Koeller, P., L. Savard, D.G. Parsons, and C. Fu. 2000. A
precautionary approach to assessment and management of shrimp stocks in
the Northwest Atlantic. J. Northw. Atl. Fish. Sci., Vol. 27:235-246.
Livingston, P.A. (Editor). 1999. Ecosystem considerations for 2000.
Appendix D: Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for the
Groundfish Resources of the EBS/AI and GOA. North Pacific Fishery
Management Council, 605 W. 4th Ave, Suite 306, Anchorage, AK 99501.
140p.
Livingston, P.A. (Editor). 2000. Ecosystem considerations for 2001.
Appendix: Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for the
Groundfish Resources of the EBS/AI and GOA. North Pacific Fishery
Management Council, 605 W. 4th Ave, Suite 306, Anchorage, AK 99501.
119p.
NMFS. 2000. Endangered Species Act -- Section 7 Consultation.
Biological opinion and incidental take statement for Authorization of
Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries
based on the Fisheries Management Plans for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands
Groundfish and Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska. U.S. Dept. Commer.,
NOAA, NMFS Protected Resources Division. 352p +Appendices.
NMFS. 2001. Alaska Groundfish Fisheries Draft Programmatic
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. U.S. Dept. Commer., NOAA,
NMFS, Alaska Region, Juneau, AK.
______
[Exhibits attached to Ms. Livingston's statement follow:]
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Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you, Ms. Livingston.
Dr. Crowder?
STATEMENT OF LARRY B. CROWDER, PH.D., PROFESSOR, DUKE
UNIVERSITY MARINE LAB
Dr. Crowder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify at this
hearing on ecosystem-based management and the reauthorization
of the Magnuson Act.
Fisheries in the U.S. have been managed with increasing
rigor over the past 25 years since the Magnuson Act was passed,
but they continue to be plagued with problems, including
overfishing, habitat damage, and bycatch of valuable resource
species, as well as protected species.
We need to begin thinking about any comprehensive approach
to fisheries management, including ecosystem-based management,
by critically assessing the issues of capacity and resource
allocation in the fishery. One year after the Magnuson Act was
originally passed, Peter Larkin, eminent fisheries biologist,
published his famous epitaph for the concept of maximum
sustainable yield, but we continue to make decisions that put
severe pressure on these resources and fail to buffer the fish
and the fishing industry from variability rocked by both
natural forces and human hands.
Structural engineers have much better reputations for
designing reliable systems. Our society approves of building
safety factors into these manmade systems. Credible engineers
simply would refuse to build the ``Minimum Sustainable
Bridge.'' Why do we not require similar caution with designing
management regimes for complex ecosystems that support
fisheries?
Productive fisheries rely on healthy marine ecosystems.
Degraded habitats cannot produce fish. Healthy marine
ecosystems provide society with a wide variety of valuable
ecosystem services that can be altered by a suite of factors,
including nutrient enrichment, fishing invasive species and
climate change. Fishing that focuses on removal of large
predatory fishes and bottom fishes can lead to marine food webs
that enhance small fishes. In highly compromised systems, like
we have seen in the Black Sea, they can become dominated by
jellyfish predators, yielding little benefit to humans. In the
U.S., enriched systems like Chesapeake Bay, the Albemarle-
Pamlico estuary, and the Gulf of Mexico are already showing
similar signs of stress.
If we are to respond to interactions among multiple
stressors, like fishing pressure and eutrophication, we must
use an ecosystem perspective. Managers must also take a
precautionary approach. This will come at a cost. Building safe
bridges simply costs more than tossing up minimum sustainable
ones.
Ecosystem-based approaches to management will have to
construct strategies that are robust to both natural and
anthropogenic changes. I want to share with you a case study
that I worked on closely, and that was the estuarine-dependent
fishes of North Carolina estuaries. It shows the impact of
eutrophication on fish and fisheries in the context of
environmental variation on a scale from day-to-day changes in
the weather to large-scale effects of hurricanes.
North Carolina's coastal rivers drain into Pamlico Sound.
This estuary supports 90 percent of North Carolina's commercial
fishing and commercial fishing along much of the Atlantic
Coast. Pamlico Sound is also a major fishing ground in North
Carolina. All of the blue crabs, most of the shrimp, and much
of the fisheries' take occurs inside the estuary. The Pamlico
Sound is a large lagoonal system that is highly impacted by
water inputs and nutrient inputs from upstream. We have all
seen the headlines about the impacts on the coastal rivers in
North Carolina, the Neuse and the Pamlico, but until recently,
the Pamlico Sound itself was assumed to be relatively
unaffected.
I want to focus today on the effects on the blue crab
fishery itself, which is the most valuable fishery in North
Carolina, worth $40.5 million in 1998. The state developed a
Fishery Management Plan modeled after the sorts of things that
are required in the Magnuson Act. Stock assessments were
completed which showed that the fishery was managed at or near
capacity. Many managers expressed doubts about how close to the
edge the fishery might be, and the crabbers resisted effort
controls. This was a fishery operating at a full speed in a
compromised environment. Like the crew of the Titanic, we were
watching for icebergs, but not expecting a problem.
In the fall of 1999, however, North Carolina was struck by
three hurricanes, which led to 40 inches of rainfall in the
watershed. Coastal rivers that were at half seawater became
fresh for 2 months. Flood waters displaced 80 percent of the
volume of Pamlico Sound, depositing at least half the annual
nutrient load in a 1-month period. The responses that followed
included bottom water hypoxia, physiological stress due to
rapid salinity change, algal blooms, displacement and death of
many fishes, crabs and their food, and an unprecedented rise in
fish disease.
By spring 2000, the blue crab fishermen were reporting
reduced catches. Recently released data for fisheries landings
in 2000 showed blue crab takes were down 30 percent Statewide
and 50 percent in the Neuse River. Blue crabbers reported
financial losses, many stopped fishing, changed fishing
operations or took second jobs.
We have entered a period of increasing storm frequency. We
need to better understand how climate change will interact with
eutrophication and fisheries production, but we also need to
manage these systems with appropriate safety factors to buffer
both the fishes and the fishers from the impact of natural and
anthropogenic stressors.
To manage exploited populations in the context of healthy
marine ecosystems, we will need additional research to better
understand the linkages between fish populations and their
variable environment. Fisheries are supported by ecosystems
that are under assault from multiple stressors that can
interact in unpredictable ways, but the stressors are also
managed by different Government agencies.
From a scientific perspective, watersheds are part of
marine ecosystems, and degraded landscapes yield inputs to the
coastal marine ecosystems that can compromise fisheries
production. Solutions will require both enhanced scientific
understanding and changes in governance, including increasing
cooperation across boundaries.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Crowder follows:]
Statement of Larry B. Crowder, Stephen Toth Professor of Marine
Biology, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the
Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University
Introduction
My name is Larry Crowder and I appreciate the opportunity to
testify at this hearing on ecosystem-based management and the
reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act. My formal training is in quantitative ecology and since
the late 1970s I have conducted research on population and community
ecology, fisheries, and marine conservation. My interests have centered
on predator-prey interactions and marine food webs, but I have also
conducted research on fisheries recruitment, bycatch, and fisheries/
protected species interactions. I was the lead investigator on a joint
NOAA/Academic research project, the South Atlantic Bight Recruitment
Experiment (SABRE), which examined the influence of environmental
variation on year class strength of estuarine-dependent fishes of the
South Atlantic Bight. I have been studying food webs in North Carolina
estuaries for over 15 years. I have also examined bycatch in trawl and
longline fisheries and worked with NMFS on population assessments of
threatened and endangered sea turtles. I served on the NOAA Coastal
Ocean Program Scientific Advisory Panel on Coastal Fisheries Ecosystems
and the NMFS Expert Panel on the Status of Sea Turtles. I currently
serve on the Science Steering Committees for the Global Ocean Observing
System (GOOS), the Global Ocean Ecosystems Program (GLOBEC), and was
recently appointed to the Ocean Studies Board for the National Research
Council. I am testifying today as an individual, not representing any
organization or interest group. I will comment upon the importance of
an ecosystem perspective for successful fisheries management and
outline some of the key issues that may impede implementation of this
approach.
Fisheries--The Problem
Fisheries in the US have been managed with increasing rigor over
the past 25 years, but they continue to be plagued with problems
including overfishing, habitat damage, and bycatch of valuable resource
species as well as protected species (Ecosystem Principles Advisory
Panel 1999, NRC 1999). Many of these problems are related to
overcapacity in various fisheries. Assessments have suggested that we
could enhance the value of many of our fisheries by fishing less and
allowing stocks to rebuild. Any comprehensive approach to fisheries
management (including ecosystem-based management) must critically
address the issues of capacity and resource allocation. We continue to
manage these resources extremely close to the edge. One year after the
Magnuson Act was passed, Peter Larkin published his famous--An epitaph
for the concept of MSY (Maximum Sustained Yield)''. But we continue to
make decisions that put severe pressure on these resources and that
fail to buffer the fish (and the fishing industry) from variability
wrought by both natural forces and human hands. In general, structural
engineers have much better reputations for designing reliable systems.
This is because our society approves of building safety factors into
these man-made systems--credible engineers simply would refuse to build
the ``Minimum Sustainable Bridge''. Why do we not require similar
caution with designing management regimes for the complex ecosystems
that support fisheries?
Ecosystem-Based Solutions
Because of failures to successfully manage fisheries populations,
we began casting about for solutions. These took two routes--those that
sought to control fishing effort and provide for fair and equitable
allocation of fisheries resources and those that sought to understand
what supported (or constrained) excess production of fish for removal
by humans. I will focus here on the second point. Productive fisheries
rely on healthy marine ecosystems--degraded habitats cannot produce
fish. The Magnuson-Stevens Act (1996) required that Fisheries
Management Plans designate Essential Fish Habitat. Habitat that
supports fisheries has been compromised by a number of factors
including direct effects of fishing gear, marine pollution, invasive
species, and climate change. But habitat itself is but one of the
structural features of a healthy marine ecosystem--we must also be
concerned with the functional aspects of ecosystems.
Healthy marine ecosystems provide society with wide variety of
valuable ecosystem services (NRC 1999) that can be altered by a suite
of factors including nutrient enrichment, fishing, invasive species,
and climate change. Fishing that focuses on the removal of large
predatory fishes and bottom fishes leads to shifts in marine food webs,
often enhancing yields of small fishes. Highly compromised systems can
become dominated by jellyfish predators and yield little of use to
humans as we have seen in the Black Sea (Caddy 2000). In the US,
enriched systems like Chesapeake Bay, the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary and
the Gulf of Mexico are already showing similar signs of stress (NRC
2000, Boesch et al. 2001). If we are to respond to the interactions
among multiple stressors, like fishing pressure and eutrophication, we
must manage fisheries resources not only in a multispecies context, but
also with an ecosystem perspective. Further, managers must take a
precautionary approach that will buffer both fish populations and the
fishing industry from unexpected changes in the ecosystems that support
them. This will come at a cost to both the industry and to the
management infrastructure--building safe bridges simply costs more than
tossing up ``minimum sustainable'' ones. But given that some very
costly changes in fisheries ecosystems (like Georges Bank) may be
difficult or impossible to reverse, this cost is fully justified.
Marine Protected Areas provide one tool for protecting the
structure and function of marine ecosystems. MPAs are a valuable part
of a comprehensive strategy of ecosystem-based management that could
provide substantial fisheries benefits (NRC 2001). But some caveats
are, again, necessary. MPAs as with other ecosystem-based approaches
can only be successful if overall fishing effort is constrained. As
commonly proposed, MPAs would be promulgated in addition to (rather
than in place of) current fishing regulations. No-take marine reserves
(one kind of MPA) close portions of the marine ecosystem to fishing.
But displaced fishing effort could do further damage to the structure
and function of the fisheries ecosystem that remains open to fishing.
As the citizens of the US become increasingly aware of the whole range
of goods and services provided by ocean ecosystems we will need to more
seriously consider the need for zoning or space-based management of
these systems.
As we consider ecosystem-based approaches to management we will
have to construct strategies that are robust to other natural and
anthropogenic changes. Recruitment variability due to environmental
variation from year-to-year is a challenge for managers and
particularly for fishers who would prefer to operate their businesses
in a more stable, predictable world. But recruitment variability is a
fact of life in fisheries. We can seek to understand it and even to
predict it, but we are unlikely to be able to control it. Recruitment
variation is, however, a far less difficult problem for the industry
than the wholesale structural changes that occur due to longer-term
climatic variation. At scales from El Nino-La Nina to Pacific Decadal
Oscillations, ocean ecosystems alter the distribution and abundance of
fishes in ways we are only beginning to understand. These changes often
come unexpectedly and fishermen and managers simply have to cope.
However, fishing itself can also play a role in restructuring fisheries
ecosystems either through habitat damage from mobile gear or through
food web alternations that may be difficult or impossible to reverse.
A Case Study: The Neuse-Pamlico Estuary, North Carolina
I want to share a case study that I have worked on closely, the
estuarine-dependent fisheries of North Carolina estuaries. It shows the
impact of eutrophication on fish and fisheries in the context of
environmental variation on the scale of day-to-day changes in weather
to large-scale effects of three hurricanes that crossed the North
Carolina coast in fall 1999 (Paerl et al. 2001).
North Carolina's coastal rivers drain into Pamlico Sound, the US''
second largest estuary. This system is a major fish and shellfish
nursery for the entire Atlantic coast. It supports more than 90% of
North Carolina's commercial and 60% of recreational finfish and
shellfish catches. In addition to serving as a nursery habitat, it is
also a major fishing ground in North Carolina. All of the blue crabs,
most of the shrimp and much of the fisheries take occur inside the
estuary. Pamlico Sound is a large, shallow lagoonal ecosystem with very
limited water exchange with the Atlantic Ocean through four narrow
inlets. Although nutrient enrichment has led to water quality problems,
algal blooms, hypoxia, and fish kills in the Neuse and Pamlico rivers
that have made headlines for 20 years, the Pamlico Sound was assumed to
be relatively unaffected. However, the system traps particulate and
dissolved materials, retaining and processing nutrient inputs from the
entire watershed. Nutrient loading and subsequent water quality and
fish effects link directly to landscape modification and to activities
in the watershed. We have recently shown that intermittent hypoxia,
which occurs chronically in this system, can substantially reduce the
growth rates of fish in this critical nursery habitat. Fish and crabs
respond to low oxygen by crowding into the edge of the system where
competition and predation can compromise their productivity.
The blue crab fishery is the most valuable in North Carolina. In
1998, hard crab landings totaled 27 metric tons and were worth $40.5
million. In the same year, the state developed a fisheries management
plan, modeled after those required in federal waters under Magnuson.
Stock assessments conducted by university scientists suggested that the
fishery was being managed at or near capacity. In fact, removals had
exceeded the estimated MSY for several recent years. Although the
crabbers recognized they were fishing harder for fewer crabs, the state
took no action to control the number of pots individual crabbers could
fish. Many managers expressed doubts about how close to the edge the
fishery might be and the crabbers resisted effort controls. This was
fishery operating at full speed in a compromised environment. Like the
crew of the Titanic, we were watching for icebergs, but not expecting a
problem.
In fall 1999, North Carolina was struck by three sequential
hurricanes, Dennis, Floyd and Irene. They dropped almost 40 inches of
rainfall in the watershed, causing 50-500-year flooding. Coastal rivers
that were at salinities of half-strength seawater became completely
fresh for at least two months. Floodwaters displaced nearly 80% of the
volume of Pamlico Sound, depositing at least half the annual nutrient
load in a little over a month. Carbon loading doubled relative to
normal conditions. A series of responses followed including bottom
water hypoxia, physiological stress due to rapid salinity change, algal
blooms, displacement or death of many fishes, crabs and their food, and
an unprecedented rise in fish disease (Paerl et al 2001). Large blue
crabs appeared to move ahead of the flooding--smaller ones may have
died. Larval blue crabs that should have been re-entering the estuary
in the fall were met with freshwater flooding out the inlets.
By spring 2000, blue crab fishermen were reporting reduced catches.
Bottom oxygen concentrations continued to be reduced in both the Neuse
River and Pamlico Sound. Although salinity had returned to normal, it
is likely that benthic foods eaten by young fish and crabs were still
suppressed. Our fishery independent data suggested that crab
populations were down by a factor of ten in the most impacted areas.
Recently released data for fisheries landings in 2000 showed blue crab
takes were down 30% statewide and nearly 50% in the Neuse River. Blue
crabbers reported financial losses; many stopped fishing, changed
fishing operations or took second jobs. The good news was that the
shortage of crabs led to higher prices to fishermen, but the excess
fishing effort potentially pushed the crab populations still lower.
The only period of record in North Carolina with similar hurricanes
and flooding was in 1955, when NC was also struck by three hurricanes
bearing a similar amount of rainfall. Analysis of landings data from
that period also suggest reduced landings of 6 of 9 most commonly taken
fishes. For most of them landings peaked in 1952-53 and declined
through the rest of the 1950s. Oldtime fishermen remember the losses of
the 1950s, and draw parallels with the 1999 storms. These declines in
the 1950s landings were likely to be related to declines in fish
populations as fishing effort over this period remained fairly stable.
If the climatologists are correct, we have entered a period of
increasing storm frequency (and perhaps intensity). We need to better
understand how climate change will interact with eutrophication and
fisheries production. But we also need to manage these systems with
appropriate safety factors to buffer both the fishes and the fishers
from the impact of natural and anthropogenic stressors..
Summary
Ecosystem-based management will be critical to supporting fisheries
in the 21st century. In order to manage exploited populations in the
context of healthy marine ecosystems, we will need additional research
to fully understand the linkages between fished populations and their
variable environment. We will also need to understand the linkages
between target populations and other key species in their food web.
Finally, we will need to develop management strategies that are robust
to both anthropogenic and natural environmental variability. These are
all topics that will need additional research investment to avoid
costly losses to fisheries.
We will also need to consider some significant reorganization of
the governance structure. Fisheries are supported by ecosystems that
are under assault from multiple stressors that can interact in
unpredictable ways. But these stressors are also managed by different
government agencies. For example, landscape development is managed by
cities and counties, nutrients and other pollutants are managed by
Departments of Natural Resources at the state level and regulated by
the EPA, fisheries are managed by Departments of Marine Fisheries, by
the regional councils and by NMFS. From a scientific perspective,
watersheds are part of marine ecosystems and degraded landscapes yield
inputs to coastal marine ecosystems that can compromise fisheries
production. Solutions will require both enhanced scientific
understanding and changes in governance including increased cooperation
across boundaries. I would be pleased to answer any questions regarding
this testimony, or to supply additional testimony or information.
References
Boesch, D.F., R.H. Burroughs, J.E. Baker, R.P. Mason, C.L. Rowe and
R.L. Siefert. 2001. Marine pollution in the United States. Pew Oceans
Commission, Arlington, VA.
Caddy, J.F. 2000. Marine catchment basin effects versus impacts of
fisheries on semi-enclosed seas. ICES Journal of Marine Science 57:628-
640.
Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel. 1999. Ecosystem-based fishery
management. A report to Congress.
NRC. 1999. Sustaining marine fisheries. National Academy Press,
Washington, D.C.
NRC. 2000. Clean coastal waters: Understanding and reducing the
effects of nutrient pollution.. National Academy Press, Washington,
D.C.
NRC. 2001. Marine protected areas: Tools for sustaining ocean
ecosystems. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Paerl, H.W., J.D. Bales, L.W. Ausley, C.P. Buzzelli, L.B. Crowder,
L.A. Eby, M.Go, B.L. Peierls, T.L. Richardson and J. S. Ramus. 2001.
Ecosystem impacts of three sequential hurricanes (Dennis, Floyd and
Irene) on US's largest lagoonal estuary, Pamlico Sound, NC. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 98(10):5655-5660.
______
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Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you, Dr. Crowder.
Mr. Hinman?
STATEMENT OF KEN HINMAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COALITION FOR
MARINE CONSERVATION
Mr. Hinman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. I, too, very much appreciate this opportunity to
speak with you about a subject to which I have devoted a large
portion of my time over the last 4 years.
My name is Ken Hinman. I am president of the National
Coalition for Marine Conservation. Since 1973, my organization,
and our efforts to ensure a healthy future for ocean fishing,
have co-evolved along with the Nation's fishery management
system. I am here today because we believe that an ecosystem-
based approach to management is a natural progression in the
evolution of fishery management. It is a natural outflow of our
increasing knowledge of the ocean and our expanding circle of
concern for all marine species. Its time, we believe, is now.
Mr. Chairman, I am also here today as a co-chair of the
Marine Fish Conservation Network, an alliance of 105 fishing,
environmental, and scientific organizations working to reform
the Magnuson-Stevens Act. My remarks reflect the position of
our many allies in the Network.
In 1996, Congress, as was mentioned, appointed a panel to
look at ecosystem principles in fisheries management. As a
member of that panel, and since the publication of that panel's
report in 1999, I have spent considerable time writing and
traveling to meetings and workshops in an effort to promote its
recommendations. In my conversations with policy makers,
fishery managers and congressional aides, the three most
frequently asked questions about ecosystem-based fishery
management are: do managers want to manage fisheries on an
ecosystem basis; can they do it; and will they do it, and more
specifically, how will they do it?
The short answer to the first question, do they want to do
it, is yes. Indeed, they have already begun. As some of the
previous speakers have noted, there are some pretty concerted
efforts to move toward ecosystem-based management being begun
by some State and Federal organizations. Fishery scientists and
managers alike recognize the need to address ecological
considerations, and the question is not do fishery managers
want to do this, they don't really have a choice. Ecosystem-
based management is gaining increased attention and interest
because the effect that fishing of one species has on other
related species is an issue in a number of current fishery
management debates.
We have the interactions among striped bass, menhaden, and
blue crab in Chesapeake Bay; the perceived competition between
cod and dogfish sharks up in the Northeast; the effect of high
harvests of horseshoe crabs on migratory shore birds; questions
about removing an entire tier at the top of the food chain, the
large pelagic predators, swordfish, tunas, large coastal
sharks, marlins, all overfished, some severely depleted; and
the related concern of increasing catches of squid and herring,
a dominant food source for all of these species, as well as
some in-shore species, such as cod and bluefish. Each of these
is managed separately, and in some cases by different
management agencies.
The reality is that ecosystem-based management will occur,
already is occurring, shaping not only perceptions about the
wisdom of our management decisions, but also the decisions
themselves, and in each of these and in other debates,
fisherman and conservationists are demanding action, sometimes
conflicting action. Unfortunately, sound responses have been
hampered by questions or misperceptions about the nature and
extent of predatory-prey interactions, inadequate or
unavailable data, and most of all, the lack of an established
process for taking interspecies relationships into
consideration.
Mr. Chairman, we are obliged to make sure that ecological
issues are addressed correctly, based on science and agreed-
upon goals, adhering to a process that we can all understand
and believe in. So it is a not a question of whether we take on
this challenge, but how. The most dangerous course is the one
that we are on right now, forced, as we are, to deal with these
issues, but with no guidance as to what information is needed,
and most importantly, how it should be used in the real world
of making fishery management decisions.
The next frequently asked question is can we manage on an
ecosystem basis, and again I think the answer is yes. The body
of information available to fishery scientists and managers is
large and constantly expanding. There is an immensity of raw
data out there that has not been synthesized or analyzed for
ecosystem-based purposes. There are also new tools for
ecosystem modeling, such as ECOPATH, into which this
information can now be plugged. In many instances, there is
adequate information, if made available to fishery managers,
and the modeling tools necessary to predict fundamental
ecological responses to fishing removals and to make informed
decisions that might minimize the adverse impacts of fisheries
on trophically-related species.
Ecosystem-based management is an ambitious goal, no
question about it, and we will never know or understand
everything about how fisheries operate in an ecosystem context.
But as the Ecosystems Principles Advisory Panel stressed, this
is not an acceptable excuse to delay implementing an ecosystem-
based approach. Significant relations, in many cases, are known
and understood. We know enough right now to ask the right
questions, identify the critical information and information
needs, and to establish a context for considering what we know
and applying it to fishery management decisions. Right now
fishery managers have the authority to consider predatory-prey
and interspecies relationships in fishery management. They are
not explicitly required to do so, however, nor are they
provided with any guidance as to how.
What we believe Congress needs to do, therefore, is provide
both drive and direction to this process, and by that I mean
amending the Magnuson Act to require that the National Marine
Fisheries Service and Regional Fishery Management Councils, A)
carefully consider the effects of fishing each species on other
species in the food web, and B) begin devising Fishery
Ecosystem Plans to serve as overarching guidance and a context
for future management decisions.
We believe that Congress should require that all Fishery
Management Plans be reviewed and revised to consider predatory-
prey interactions, assess how associated species are affected
by fishing allowed under each FMP, and establish conservation
measures that will protect associated species and their
respective roles in the ecosystem as well as the health and
integrity of the ecosystem as a whole.
Fishery ecosystem plans, as was pointed out earlier by
another witness, would not be intended as a substitute for
Fishery Management Plans, but rather as a means to augment
their effectiveness. The FEP would be an umbrella document,
which would include information on the structure and function
of the ecosystem in each region where fisheries are managed, so
that fishery managers are aware of the potential impacts of
fishing on the various components of the ecosystem, as well as
how changes in the ecosystem might affect certain fisheries.
Councils would continue to employ FMPs as the primary
regulatory vehicle for managing marine fisheries, however, each
council FMP should be required to demonstrate that its
objectives and conservation and management measures are
consistent with the findings and the recommendations of the
FEP.
We, also, along with other witnesses, urge Congress to
authorize sufficient funds, new funds, to assist the Secretary
and the councils in applying ecosystem principles to fisheries
research and management under the Act.
In our written statement, we have a number of specific
recommended changes to the Magnuson Act that reflect these
overall goals. But if I may, in one final comment, I do want to
emphasize that considering fisheries in an ecosystem context,
despite what some people have said, does not diminish the need
to regulate fishing conservatively or downplay the effect of
fishing on fish populations. It cannot be used to justify
overfishing one species in order to maximize yields of another
species, nor does it diminish the need to fish selectively to
avoid bycatch and minimize bycatch mortality.
It supports taking the precautionary approach to conserving
and managing marine fisheries, especially when the ecosystem
effects of fishing are uncertain or unknown. It is our firm
belief that an ecosystem-based approach cannot and should not
substitute for aggressively implementing existing mandates to
prevent overfishing, minimize bycatch, and protect essential
fish habitat. In fact, it makes achieving these goals and doing
more to achieve them even more critical.
Thank you for considering our views, and we look forward to
working with the Subcommittee and staff during the
reauthorization to improve management of all marine fish.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinman follows:]
Statement of Ken Hinman, President, National Coalition for Marine
Conservation
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I very much
appreciate this opportunity to speak with you about a subject to which
I have devoted a large portion of my time over the last four years--
promoting ecosystem-based fishery management.
My name is Ken Hinman and I am President of the National Coalition
for Marine Conservation, the nation's oldest public advocacy
organization dedicated exclusively to conserving ocean fish and their
environment. Since 1973, my organization, and our efforts to ensure a
healthy future for ocean fishing, have co-evolved along with the
nation's fishery management system. We would like to think we have
played a role in shaping that system for the better.
I am here today because we believe that an ecosystem-based approach
to management is a natural progression in the evolution of fishery
management. It is a natural outflow of our increasing knowledge of the
ocean and our expanding circle of concern for all marine species. It's
time, we believe, is now.
Mr. Chairman, I am also here as a co-chair of the Marine Fish
Conservation Network, an alliance of over 100 fishing, environmental
and scientific organizations working together to reform fisheries
management, specifically by strengthening the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act. My remarks reflect the position of our
allies in the Network, as laid out in its ``Agenda to Protect, Restore
and Conserve the Nation's Marine Fish.''
It is widely believed that some fishery declines, or difficulties
in restoring overfished species, are caused at least in part by
violations of basic ecosystem principles. In 1996, Congress directed
the National Marine Fisheries Service to establish an advisory panel to
review and recommend application of ecosystem principles to federal
marine fisheries management. As a member of that panel, I saw how our
goal of developing ``fishery ecosystem plans'' to guide management
decisions would come about only through an incremental strategy. Not in
one giant leap, but in carefully measured steps. The first step is to
understand and preserve the interdependency of key predator and prey
species.
Since publication of the panel's Report to Congress, entitled
``Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management,'' in 1999, I have spent
considerable time writing and traveling to meetings and workshops, in
an effort to promote its recommendations. In my conversations with
policy makers, fishery managers and Congressional aides, the three most
frequently asked questions are:
(1) Do managers want to manage fisheries on an ecosystem-basis?
(2) Can they do it? and
(3) Will they do it? More specifically, how will they do it?
The short answer to the first question, do they want to do it, is
yes. Indeed, they have already begun. The state and federal agencies
that co-manage the fisheries of Chesapeake Bay are in the initial
stages of developing a multispecies, or ecosystem plan for the bay's
living resources. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which
oversees many valuable commercial and sport fisheries from North
Carolina to the Florida Keys, has also started this process.
The fact is, fishery scientists and managers alike recognize the
need to address ecological considerations, with emphasis on ``need.''
Actually, the relevant question is not, do fishery managers want to do
this; they really don't have a choice. Ecosystem-based management is
gaining increased interest and consideration because the effect that
fishing for one species has on other, related species is receiving
attention in a number of current fishery management debates.
The reality is that ecosystem-based management will occur--already
is occurring--shaping not only perceptions about management decisions
but also the decisions themselves. Decisions are already being made,
often based on misperceptions about ecological relationships, because
there is no established process for making such decisions. For example:
LThe resounding success in rebuilding striped bass along
the Atlantic coast has been followed by worries that the newly
resurgent bass are finding too little to eat because harvests are too
high on one of their most important prey species--menhaden. In
Chesapeake Bay, the problem is compounded by fears the low availability
of menhaden is causing stripers to increase consumption of blue crabs,
already in low supply due to over-harvest.
LConcerns about high, unregulated harvests of horseshoe
crabs in the mid-Atlantic area, largely for use as bait in other
fisheries, have been heightened by fears that depleted populations of
horseshoe crabs would leave shore birds that feast on the crabs' eggs
without enough fuel to complete their long migrations. State and
federal agencies are moving to limit the number of horseshoe crabs
commercial fishermen may land, limits that traditionally are set
according to the bait needs of the fishing industry.
LSome New England fishermen and fishery managers have
argued that the target population level in the rebuilding plan for
dogfish sharks should be lowered, and thus restrictions on fishing for
dogfish relaxed, because dogfish consume significant amounts of cod, a
higher-value species that is also in need of restoration. Significant
predation on cod, however, has not been supported by analyses of
dogfish stomach contents. In fact, scientists advising the Regional
Fishery Management Councils determined that adult cod are more
significant predators of juvenile cod than are dogfish. Nevertheless,
the perception of dogfish as an ``undesirable'' species, whose
abundance jeopardizes the abundance of other, more desirable species,
not only persists but may influence decisions, even if at a subliminal
level.
LQuestions have been raised about the ecosystem effects
created by the fisheries that remove some of the ocean's apex
predators. In the Atlantic Ocean, swordfish, the large tunas (bluefin,
bigeye), blue and white marlin and large coastal sharks are overfished,
with several species considered severely depleted. By removing so many
of these predators, we are weakening an entire tier at the top of the
food chain, which may have dire biological consequences throughout the
ecosystem. (Predator removal may be more disruptive than prey removal,
since predators are generally longer-lived than their prey, and are
thus slower to respond to changes in their environment, or to fill
niches left by the disappearance of other predators.)
LAn additional concern is the effect of increased harvest
of pelagic forage species on their large pelagic predators, many of
which are overfished and the object of national as well as
international rebuilding programs. Increasing harvests of squid and
herring on the northeast Atlantic shelf raise questions about how this
unprecedented growth in fishing mortality might impact the
effectiveness of recovery efforts for species for whom squid and
herring are a dominant food source.
In these and other debates, fishermen and conservationists are
demanding action, sometimes conflicting. Unfortunately, sound responses
have been hampered by misperceptions about the nature and extent of
predator-prey interactions, inadequate or unavailable data about them,
and the lack of an established process for taking inter-species
relationships into consideration.
We are obliged to make sure that ecological issues are addressed
correctly, based on science and agreed upon goals, adhering to a
process that we can understand and believe in. So it is not a question
of whether we take on this challenge, but how. The species-by-species
approach cannot address certain critical issues and problems that will
no longer be ignored. The most dangerous course is the one we're on
now, forced as we are to deal with these issues, but with no guidance
as to what information is needed and, most importantly, how it should
be used in the real world of making fishery management decisions.
The next frequently asked question is, can we manage on an
ecosystem basis, at least in an informed and effective manner? Again,
the answer is yes. The body of information available to fishery
scientists and managers is large and constantly expanding. Most
recently, the new bycatch and essential fish habitat provisions of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act have prompted the gathering and synthesis of
available information on a wide range of species and habitats, from a
broad range of sources.
There is an immensity of raw data out there that has not been
synthesized or analyzed for ecosystem-based management purposes. There
are also new tools for ecosystem modeling, such as ECOPATH, into which
this information can now be plugged. In many instances, there is
adequate information -- if made available to fishery managers -- and
the modeling tools necessary to predict fundament ecological responses
to fishing removals and natural predation, and to make informed
decisions that might minimize the adverse impacts of fisheries on
trophically-related species.
Ecosystem-based management should strive to include as much
information as possible on the structure and function of the ecosystem
in which fishing activities occur, including its biological, physical
and chemical dynamics, a description of the significant food web, and
the habitat needs of different life stages of species that make up the
significant food web. This is an ambitious goal, and we will never know
or understand everything about how fisheries operate in an ecosystem
context. But as the Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel advised, this
is not an acceptable excuse to delay implementing an ecosystem-based
approach. Significant relationships are known and understood. We know
enough, right now, to ask the right questions, identify the critical
information and information needs, and establish a context for
considering what we know and applying it to fishery management
decisions.
As I said earlier, some fishery management bodies are already
taking the first steps toward an ecosystem-based approach. That's
because they already have the authority and the discretion, without any
changes to current law, to consider predator-prey relationships and
species interactions in fishery management plans. They are not
explicitly required to do so, however, nor are they provided with
guidance as to how.
What Congress needs to do, therefore, is provide both drive and
direction to this process. By that I mean, amending the Magnuson-
Stevens Act to require that the National Marine Fisheries Service and
the Regional Fishery Management Councils:
(A) carefully consider the effects of fishing each species on other
species in the food web; and
(B) begin devising Fishery Ecosystem Plans to serve as overarching
guidance and a context for future management decisions.
We believe that Congress should require that all Fishery Management
Plans (FMP) be reviewed and revised to consider predator-prey
interactions, assess how associated species are affected by fishing
allowed under each FMP and establish conservation and management
measures that will protect associated species and their respective
roles in the ecosystem as well as the integrity and sustainability of
the ecosystem overall. This will require determining the effects of
fishing on the food web, setting optimum population levels to account
for ecological factors, and justifying total allowable catches with
respect to interspecies relationships.
As the Ecosystems Principles Advisory Panel recommends, Fisheries
Ecosystem Plans, or FEPs, would not be intended as a substitute for
Fishery Management Plans, but rather a means to augment their
effectiveness. The FEP would be an umbrella document which would
include information on the structure and function of the ecosystem each
region's managed fishing activities are occurring in, so that fishery
managers are aware of the potential impacts of fishing on the various
components of the ecosystem, as well as how changes in the ecosystem
might affect certain fisheries. The FEP would also establish indices
for measuring ecosystem health. Councils would continue to employ FMPs
as the primary regulatory vehicle for managing marine fisheries,
however, each council FMP should be required to demonstrate that its
objectives and conservation and management measures are consistent with
the findings and recommendations of the FEP.
We also urge Congress to authorize sufficient new funds to assist
the Secretary and the councils in applying ecosystems principles to
fisheries research and management under the Act.
Needed Changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Act:
Following are recommended amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Act
supported by the National Coalition for Marine Conservation and the
members of the Marine Fish Conservation Network:
LAdd consideration of ecosystem principles in fisheries
management to the Purposes and Policy section of the Act
LAmend the definitions of optimum yield and overfishing to
make more explicit the directive to consider impacts on ecosystems,
including predator-prey relationships, in the setting of total
allowable catch levels
LAmend the Act to require that all fishery management
plans or amendments describe and assess the likely effects on other
species in the ecosystem
LAmend the Act to require that each council develop a
Fisheries Ecosystem Plan for the major ecosystem(s) under its
jurisdiction
LAppropriate necessary funds for the application of
ecosystems principles to fisheries research and management.
Finally, it is essential to emphasize that considering fisheries in
an ecosystem context does not diminish the need to regulate fishing or
downplay the effect of fishing on fish populations. It cannot be used
to justify overfishing one species in order to maximize yields of
another species. Nor does it diminish the need to fish selectively to
avoid bycatch (the incidental capture of non-target species) and
minimize bycatch mortality. In fact, ecosystem-based fishery management
supports taking the precautionary approach to conserving and managing
marine fisheries, especially when the ecosystem effects of fishing are
uncertain or unknown. It is our firm belief that an ecosystem-based
approach cannot and should not substitute for aggressively implementing
existing mandates to prevent overfishing, minimize bycatch and protect
essential fish habitat.
Thank you for considering our views, and I look forward to working
with the Subcommittee members and staff during the reauthorization to
improve management of all marine species.
______
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you very much, Mr. Hinman.
The first question I have any single person or anybody on
the panel can certainly answer. Basically, the question is what
does ecosystem-based management mean? Now let me sort of give
you a frame of reference upon which my perspective is for
ecosystem management, and we would like to be able, as a result
of this hearing and maybe a few more, to put language in the
Magnuson Act that will move us in a very clear, specific
direction that will, I don't want to say accelerate, but begin
the process of implementing and incorporating Ecosystem
Management Plans, Fisheries Ecosystem Plans with that umbrella
concept. So the Fishery Management Plan can draw on this
information to better manage the fishery.
So what does Ecosystem-Based Management Plan mean? Dr.
Crowder, you mentioned Pamlico Sound, the problem in North
Carolina. We heard that about a billion fish died with this
huge outbreak of what some people are calling Pfiesteria, and
we've had similar incidents in the Chesapeake Bay with
menhaden, and the NOAA Office of the Chesapeake Bay Program
Office is sort of implementing this pilot project I guess I
could describe or Ecosystem Management Plan in the Chesapeake
Bay.
Now, my simple understanding of an ecosystem approach is
let's take menhaden, for example. You have a population of
menhaden, which is a food source for rockfish. Menhaden also
are filter feeders for the Chesapeake Bay, and they eat I guess
phytoplankton. Do they eat zooplankton, too?
Dr. Crowder. When they are small they do.
Mr. Gilchrest. When they are small.
So the problem with phytoplankton and zooplankton is that
the Bay has become too rich in nutrients, and there has been
problems with oxygen, hypoxia, and then the next step is the
growth of dinoflagellates, which live in a different water
quality regime, which means the menhaden don't get the type of
nutrients they need because dinoflagellates are less
nutritious.
And so if we manage the Chesapeake Bay, we want to make
sure a number of things; one, that land use is a part of the
ecosystem for the fishery, and what are you going to do with
the nutrients being washed into the Bay? So that is an aspect
of it. If the menhaden population goes down, the rockfish don't
have as many to eat, and they will be looking for a new food
source, which could be crabs, which could be something else. So
human activity comes in, and then we sort of, not to mention
the huge reduction of oyster population over the last 100
years, and list of things to understand and pursue, and then
put into a recognizable form so that you can come up with a
Fisheries Management Plan seems, I don't want to use the word
``daunting,'' I want to use the word ``stunningly curious'' to
pursue this fascinating issue of the mechanics of creation.
And so some of what I remember about managing the Bay,
especially menhaden, Chesapeake Bay, is that the commercial
fishermen will get an allocation of menhaden. The rockfish will
get an allocation of menhaden. The Bay itself, for filtering
water quality, will get an allocation of menhaden, and so on
down the line.
Is that some semblance of an Ecosystem-Based Management
Plan that councils would undertake and pursue?
Dr. Crowder. I would like to comment on that, Mr. Chairman,
you have a very thorough understanding of what is going on in
these systems. They are complex, and there are really two
alternatives, in terms of trying to manage fisheries in that
context. What we have done historically is manage fisheries as
if they are isolated from all of those other effects that you
catalogued. Clearly, that is not working.
The two alternatives I see from there are to ignore all of
those other issues, but make fisheries management decisions
that are extremely conservative. In other words, we need to
buffer ourselves against all of those uncertainties we are not
officially taking into account, like water quality and so on.
Or we could make our assessments account for the key complex
issues. You have identified a series of linkages that
scientists have become more and more aware of over just the
last 10 or 15 years. So we are in a position to take into
account many of those factors that link landscape practices to
fisheries production. So I think that on the science side, we
can do a much better job than we are currently doing, taking
into account ecosystem components. Obviously, we manage people,
not ecosystems and not fisheries, so we have to figure out how
one goes about altering the behavior of people to enhance these
habitats so that they can produce the fish they currently
produce.
One of the constraints on that is that the Magnuson Act
deals with managing fisheries and works through NOAA. Many of
those other factors that are having an impact on Chesapeake Bay
and the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound are regulated through entirely
different acts, through entirely different Government agencies.
So how to achieve the sort of cooperation it will take to do
ecosystem management will be a daunting task, both from a
scientific perspective and from a governance perspective. But I
think we have little choice, but to move in that direction.
Mr. Gilchrest. Now we want to replace the word ``daunting''
with challenging, and fascinating, and curious.
Dr. Crowder. Well, for scientists, these are challenging,
fascinating, fun tasks to get involved in, but it is also
something that is not inexpensive to jump into. If we could
manage these fisheries at the population level, that would
simplify our tasks substantially. What we have discovered
empirically is that we cannot successfully do that, so we at
least have to take something of the ecosystem context into
account when we develop Fisheries Management Plan.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you.
Dr. Fluharty?
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Chairman, I think what you have said has
very well-portrayed the set of issues we wrestled with in the
panel. What you projected is what we would generally term
``ecosystem management,'' and I think that that is the broad
context under which a more limited approach which was our focus
was how do you manage fisheries more ecologically. So that is a
really a subtask of the broader task that you have put out
before us. I think there may be--it may be useful to think of
these in two related actions: one in terms of Magnuson-Stevens
Act, in terms of the authorities that exist within the
management councils; and, two, within the context of the Ocean
Commission that is being established and getting started. I
think that what you express is really the leading edge and
would be a great organizing principle for that group is how do
you bring the watersheds, the marine pollution, the various
other kinds of activities, as well as the natural dynamics of
the system into a common management framework. How do we start
looking at that more holistically across Government? So I would
suggest there might be two ways to do this, and two vehicles
that would help us move along as quickly as we can.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you.
Mr. Hinman?
Mr. Hinman. Using your Chesapeake Bay example, every
description I have seen and heard of how a fishery ecosystem
plan would operate in those kind of situations would begin with
defining the structure and the composition of the ecosystem and
mapping out the significant food web which, in this case, would
include species such as striped bass, menhaden, blue crab, but
also on the predator level the bluefish and weakfish, and at
the prey level, the shad. And I think you would find that
certain solutions would arise out of this. You can do certain
things, such as be more conservative in the harvest of
menhaden, do more to restore the runs of shad in the Bay, which
are an important food source for striped bass, and it is the
absence of those species and menhaden or the scarcity of
menhaden that may be increasing the consumption of blue crabs.
I think you would find that there are ways that you can work
with that system and actually produce a variety of abundance of
all of these species in the Bay and provide a lot of benefits
for most of the users of the Bay. It is not a matter, I don't
think, of one user over another.
I think we are in a situation right now where we have
people saying, ``Let us kill more striped bass so that we can
kill more blue crabs or we can kill more menhaden or
whatever,'' this kind of micromanaging the system to produce
certain yields, levels of yields which is I think bound to
fail. It is extremely risky, and it is a kind of a
micromanipulation of an ecosystem that is the opposite of what
we are talking about. Since this issue was raised by Steve
earlier, of rebuilding all of these populations, I don't know
that there is any scientific reason to believe that an
ecosystem in balance cannot support a variety of species in
abundance. I think they can, and I think by managing for
abundance of both predator and prey species, we will have
healthier populations that will provide those commercial and
sport, as well as ecological benefits that we are trying to
achieve.
Mr. Gilchrest. I guess when we talk about an ecosystem in
balance, to some extent, each of the species in that ecosystem
is dynamic and the population goes up and down, depending on
who is eating who and whatever. So it is really, it is moving,
and it is dynamic, and it is cyclical. So, when you incorporate
humans in there, they are the, I would suspect, to a large
extent, they are the only aspect, since humans are a part of
the ecosystem, of that ecosystem that is not dynamic. It is
just steady. You want to catch so many pollock, and so many
crabs, and so many rockfish, and if your effort is much
greater, you still need to come out with that certain number in
order to be financially stable.
So what type of wrinkle does that pose to the ecosystem
approach to a very dynamic, natural process?
Dr. Crowder?
Dr. Crowder. At least in North Carolina, and I think this
is true for many fisheries, historically, fishermen were also
fishing those systems adaptively; that is, they didn't fish
just in one fishery, they were able to move from one fishery to
another. And I think, as our fisheries have expanded, we have
ended up with fisheries that are highly specialized and require
essentially a single resource, based on the gear and the
fishing technique, and they have a difficult time, as resources
come and go, making a move from one to another. It is pretty
typical for watermen in North Carolina to fish in five or six
different fisheries. This, of course, requires them to have a
lot of equipment of different kinds, and so on, to make those
moves, but they respond to fluctuations in the abundance of
prey, and that generates lots of problems with being permitted
and licensed to fish in a variety of different fisheries.
So it could be that as we managed things toward
specialization, we put fishermen in the position of requiring a
stable resource when that is just not physically possible in
the world that we live in. All of these stocks fluctuate up and
down naturally, and we can seek to understand that, but if it
is environmentally driven, we cannot control it. So we have
economic processes that would like nice, stable yields in a
world that does not produce nice, stable yields.
Mr. Gilchrest. Yes, sir?
Dr. Murawski. Yes, it is certainly the case that fisheries
can have a tremendously de-stabilizing effect in complex
ecosystems. In the Northeast, we have seen the effect of
fishing on the downside because natural fluctuations are
perturbed even more as fisheries seek to maintain their catch
rates. And so they tend to basically exert this negative
feedback on these populations that drive them even farther down
than they would normally be under sort of a natural cycling.
One of the things that we have discovered in looking at
these kinds of systems, both in the real world and in
computers, is that if the broad array of fish stocks are fished
at reasonable levels, ecosystems tend to be very resilient. A
lot of the species that we are talking about are relatively
long lived, and so even if you have recruitment failure for a
year or 2 years or 3 years in a row, because you have got a lot
of older adults in the population, you have the potential to
pick up the stocks relatively quickly. But if you have
fisheries that are bouncing around from target to target in a
system that we call sequential depletion, which is very well-
understood now, that we can destabilize a whole ecosystem in a
sequential basis, and that makes recovery in these systems much
more difficult.
Mr. Gilchrest. Sequential depletion, could you explain
that?
Dr. Murawski. Yes. The term basically has been defined
based on two interesting examples. First of all, back 30 years
ago, we had large foreign factory fleets show up off the
Northeast United States, and they bounced around from one
target to the next because they needed to maintain very high
catch rates for these large factory ships. And so as they
depleted haddock, and then cod, and yellowtail and then started
to move down the food chain, as Pat said, to herring and
mackerel, we saw the catch rate stay stable, although there was
a lot of target species shift.
We have also seen this in the Alaskan fisheries for shell
fish, where things like shrimp, and crabs, and others, we had a
mobile fleet that was capable of switching from fishery to
fishery, and this whole concept is very well-understood now,
and it argues for a comprehensive effort control across
fisheries, rather than just simply managing one target species
in an FMP over here and another one over there, recognizing
that that effort is very efficient. It can seek new targets
very effectively.
Mr. Gilchrest. Unfortunately, we are going to have a series
of votes, which means we will probably, rather than keep you
here for a half-hour or 40 minutes doing nothing, and perhaps
just myself coming back, I have just a couple other quick
questions. I would like to stay in touch with all of you,
whether I will come to Alaska the next time, North Carolina or
whatever.
In an ecosystem approach, what impact do you suppose we
might have with exotic species, invasive species? Has that been
taken into consideration over the past several years with some
of these projects?
Dr. Fluharty?
Dr. Fluharty. I am probably bolder than the scientists who
really know this topic. But in these discussions with respect
to marine protected areas and marine ecosystems, an ecosystem
that is intact, is healthy, is thought, in simple terms, to be
more resistant to invasion and thus less likely to be invaded--
it doesn't mean it can't be, but it is less likely--you haven't
created openings within the ecological niches by depleting,
say, a stock that would allow something to come in.
I will stop there because that is the limit of my
knowledge.
Mr. Gilchrest. There is another comment?
Dr. Crowder. I would add to that. I think that there is
increasing evidence from experimental systems, that
conservationists have worked on in both terrestrial freshwater
aquatic systems that systems that maintain a high level of
biodiversity, a broad cross-section of species, are more
resistant to invasion by nonnative species. And as we modify
these systems with pollutants, with losses of species or severe
depletions of species stocks, we actually make them open to
increasing opportunities for invaders.
Many of the invasive species that we have causing problems
now have had many, many opportunities to invade, and didn't
seem to invade until just recently. So it causes at least some
concern that its alterations to the systems that we have made
that, in fact, make them more vulnerable.
Mr. Gilchrest. It sounds like an ecosystem approach is
going to be beneficial in a number of ways, including a healthy
ecosystem which is more resistant and resilient to exotic
species.
One other quick question. With all of the complexities that
we see, that you have mentioned in your testimony, that you
have seen over the last number of years, Dr. Fluharty, in your
ecosystem-based fishery management proposal, research document,
you laid out some specific steps that could be taken by the
Congress in the authorization of the Magnuson to put in place
an implementation plan to the councils for an ecosystem
approach.
Now, if anybody on the panel has read those steps, would
you comment on them because they seem to be positive things for
us to do to put in the Magnuson Act, and do you have any
reservations about that? I guess we can just lift the language
right out of the report then.
Mr. Hinman. Well, I was a member of that panel, and I can
also point out that a lot of those recommendations were the
basis for the Marine Fish Conservation Network's
recommendations to Congress for the Magnuson Act changes, and
they have also been very influential in everything from the
Chesapeake Bay Program's approach to multispecies management
and some of the councils that have undertaken this task. So I
think there is a broad understanding and support for those
recommendations as the way to go.
Mr. Gilchrest. I am sorry. We are a typical Congress day.
We have a vote. What I would like to do is just turn the chair
over to Mr. Underwood. Unless somebody has to catch a plane, I
will be back as fast as I can, and Mr. Underwood can continue
the line of questioning.
Thank you.
Mr. Underwood. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since I
am a little out of the flow of the questions, let me just, as a
general question, Dr. Fluharty, you mentioned in your testimony
or you made the analogy that Congress could be the coach for
ecosystems management. How directive do you want this ``coach''
to be? Do you want them to be more a manager?
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Underwood, I think that this follows
directly along the line that we were pursuing with the Chairman
concerning just what steps could Congress do. I think that the
steps we outlined might be seen as timid by some people who
would like to see us move much more quickly, but the Committee
or the panel talked about this quite a bit and felt like this
was pretty much a sure-fire way, that these are things we could
actually get moving on over a period of years.
The key element of that, as I tried to emphasize, is the
National Marine Fisheries Service, the councils, the
environmental groups that work with us and the industry groups
that work with us all are very much overloaded with
implementation of the issues that have been brought before us
by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. This is rightly so. I am not
whining. I think that we are headed in the right direction and
doing the right kinds of things. But I think, as we add more
tasks, as the coach might say we are going to raise the bar
higher, we need to recognize the need to really either get some
new recruits in to help with the effort or to provide more
resources so that we can actually, have the energy to be
innovative and to get on with the task.
Mr. Underwood. Well, Dr. Hogarth, do you have a response to
that?
Dr. Hogarth. I think I just would echo what Dr. Fluharty
said. The 1996 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Act put great
expectations on the Agency. The manpower and dollars to get the
work done were not there. I think that is one of the reasons we
are paying the price today with many lawsuits, and the other
thing we have is that we have a tremendous increase in what we
should be doing and really not have the means to get it done.
Looking here at what is recommended, I do not think the
Agency has any reservation of undertaking ecosystem-based
management. If you look at some of the requirements, with 900
species or so to deal with and 540 of those whose status is
unknown, implementing this system into law would create, I
think, a tremendous backlash from industry, in terms of
additional lawsuits, questions about having a lot more vessels,
or the need to have a lot more people to really gather
necessary data.
I don't think any of us are fighting ecosystem-based
management. I think it depends on how much you would put into
law that has to be an impact on the Agency.
Mr. Underwood. So has the Agency considered costing out
what some of these recommendations might entail?
Dr. Hogarth. We are in the process of that now. I don't
know if you heard me say we are going to have a workshop this
fall to try to outline more of the system requirements, what
would it take the Agency to implement the system, what would be
the cost, and what would be the best way to go.
For example, the coral reef ecosystem plan that we are
developing in Hawaii right now, costs us about $1 million, with
consultants and others just to write the plan. That dollar
figure for the number of ecosystem plans we would be doing, in
that district, includes writing the plan. It doesn't include
having all of the data or filling in all of the holes that you
have.
The Groundfish Ecosystem Plan that Alaska prepared is about
a 3,600-page document that still has holes in it. People are
getting answers about now, and developing more definite
alternatives, especially alternatives for management.
I don't want to sound negative because I am not negative.
What I am trying to say is it is a tremendous amount of work.
It is going to take a lot of additional data to do these plans
and do them properly so that you do not have the Agency back in
court trying to defend the plan. My concern is that we have got
to have the resources if we want to go to this process.
We are going to try to work on this in the Agency. We are
trying to do it now. We have several plans that we are working
on to see how it works, but it has not been an easy process. It
has not been a cheap process, and we have lots of holes that we
need to fill.
Mr. Underwood. I think the appropriate response to that,
Dr. Hogarth, would be to see some resource statements about
what the costs would entail, what the costs would be to
implement some of these recommendations.
Yes, sir, you had a comment? I am sorry. I cannot see your
nameplate.
Okay. Mr. Hinman?
Mr. Hinman. In answer to your question of how directive
Congress should be on this issue, I have a couple of comments.
First of all, I think Congress clearly has to do a lot more
than just say to fishery managers, ``Consider ecological
relationships, consider the effects on ecosystems.'' I think
those are the kind of soft mandates that our experience has
shown really do not produce results. They are akin to saying,
``Prevent overfishing. Minimize bycatch.'' And I think in both
those cases, when there is an absence of some kind of directive
of how to do that or some kind of goals or standards that are
set attached to them or some kind of prescriptive measures,
very little is done in either case. That was the case with
preventing overfishing for 20 years. Now things are starting to
change because some prescriptive things have been put in there,
some ways of holding them accountable.
Minimize bycatch. I do not think a lot is happening, and I
think it is because that is pretty much as far as the act has
gone. So if you do that with the ecosystems approach, I think
that will be the result; (A) that very little will be done; or
(B) things will be done, but it will be in an uncoordinated or
piecemeal manner or, possibly, in an improper manner.
I think what Congress has to do is put some requirements in
the act, and it has to require that the Councils look at these
issues and go through a process to show, to demonstrate that
they have looked at the issues of what information is available
and give them some kind of guidance on how they are to consider
these things, how they are to weigh them. And I think both
those things can be done in the Magnuson Act and should be
done.
I think that guidance is what people have talked about, in
terms of putting together some kind of FEP, demonstration FEP,
and I am glad to hear that the National Marine Fisheries
Service is beginning to look at what kind of guidance they can
give the managers. But if you do not give the managers that
kind of guidance, I think we are going to continue on the path
we are on right now, and I think decisions will not be very
well-educated and well-informed.
And worse, I think, from Congress's standpoint and from a
political standpoint, we have, as I said in my testimony,
decisions being affected by these kinds of perceptions of what
people think is going on, and they are demanding some kind of
action. And if we do not have a very established process for
dealing with that, where we show people what information was
considered, the things that happen or the things that are done
are not going to be very credible either to fishermen or the
public, and those problems will continue, and people won't have
much faith in the fisheries management system, as it gets into
those issues, as it must.
And one last point. The Advisory Panel's report does
recommend that we do this through an incremental strategy, and
tries to stress that we should not be overwhelmed by the
enormity of the task or the amount of information we need, but
that there are certain things that can be done, and we should
begin doing things where we have information available and
where we can recognize what kind of relationships are going on
and what the impacts are. And we can begin doing those things
in some fisheries right now, rather than waiting until we have
the resources to collect all of the information to cover every
aspect of the ecosystem, which will not happen in our lifetime.
Mr. Underwood. Thank you for that.
Dr. Murawski?
Dr. Murawski. Yes. To your question about developing
resources in order to do the job, the Agency has developed a
document called the ``Stock Assessment Improvement Plan,'' and
this is in reaction to a National Research Council study to
improve stock assessment. The strategy that we have been
pushing forward is a three-tier strategy to, one, fully analyze
the data that we already have collected; two, improve the basic
data collection that we do to support the FMPs, as they are
currently constructed, and that would include better observer
coverage, more fishery independent surveys, and better
fisheries landings data; and a third tier is to extend these
stock assessments into the ecosystem realm, where we start to
better study the fishery interactions, et cetera.
Certainly this is an expensive proposition and one that we
see as an incremental proposition. As was stated before, this
kind of enterprise doesn't necessarily throw out the basic data
that we need. It really just adds to it, and we see this as our
vehicle to improve the ecosystem basis for management.
Mr. Underwood. Dr. Fluharty?
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Underwood, as part of the incremental
approach that Ken was mentioning that we, the panel,
recommended, if we look at the thrust right now, in terms of
both litigation and Agency effort, to become NEPA compliant, if
we look at the implementation of essential fish habitat, and
particularly the habitat areas of particular concern and the
fishing effects components of that, these are all major
activities that involve councils, and the National Marine
Fisheries Service, and users, as well, and environmental
organizations.
If we think of that in terms of providing the building
blocks that we are going to need for ecosystem-based fishery
management, basically, looking at sort of what we are doing,
but recognizing the significance of those activities right now,
I think that that is a really good start for the Fisheries
Ecosystem Plan. Even just looking at what is being done as we
go more consciously, in an ecosystem context, is the kind of
thing that really provides some legs to this concept.
Mr. Underwood. I am getting the sense, and correct me if I
am wrong, I am getting the sense that part of the difficulty in
trying to perhaps ensure public confidence, and this is one we
are constantly assessing, and that is a normal part of the
process, and now we are positing, trying to implement this
ecosystem management plan, and now we are talking about in
terms of implementing it incrementally. What do we mean by
incrementally? I mean, what is the time frame that we are
hoping to give to this?
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Underwood, I guess I would say that I
would see a time frame, and this is my perspective alone, of 2
to 3 years, where we, through various workshops, programs,
bringing ourselves up to speed on essential fish habitat,
especially fishing effects, totally implementing the
Sustainable Fisheries Act, and further refining the concept of
ecosystem-based fishery management and building a better
concept of the fishery ecosystem plan, we would be in a
position where we would have the wherewithal to get moving.
This doesn't mean that I am suggesting we wait until then
to start using the information we have, and I don't think that
will happen. But it is, in terms of a process, I think we have
got about 3 years of ramping up on this and then a year or two
of finalizing the concept and getting it into regulations so
that, people can know what to expect.
That would be my perspective. I expect others may have
ideas.
Mr. Underwood. Yes, sir?
Dr. Crowder. Thank you, Mr. Underwood.
I agree with Dr. Murawski that there is an awful lot of
data that has been collected about these ecosystems and a lot
of understanding with these ecosystems not only with Government
agencies, but within oceanographic institutions and the
academic institutions that have cooperated. Under GLOBEC and
under the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program, there have been very
useful programs of collaboration across academic/Government
boundaries--we are trying to make them bridges--so that we
don't have to start over collecting a bunch of new information.
We need to look at the information we have got and figure out
what the critical holes are that need to be filled.
So I think that, in addition to the resources that are
available through Government, there are ample resources in the
U.S., through the oceanographic institutions, to contribute to
these issues.
Mr. Underwood. Anyone else?
Mr. Hinman?
Mr. Hinman. Yes. It is hard to say exactly how long it
would take to put together a fishery ecosystem plan, whether it
is a couple of years. I think, as soon as--as Larry just said--
as soon as we start trying to put together these plans to
gather and synthesize this information, I think people are
going to discover that there is a lot more information, and we
know a lot more than we may think we do, which I think would
probably lead to being able to put it into implementation
sooner, rather than later. But I think part of the incremental
strategy, I firmly believe that a requirement of taking into
consideration some of the significant predator-prey
relationships is something that needs to be in the
reauthorization, and I think they are things that can be done
right now, that can be done even before a fishery ecosystem
plan is completed. We do know of some very significant
relationships among predators and prey that are being
harvested, being caught at very significant levels, and that we
have gathered tremendous amounts of information on over the
years.
Some of the examples we have talked about today, we were
talking about them because there is a tremendous amount of
information. So I think those things don't have to wait at all.
Fishery ecosystem plans will take probably a couple of years to
put together, but again I think we will find, as we do that,
that we know a lot more than we think we do and that we can do
a lot more than some people think, sooner than we think.
Mr. Underwood. Dr. Hogarth?
Dr. Hogarth. Just one last point, one of the other
considerations is the human considerations in this effort. We
are in a need for a lot of social economic-type data, and the
impacts on communities and all, not only the biological
impacts, but you are going to have to look at communities, the
socioeconomic effects. That is the type of data that we, in the
Agency need, but have had a lack of funding for a number of
years, and I think it is one of the critical issues.
The second thing is that our workshop will look at the
process for ecosystem management. If we can develop a process
or a model, so to speak, that we will use for these type plans,
then I think that you could focus more on the type of data
needed, the assumptions necessary, and this type of thing. It
will focus the discussion a little more once we can come to an
agreement on the process or a model on how these plans will be
done. That is what we want our workshop to focus on this fall.
Mr. Underwood. Explain what you mean by socioeconomic data.
Dr. Hogarth. Well, you have to know what the fishery and
the value of some of the ecosystems from a fishery standpoint;
if it is whale watching or if it is, the whole ecosystem in
terms of the economics, the social aspects of the ecosystem and
what impacts of management would be. When you look at the
ecosystem, you are looking at it, from a management standpoint,
of all the uses, including fisheries, but also the other uses.
Mr. Underwood. Okay. Dr. Fluharty, under this ecosystem-
based fishery management, when you prepared this report, what
elements of it were perceived in the final recommendations you
made as perhaps the most controversial or what elements did you
leave out, as well, that people wanted?
Dr. Fluharty. I think that some of the discussion today
reflects the sort of underlying concerns that we had. As
scientists, as managers, and as economists who were involved in
putting this report together, I think there was a real interest
in moving this concept ahead. The question was how quickly
could we do it and what were the best methods? And we gave our
best shot at that.
And so I think that, clearly, there were people that wanted
us to move to, as Ken has suggested, to a much more enforceable
and action-oriented Fishery Ecosystem Plan. I mean, what would
the plan be, what kinds of management actions would flow from
that document? We adopted a somewhat more conservative
incremental implementation approach, knowing that it is going
to take some while to gather information together to get people
up to speed, understanding there is a lot of education that
needs to go on throughout the fishery management process.
I think, if there was any controversy, that might have been
it. I think another area where we struggled quite a bit was on
how to discuss marine protected areas and what were their roles
in fishery management. Clearly, fishery management has a wide
variety of what are generally termed ``marine protected
areas,'' but they are not fully protected areas or no take
areas.
And so these were some of the dynamics that were here, and
our approach emphasized the fact that fishery managers already
are using, already are putting marine protected areas together
in large areas like Georges Bank in the North Pacific where you
have no trawl zones to protect habitat or to achieve different
kinds of things. But other people looking at that say, well,
you still allow some fisheries to take place in there.
Therefore, they don't count. Well, scientifically, they mean a
huge amount and really solve some of the major problems where
we have threats.
So just about every debate I am sure you had been brought
into on this Committee relative to fisheries was hashed out--
Mr. Underwood. Part of the discussion.
Dr. Fluharty. --in this discussion.
Mr. Hinman. Even ITQs came up.
Mr. Underwood. Pardon me?
Mr. Hinman. Even ITQs.
Can I add something to that?
Mr. Underwood. Sure, a couple of comments and then--go
ahead.
Mr. Hinman. Yes, I agree with Dave that we were trying to
strike a balance between how action oriented the recommendation
should be and being a little bit more conservative on that and
recognizing a lot of the information needs.
One area that was not necessarily controversial, but we
really didn't get that far into because our mandate was to look
for changes under the Magnuson-Stevens Act was this sort of
interjurisdictional ecosystem of institutions that are under a
lot of different Federal laws. For example, a lot of the
species in the ecosystems that we are going to be mapping out
in Fishery Ecosystem Plans are managed by other laws, such as
the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act,
interstate compacts and other things.
There was some discussion about eventually needing to
somehow harmonize our ecosystem objectives and considerations
among these various different Federal laws because they are all
going to impact things. Once you get into the habitat issue,
you get into a whole bunch of other laws and agencies, and it
becomes pretty, the word ``daunting'' comes up again, but I
think that was one thing that we did look at. And I think some
of them are more compelling than others, some of the marine
wildlife issues that we need to harmonize that because we have
fisheries issues that are now bumping up against Endangered
Species Act issues and the Marine Mammal Act issues, and I
think those will become even more focused as we get into the
ecosystem context, and that will have to be dealt with.
Mr. Underwood. Dr. Murawski?
Dr. Murawski. You would think, from the witnesses'
testimony here this morning, that this is rather
noncontroversial in terms of implementing--
Mr. Underwood. I don't think so.
Dr. Murawski. --Fishery Ecosystem Plans as a tier on the
way we currently do business. If we look at the broader issue,
there is a large dichotomy in people's approach to this issue.
Some would have us scrap fishery management the way we do it
now and go with a broad and ill-defined ecosystem basis for
managing fisheries, recognizing or at least stipulating that
what we are doing is a failed paradigm.
Most of us in the business feel that conservative single-
species management is the foundation that would improve stocks,
that would buffer against unanticipated changes in the
ecosystem, and it is really far along the line. We feel that
this approach gives us a foot in the door, with a lot of the
mechanisms that we do know work, that can recover depleted
species, in most cases, and move forward. But I wouldn't
discount the controversy, particularly among some of the groups
that are out there, that this is not the way to go.
Mr. Underwood. Thank you for those remarks.
We will stand in recess until the return of the chair.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Gilchrest. [Presiding] The Subcommittee will come back
to order.
We appreciate your patience, and I also want to thank Mr.
Underwood for continuing the hearing. It seems as if the most
productive time during any hearing is the recess time.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Gilchrest. But I guess it is not always that people
have an opportunity to discuss these critical issues with other
people from different parts of the country. And when they do
so, it provides a great benefit.
I, also, want to thank all of you for waiting and being
patient with us. I had just a few more questions to finish up
with.
Dr. Hogarth, in this Chesapeake Bay NOAA ecosystem
approach, could you tell me who the collaborative partners are
in this.
Dr. Hogarth. Judith Freeman is here.
Mr. Gilchrest. Judith just stepped out.
Dr. Hogarth. We will get them right now; Peter Hill is
here.
Mr. Gilchrest. That is fine, Dr. Hogarth.
Dr. Hogarth. If not, we will get those to you. I don't know
all of them, but, yes, I know EPA is involved, but we will get
it to you.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you. The Chesapeake Bay NOAA Office is
that a, the ongoing effort to gather data to an ecosystem
approach then is contained within the Chesapeake Bay proper,
the Chesapeake Bay fisheries itself, and not outside the
Chesapeake Bay?
Dr. Hogarth. There are some outside the Bay, yes, sir.
Mr. Gilchrest. And would that have an impact or could that
have an impact, and is there any collaboration with the Mid-
Atlantic Fisheries Council on that program?
Dr. Hogarth. I am not sure at this point. I will have to
take a look at that. I know we are looking at some of the
species that migrate in and out of the Bay. I don't know what
we are working with the Council itself or just the Mid-Atlantic
States.
Mr. Gilchrest. We will wait until Judith comes back. Thank
you.
Ms. Livingston, could you give us some idea of what you
see--to me, and perhaps to all of you, as well, would you agree
that we are at the very early stages of two things:
understanding how to create a Fishery Ecosystem Plan and then,
once you had the scientific data or ongoing understanding of
how it all works, what would you say the difficulties of that
would be for us to appropriately place language in the
reauthorization bill so that a management council would then be
required to proceed with those steps to implement this umbrella
of a Fishery Ecosystem Plan that we are talking about, upon
which information would be drawn for a Fisheries Management
Plan?
Ms. Livingston. Mr. Chairman, I think we have somewhat of a
grasp on what is involved in producing a Fishery Ecosystem
Plan, as outlined by the Advisory Principles group.
As I mentioned in my testimony, we have struggled with that
in the last year, although we didn't use the term ``FEP.'' What
we did with our last Groundfish SEIS is clear that we did a lot
of the work that would be required under an FEP.
In listening to Mr. Hinman's recommendation that the
Magnuson Act be amended to include consideration of predatory-
prey interactions sounds very good, but when we look at what we
have done so far in our work, trying to develop indicators that
look at how we are performing in terms of protecting forage
species, what we are doing with top-level predators, it is very
difficult to say what we should do with it in a quantitative
way. I would say that is the biggest difficulty. How much is
enough? And if there is some way to put it in a framework, that
would be the most useful because I would say we still have a
very big lack of scientific knowledge about how much is enough.
Mr. Gilchrest. You are saying if, when we reauthorize the
Magnuson Act, we create a framework to move in a direction of
ecosystem management, with each council having a clear
direction to go in, but then enough flexibility to deal with
all of the various variables, could you give us some idea, from
your perspective, if and when we move in this direction to give
some framework to ecosystem management approaches, to do it
effectively, as some of you mentioned about the backlog of
compliance with existing regulation, and part of that is not
enough data, part of that is not enough people collecting that
data and so forth, what would it take, you know, from being on
the Council and you want to pursue this new adventure, what
would it take?
Ms. Livingston. Well, we have heard two things of what it
would take. It would take the manpower to come into compliance,
to do the Environmental Impact Statements on EFH, to have the
other regions do, as we did with our programmatic EISs, to look
very comprehensively at that. That takes a lot of manpower.
When I look at what we did last year, we nearly burned
ourselves out trying to do that. So that is one aspect.
Mr. Gilchrest. On the North Pacific Management Council you
need manpower to continue to pursue this.
Ms. Livingston. On the Council and at NMFS.
Mr. Gilchrest. What does that mean--five people with
certain degrees, ten people with certain experiences?
Ms. Livingston. I would have to get back to you on the
exact numbers. I haven't computed that. But given that we have
the EFH EIS, and I know that on the Council itself a lot of
action has been stopped, at the moment, on a lot of our habitat
issues and other things because staff have been so busy with
other things.
Mr. Gilchrest. So, besides manpower then, what was the next
thing?
Dr. Hogarth. One aspect is the manpower at NMFS and on the
Councils to deal with doing these comprehensive assessments;
and the next is, as Dr. Murawski talked about, the research
aspects that are outlined in the NMFS Stock Assessment
Improvement Plan. There are some dollar amounts and manpower
associated with that in the plan itself.
Mr. Gilchrest. Dr. Hogarth, is that a quantifiable number
that we could get from the councils--the manpower to pursue the
process of an ecosystem approach, what is necessary to complete
the implementation of the backlog of existing regulations, and
then what each council would need in terms of scientific
expertise? Is that something that we could actually see? When
we implement this into our amendment, it would be helpful to us
if we could say we need ``X'' number of dollars to do this
appropriately, and here is where those ``X'' number of dollars
are going to be spent?
Dr. Hogarth. Yes, I think we can develop estimates of that.
That is what we are planning to do internally. We have not
dealt totally with the councils yet. We are dealing internally,
but that would then translate to the councils. But if you give
us a time frame, we will try to get it done.
Mr. Gilchrest. Let us see, what is Monday's date?
[Laughter.]
Dr. Hogarth. A little bit more realistic--
Mr. Gilchrest. A couple more weeks. We will meet down at
Barrent Island and plant some more marsh grass.
Dr. Hogarth. That would be great. That was fun.
We are in the process of doing this. We are looking at the
existing problems we have in NEPA and trying to resolve that,
and we are meeting with the councils at the end of July, so we
are looking at existing problems.
Mr. Gilchrest. Dr. Fluharty, is that something you think
can be--can you establish a number where you would have people
doing ecosystem approach? What does it take to take care of the
existing backlog? Because I would assume that that backlog of
implementation of existing regulations has, I would guess, a
negative impact on the whole picture of the council.
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. I think it has
a number of effects. I have heard staff talking to us in the
North Pacific about the Sustainable Fisheries Act essentially
tripling the workload. If you look at numbers keying off that,
and dollars keying off of that, that is pretty substantial, but
I don't think that is entirely out of the question. In part,
that is why we proposed a more incremental approach to this.
One of the things in the council and NMFS process we found
to be extremely effective is the fact that, particularly where
you are integrating across these things, you are using existing
personnel who have specific expertise to contribute to a joint
project. So it is not always just a new position here or there,
although you could conceive of it: If each council had or each
region had a Fishery Ecosystem Plan coordinator whose job it
was to bring everyone together and work on this, that would be
a big help.
This would be just bringing together the information that
we do have available, not going out and doing additional
research. I think that the additional research, we have some
good understanding of what that needs to do, but again it is
integrated across everything that the Agency and the councils
are currently involved in. So I would certainly defer to Dr.
Hogarth and the people here in terms of how you actually think
of this, in terms of the management institutions. But I suspect
that the number is daunting, as well, and I think that that is
realistic, in terms of what we want to do in the marine
environment.
And I think you, in your leadership role, have seen that we
are far behind what is going on in the terrestrial environment,
in terms of really understanding what it is that needs to be
done and developing the institutions to accomplish that. So
there is a tremendous opportunity and need for moving in these
kinds of directions.
Mr. Gilchrest. Dr. Fluharty, you are suggesting that each
council would have a possible designated position referred to
as an ecosystem coordinator?
Dr. Fluharty. I could see it at the council level, but I am
also concerned, and this is why, you know, I would benefit from
discussions with others. Since this is an ecosystem-based and
scientifically-based concept, much of the work takes place in
the science centers of the National Marine Fisheries Service,
as well as with partner agencies, the various States who are
members of council areas, and tribes and others that are
involved. So there is a tremendous effort here, and I am not
sure where I would necessarily think the best place to put such
a coordinator would be, but I could see a regional coordinator
position would be extremely valuable.
Mr. Gilchrest. On each council.
Dr. Fluharty. At a minimum, yes, and probably one for the
highly migratory species billfish area as well. That is a much
different type of ecosystem concern, but I could see that very
easily, as necessary.
Mr. Gilchrest. Dr. Hogarth, does that look like something
that is feasible?
Dr. Hogarth. I would say I think we can make the estimate.
They will be somewhat ballpark.
The other thing we have got to be concerned about is the
State's involvement. For example, summer flounder, we need to
look at the problems we have had with summer flounder. When you
get into ecosystem management of summer flounder, you have a
number of states involved. We would have to make sure they were
brought into the fold to work with us.
I think we can give you an estimate of what it takes. And I
think, as Dr. Fluharty said, we have already done some work
internally. It is some large number of people and dollars. It
is something we have discussed. We have not put it on paper
yet, but we have discussed it and looked at estimates of the
cost of the projects. Because we were trying to figure out how
to implement a system, we may take it in stages that Steve was
talking about earlier this morning, how we would implement it
in stages on a trial basis and this type of thing.
Mr. Gilchrest. Well, we will do everything we can up here
to inform our colleagues of the importance and, to some extent,
the sense of relative urgency. Everything is urgent up here,
but it would be useful for us to understand the picture of
ecosystem management as clearly as possible, from all its
varied aspects, so that if we were going to implement this in
stages, we would make sure that that was done in a fashion that
moved us in the right direction with reasonable appropriations
as quickly as possible.
Dr. Hogarth, you mentioned the states, and if I could,
since he is in the room, I am going to paraphrase something
Jack Dunnigan said I think it was last week or the week before,
and he certainly can stand up if I am missing the mark, but we
did have a brief discussion about menhaden, and crabs, and
rockfish at the previous hearing from the gentleman from North
Carolina. And Jack, I thought, gave a pretty good answer in
that he said that there were many more interested parties in
menhaden than there used to be, and as a result of that, the
regime for managing that species had changed, but it was not
for some particular political purpose.
But then I think Jack Dunnigan made a comment, in reference
to ecosystem management, that he said the Atlantic State Marine
Fisheries Commission needs some clear direction as to which way
we are going, and so what we are trying to do at this hearing
is to give people some idea as to the direction we would like
to go in, and one of those directions will be to understand how
to incorporate an ecosystem management approach to our
fisheries.
I was handed a question here. Oh, okay.
Dr. Hogarth?
Dr. Hogarth. I do have an answer for you on the people that
are working on the FEP. There are representatives from the
Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Virginia
Institute of Marine Science, University of Maryland, Chesapeake
Biological Labs, and the Academy of Natural Sciences, Maryland
Sea Grant, United States Marine Fishery Commission, the U.S.
Geological Survey, the Mid-Atlantic Council and the South
Atlantic Councils. And Judith Freeman just told me we have a
lot of scientists who have given us time, devoting time to work
with it that no one is paying for. It is just an undertaking
they are doing, and NOAA is not paying them for it. They are
just giving their time to help with the process.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you very much. We would like to come
down and visit on a somewhat regular basis to see the progress.
Can you have an ecosystem management approach to highly
migratory species?
Mr. Hinman?
Mr. Hinman. Well, since that question sort of crosses over
two issues I spend most of my time on, I hope I have an answer.
Yes. In our written testimony, we pointed out that two of
the issues that are on the table right now in front of managers
that are ecosystem issues, predator-prey issues, involve highly
migratory species. We have to take a look at the fact that we
have a whole tier at the top of the food chain, our large
pelagic fish, that are some of our most overfished species.
About a fifth of the species on our list of overfished species
in the United States are highly migratory species--coastal
sharks, big tunas, big-eye and bluefin, swordfish and both
marlins, and this can have dire biological consequences on the
ecosystem. We have taken out so many of those fish from that
part of the food web.
As a number of studies have shown, and something that Dr.
Peter Larkin and some others have published on, is the belief
that actually removing the predator is going to cause more
enduring damage to an ecosystem than removing some of the prey
species because the predators are less responsive, because they
are longer lived, slower growing. They are less quickly
responsive to changes in the environment, openings of niches
because of competitors being overfished or changes of
availability of prey. So I think this is a big concern.
I am answering the question I guess that, yes, we
definitely should consider and should be applying the ecosystem
approach to highly migratory species. So should the related
concern that so many of these species are now the object of
rebuilding plans, both national and international plans, and
that we have a lot of their forage species that we are
increasing our harvest of--squid, herring, mackerel. And those
catches have gone up tremendously in the 1990's, and we are
still allowing them, as of decisions being made right now at
the council level, allowing those catches to increase even
more, but we are not considering whether that food source is
going to be out there on the shelf for the returning
populations of pelagic species.
I guess you are getting into the question for highly
migratory species, can we do ecosystem management on an
international level? And that is the institutional question. We
can't effect that, I don't think, through the Magnuson Act,
except to the extent that we can require a Fishery Ecosystem
Plan to be developed by the U.S., by the National Marine
Fisheries Service, HMS Division, looking at all of these issues
I have been talking about, and others, and trying to map out
those significant relationships within the highly migratory
species community, as well as their important forage species,
and make recommendations on what kind of actions we should be
taking, and then they could become the basis of both domestic
actions, as well as U.S. positions when negotiating
international treaties.
Mr. Gilchrest. I guess this sounds like something that
would be, at least as far as the Magnuson Act was concerned,
appropriate for an ecosystem manager at each council on a
collaborative effort between the other councils and the State
associations, and on an international arena would have to be
obviously an international agreement for an international
treaty.
But I guess if we moved in that direction, and the data was
collected and the U.S. took a leadership role in it, it would
be more easily understood and possibly accepted.
Dr. Murawski?
Dr. Murawski. I think your question, in an ironic way,
applies equally to the Chesapeake Bay. We had a scoping meeting
that Judith and her colleagues put together several years ago,
and we talked about the first question of what are the
boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay? And we came to the
conclusion, obviously, that you had to include the migratory
predators in the system, and so that it rapidly extends its
boundaries out.
Now, large marine predators like the top predators have
wide boundaries. They cross across defined ecosystems. But as
Ken Hinman said, the failure to include them as actors in the
ecosystem leaves a big hole in what we are doing. So we
obviously need to be flexible in those definitions of
boundaries.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you.
I have just one more question. In some areas in the United
States, where States or regions are trying to protect wildlife
habitat, they have conservation corridors between one hub to
another hub in which the ideal situation is the wildlife, when
they are going from one acreage to another acreage, they will
have a path to travel through.
Is there a mirrored concept, a similar concept in the
oceans, where you can have corridors maybe connecting marine
protected areas to another marine protected area, and is that
something of a consideration now or down the road with
ecosystem management?
Yes, sir?
Dr. Crowder. Yes. Both the Marine Conservation Biology
Institute and the National Resources Defense Council have
sponsored workshops within the last year to look at corridors.
And we have been talking about resource species, but many of
the protected species, the sea turtles, for example, undergo
extremely wide migrations. And what we have been trying to do
is put together what we know about the habitat they use at
various stages in their life history, what their annual
migration patterns look like, in an effort to string together
that kind of protection.
We need to know where the organisms are at particular
seasons and which fisheries they interact with as they are
moving around those systems. So I think people in marine
fisheries, marine conservation, are starting to think about
those issues, and we do have some information on which to base
some preliminary estimates. I think there is an NRDC report out
just recently that deals with the Atlantic coast that involved
the input of 20 or 30 experts on different taxon groups about
which portions of the Atlantic coastline might be appropriate
to consider for some sort of protection, and one of the issues
was migratory species.
Mr. Gilchrest. Dr. Hogarth?
Dr. Hogarth. Judith is back, but she just passed me a note,
and she may want to follow up on this, but she said in the
Chesapeake Bay they are using a corridor-type management for
blue crabs to protect the females move from one area to the
other.
Mr. Gilchrest. So the corridor for blue crabs is an area
set aside--
Dr. Hogarth. So that the females could, yes, move on--
Mr. Gilchrest. So that is an area that you can't fish in.
Dr. Hogarth. Right.
Mr. Gilchrest. You can't catch the blue crabs in.
Dr. Hogarth. Right.
Mr. Gilchrest. And that goes down through Virginia?
Ms. Freeman. It is in Virginia.
Mr. Gilchrest. It is in Virginia.
Ms. Freeman. Yes. It is in effect during certain times of
the year, but the intention has been described as a protected
corridor.
Mr. Gilchrest. That is great.
I have a few more. I think they are a little bit, they are
ecological questions, El Nino, El Nina, climate change, that
kind of thing, but I think, through conservations you have
stated here, I think the obvious answer to a question about El
Nino is that it is going to have a, depending on the size of
the El Nino, a smaller, dramatic effect on a particular species
or a number of species.
Yes, sir?
Dr. Fluharty. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I know you didn't
ask that as a question, but I happen to be involved with some
work in the North Pacific, and this whole concept of El Nino,
La Nina, Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), longer term
fluctuations, are very relevant to understanding what is going
on in the ecosystem, and it is an area where, for example, in
the North Pacific, are we looking at a decline in Steller sea
lion populations that it is mediated, to a large extent, as an
alternative equilibrium state or Steller sea lions, because of
change in the ecosystem, and a fair amount of study has been
put into this, and it is a major contributor to what is
actually going on. So you are right on, in terms of the kinds
of things that would have to be taken into account in the
ecosystem-based approach.
Salmon management in the North Pacific, you have a very
strong North-South signal in Nino years and with the Pacific
(Inter)Decadal Oscillation, where you have an inverse
production regime between Washington State, and Oregon, and
California versus Alaska. So, when things are really bad in
Western Oregon and California, as they have been for the last
20 years, they have been extremely good, i.e., world record
catches of salmon in Alaska.
This inverse regime may be breaking down now. We may be
seeing some recoveries along the Pacific Coast, Columbia River
stocks, that is related to this shift. So there is a lot to be
understood, and it really does need to be brought into the
fishery management context and is being brought in, in the
Pacific setting.
Mr. Gilchrest. A reduction in the stock of salmon in
Washington and Oregon, I know there are a lot of human factors
there, but part of that is related to the warmer water?
Dr. Fluharty. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gilchrest. And then the warmer water is now beginning
to move into the Alaskan waters, and so that is having some
effect on Alaskan salmon stock?
Dr. Fluharty. Just the opposite. The warmer waters moving
farther North give a productivity boost in the Northern areas.
When it gets colder, that changes things. It helps us down in
Western Oregon and California, where we get certain kinds of
up-welling conditions that bring colder, more productive water,
down off our shores, a bit more suitable for, thus, survival of
some--
Mr. Gilchrest. You are saying the warmer water in Alaska?
Dr. Fluharty. It is relatively warmer.
Mr. Gilchrest. Relatively warmer.
Dr. Fluharty. A degree or two.
Mr. Gilchrest. Oh, I see.
Dr. Fluharty. A degree or two warmer water in Alaska seems
to be associated with some pretty major regime shifts.
Mr. Gilchrest. Has El Nino affected or, I have heard a lot
of different things about Steller sea lions, one of which is
because of the change of temperature in the North Pacific in
and around Alaska, the pollock population has been diminished,
and therefore the Steller sea lions have not had enough to eat.
In other words, the Steller sea lion food source has been
diminished because of the change in water temperature.
Dr. Fluharty. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure where you got
that information, but we have--
Mr. Gilchrest. Oh, herring and mackerel. I got my fish
wrong.
Dr. Fluharty. Yes. So that the pollock is doing quite well.
In fact, the population has more than doubled since the Steller
sea lion population started to decline in the Bering Sea, so
that we see, and Dr. Livingston can keep me straight here, so
that in the Bering Sea we see a major increase in pollock as a
food source, and that is one of those things that makes us
scratch our head, looking at the small fatty fish, forage fish,
for which we do not allow fisheries to take place, those have
dropped out of the ecosystem, some of the shrimp and some of
the other prey that are also eaten by Stellers as opportunistic
feeders. So these are the kinds of questions that we are
wrestling with, in terms of understanding what is the role of
the fishery with respect to Steller sea lion decline and/or
recovery.
Mr. Gilchrest. Is this an example of the difficulty of
trying to understand and implement an Ecosystem Fisheries Plan?
Dr. Fluharty. Yes, sir, and also why we need to do it.
Mr. Gilchrest. So we don't have any specific answer as to
why the decline in Steller sea lion population.
Dr. Fluharty. Well, no, we do not have a definitive answer.
Mr. Gilchrest. Ms. Livingston, what were you going to say?
Ms. Livingston. Well, I was going to say that there are a
whole host of factors that have contributed to the decline, and
there is no one factor at this point that we can point to.
Mr. Gilchrest. Give me three factors.
Ms. Livingston. Previous harvest of sea lions, climate
factors, and now the big discussion is localized depletion of
sea lion prey.
Mr. Gilchrest. What are the sea lion prey?
Ms. Livingston. Walleyed pollock, Pacific cod, and mackerel
are the primary ones.
Mr. Gilchrest. Is there any reason for their decline?
Ms. Livingston. Those prey had not necessarily declined in
overall abundance. The factor that we are talking about is
localized depletion, which is a fishery coming in, in a small
time and space frame, and removing fish. Although it may be a
very large population, the fishery may be locally reducing prey
abundance during a critical feeding period of Steller sea
lions, so that they may not be able to find adequate prey
during that particular season or area.
Mr. Gilchrest. Is there little or sufficient science on
that issue?
Ms. Livingston. That is one thing we are really working on
right now, to get a better understanding of the seasonal
distribution of these fish. As you might know, because we are
up in an Arctic or boreal system, we usually only survey during
the summer, and now we are trying to get a better handle on
what these fish are doing in the winter, where they are, and
how abundant they are.
Mr. Gilchrest. Where do the Steller sea lions go in the
winter? Do they stay there?
Ms. Livingston. That is another question that we are trying
to get a better handle on. We believe they stay there. We are
not sure how much they move across the different rookeries.
Mr. Gilchrest. But they stay in Alaska.
Ms. Livingston. Yes.
Mr. Gilchrest. Well, we could probably go on, and have
pizza brought in, for another couple of hours, but I do want to
thank all of you for discussing this most fascinating mystery.
We will continue to pursue this, and with your help, we hope we
can reauthorize the Magnuson Act in a way that will be most
beneficial to the ecosystem, which includes us.
I have to ask unanimous consent that the hearing record
remain open for member statements and/or other material for an
additional 10 days. The Subcommittee will have follow-up
questions for each of you, if you don't mind. And if each of
you, in your respective places, we are looking for places to
travel to, if you want to invite us to your region of the
world, we would be more than happy to go there.
Thank you all very much. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Dr. Hogarth's response to questions submitted for the
record follow:]
General Questions For The Record
house resources committee
subcommittee on fisheries conservation, wildlife and oceans
hearing on ecosystem-based fishery management
june 14, 2001
Question 1: Describe the ecosystem-based fisheries management
requirements.
Answer: To make wise use of public resources that contribute the
maximum benefit to the Nation, NOAA needs to take a fresh approach to
living marine resource stewardship and modernize its scientific and
management practices. New data and well-designed processes that
synthesize and communicate information into successful public policies
are essential to achieving the mission of building sustainable
fisheries, restoring healthy coastal ecosystems and enhancing recovery
of protected species.
When NOAA was created 30 years ago, no one adequately predicted the
human and environmental complexity of the task of living marine
resource stewardship. Today, the concept of ecosystem-based fishery
management is gaining momentum. Such an endeavor is an enormous
challenge. NMFS and the eight regional fishery management Councils have
already begun investigating how ecosystem considerations can be
incorporated into the existing fisheries management structure.
Generally, the approach is to conduct detailed single-species
assessments and embed them in an ecosystem context. In other words,
consideration of ecosystem effects tends to be qualitative or semi-
quantitative, rather than fully quantitative. Multi-species and
ecosystem models are being developed in all NMFS Science Centers and by
a few academic institutions, but they are usually difficult to validate
and frequently suffer from lack of adequate baseline biological and
environmental data. Extensive monitoring programs for all Federally-
managed species, associated and dependent species, oceanographic data,
habitat mapping, and climate effects are needed to fulfill the data
requirements of ecosystem models.
Ecosystem-based fishery management will require a multifaceted
approach, including significantly expanded monitoring programs and new,
adaptive governance systems, generally referred to as fishery ecosystem
plans (FEPs). When fishery managers are better able to understand the
complex ecological and socioeconomic environments in which fish and
fisheries exist, they will be better able to anticipate the effects
fishery management will have on the ecosystem and the effects that
ecosystem change will have on fisheries. In developing an ecosystem
approach to research and management, it is important to recognize that
a great deal is already known about marine ecosystems, but that this
information is not consistently applied in current management efforts.
This is, in large part, because there is no agreed upon method or
process for applying it. Therefore, emphasis must be placed not only on
what new information is required, but also on how to apply existing
information effectively. In addition, it must be recognized that both
science and management are ongoing processes, and that mechanisms are
required to incorporate new scientific, social, cultural, economic and
institutional information into the management process as it becomes
available.
To fully implement ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries
management for all managed U.S. marine species, NMFS and the Councils
will require a significant increase in funding and staffing in order to
produce the necessary baseline monitoring data. This attests to the
complexity of integrating data from many scientific disciplines into an
ecosystem-based management approach. Development of fishery ecosystem
plans will require a deliberate, incremental process. Public
expectations of what NOAA can and should produce need to be aligned
with the reality of what they are willing to spend and how wise use of
natural marine resources comports with other national priorities. The
primary enhancement elements and cost estimates required to develop
FEPs and provide the necessary baseline monitoring data are outlined
below. To reach this level of effort will require a phase-in period of
five years or more.
Question 2: What is the estimated funding and Full Time Equivalent
(FTE) employee requirements to implement ecosystem-based fisheries
management and implementation costs?
Answer: A narrative accompanies each element in the chart in
response to the question.
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IMPROVEMENTS IN ASSESSMENTS OF STOCKS ($91.2M; 608 FTEs)
NOAA is mandated to provide sound scientific advice, based on
comprehensive, high quality data and state-of-the-art analysis
techniques for all marine fisheries under national jurisdiction.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is committed to enhancing its
program efforts through implementation of the Stock Assessment
Improvement Plan (SAIP). This plan guides NOAA's out-year investments
in fishery science program infrastructure and key staff resources to
improve the comprehensiveness, timeliness, quality, and communication
of state-of-the-art fishery assessments. The SAIP puts forth a multi-
year framework for the improvement of NMFS stock assessments through
new national standards of quality and scope. This framework provides
new standards by which to evaluate all stock assessments performed
(i.e., Tiers of Assessment Excellence):
LTier 1 -- Improve Assessments using Existing Data --
Improve core species stock assessments using existing data, and mine
existing databases to evaluate status determination criteria for
fishery stocks of unknown status.
LTier 2 -- Elevate all Assessments to a Nationally-
Acceptable Level -- Conduct adequate baseline monitoring for all
federally-managed species, upgrade assessment levels for heavily
exploited stocks and ecologically significant species.
LTier 3 -- Next Generation Assessments -- Develop next-
generation assessment models that explicitly incorporate ecosystem
considerations from multi-species interactions and environmental
effects, applied fisheries oceanography, and spatial and seasonal
analyses.
Increased funding and FTEs are needed to improve NMFS'' ability to
provide expert analysis that will allow the status of unknown stocks to
be elevated to the known category (Tier 1 and 2). Elevation of the
status of stocks from the currently unknown category would be
accomplished by using existing databases of research vessel survey data
and/or commercial and recreational statistics, and possibly performing
data rescue operations, in order to decipher trends in stock size and
productivity. The requested funds will allow more science staff time to
be devoted to improving the review and communication of assessments in
order to facilitate better fishery management decisions. Tier 3 funding
will facilitate development of next-generation models and methods to
support ecosystem approaches to stock assessments and fisheries
management (e.g., multi-species models, models that explicitly
incorporate climate and oceanographic effects, spatial and seasonal
analyses, and social and economic analyses).
TOTAL FTES AND BUDGET REQUIRED TO MEET THE THREE TIERS OF
ASSESSMENT EXCELLENCE FOR ALL FIVE FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTERS
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FISHERIES OCEANOGRAPHY ($31M; 25 FTEs)
The goal of fisheries oceanography is to understand the effects of
ocean and atmospheric processes at varied time and space scales on
living marine resources, and thus is a critical component of any
ecosystem-based management approach. Operational fisheries oceanography
is largely interested in how physical mechanisms (e.g., temperature,
enrichment, concentration, and transport) cause variations in fish
distribution and movement, and thus how they impact commercial and
recreational fishing success and resource management.
Current fisheries oceanography research is conducted at several
spatial and temporal scales but is generally focused on small- to meso-
scale projects, often referred to as ``process-oriented studies.''
These studies have materially improved our understanding of the
processes governing local physical variability and juvenile fish
survival, and, to a certain extent, interannual variability in
recruitment. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that we must
be concerned with not only climate change but also with decadal-scale
changes (i.e., ``regime shifts'') that impact production throughout
diverse ecosystems. These shifts occur rapidly as the components of the
climate system realign themselves, moving from one state to another in
a period of months to years. The goal of future fisheries oceanography
investigation is to develop and improve bio-physical models that can
predict these impending regime shifts and their associated impacts on
marine ecosystems and fisheries resources.
SOCIOECONOMICS ($12M; 86 FTEs)
Human aspects of ecosystem management are an integral part of the
NMFS mandate to manage the Nation's living marine resources. A strong
NOAA social sciences program will improve the scientific and economic
foundation of the Agency's policies, increase the confidence that we
are dealing with fishery issues in a responsible way, and help decision
makers weigh the ecological, social, and economic impacts of their
decisions. A key feature of the federal regulatory process is that we
cannot simply implement a regulation to achieve a conservation goal but
instead must consider a suite of management alternatives. Social and
economic analyses can identify the alternative that minimizes losses to
stakeholders while still achieving conservation goals, allowing NOAA to
be proactive, rather than reactive, in its resource management
strategy. Current social science staff levels, data collection and
research funds are insufficient to adequately handle increasing
responsibilities and emerging issues. Shortcomings in the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Regulatory Flexibility Act, and
community impact analyses have led to lawsuits and regulatory
challenges of fisheries policies in the last several years, resulting
in overturned rebuilding objectives, biologically unsustainable Total
Allowable Catches (TACs), and eroded confidence in NOAA Fisheries'
social sciences capability. In addition to stock rebuilding, capacity
reduction is a primary goal of NMFS, the Councils, and the fishing
industry. However, the current capability to comply with international
capacity reduction goals under the U.S. participation in the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Plan of Action on
overcapacity is extremely limited because of insufficient information
on current fleets and their capitalization. As a result, NOAA's ability
to determine and optimize the social and economic consequences to its
stakeholders of various management actions is quite limited.
The NOAA Fisheries social sciences program is necessary to quantify
achievement of the performance measures in the NMFS and Build
Sustainable Fisheries (BSF) Strategic and Operating Plans and is
critical to the BSF goal of managing living marine resources for
economic growth and achieving sustainability in marine fisheries. The
program will contribute to all aspects of the Agency's mandates,
including those covering the commercial and recreational fisheries
harvest sectors, the processing and wholesaling sector, the trade and
retail sectors, and ultimately, endangered and protected species,
habitat, and hatchery and aquaculture activities. Significantly, the
program encompasses the ability to assess and predict the effect of any
management action on impacted human communities. In addition, the
research, analysis and data collected under this initiative will help
industry and local and state governments determine the effects of
management actions on their current and future activities and allow
them to adjust their planning accordingly.
NATIONAL FISHERIES INFORMATION SYSTEM ($44M; 50 FTEs)
Fishery dependent data is a key component in assessment of the
status of stocks. To increase the accuracy and effectiveness of
existing fishery dependent data collection programs, NMFS will
implement a national fishing vessel registration and fisheries
information system in cooperation with the Marine Fisheries
Commissions, states, industry, and the Fishery Management Councils. The
system will establish common data collection, information technology,
and quality standards for regional programs, and integrate results into
a unified WEB-enabled information system. The approach will also fill
critical information gaps through initiation of new data collection
programs that will subsequently reduce the risk and uncertainty of
living marine resource policy decisions. Research and application of
electronic data collection techniques will reduce the burden on those
that submit data. By coordinating the techniques used to gather and
disseminate data on a nationwide basis, the collaborative program will
efficiently bring into balance the demands for timely and credible data
with the need to thoroughly evaluate, choose and monitor state and
federal public resource management policies.
ADVANCED SAMPLING TECHNOLOGIES ($22M; 19 FTEs)
The amount of fish stock abundance information needed for fishery
management has increased precipitously over the last several years,
because of declining stocks, official definitions of overfishing,
increased exploitation of new fisheries, and extensive litigation. To
address data collection and information needs for improved stock
assessment products, including oceanographic observations and habitat
characterization, NMFS will require the research and development of new
technologies, improvements in and innovative uses of existing
technologies, and development of new and advanced sampling systems and
approaches. Examples include multi-frequency and multi-beam acoustics,
optical systems (LIDAR and laser line scan systems), alternative
sampling platforms (remotely-controlled and autonomous underwater
vehicles), other technologies (electronic tags, direct sampling tools),
development of satellite monitoring capabilities, and improvements in
seagoing computer systems for collecting and managing real-time
biological and oceanographic data. In addition, advanced technology can
be used to improve fishery dependent data by developing systems for
catch weight and composition monitoring systems and remote monitoring
of fishing activities.
NATIONAL OBSERVER PROGRAM ($54M; 40 FTEs)
Understanding fisheries effects on the ecosystem requires accurate
information on the total catch. The national observer program collects
high quality fisheries, environmental and socioeconomic data from
commercial and recreational fishing vessels to assess impacts on marine
resources and fishing communities and monitors compliance with marine
resource laws and regulations. Observers provide high quality data
including many data elements that are not available to shoreside
sampling after a trip is completed. Observer data taken in conjunction
with fishing activities gives direct information on harvesting
activities. At present, only 11 fisheries include observer deployment.
In addition, NMFS has responsibility for monitoring 25 Category I and
II state and federal fisheries covered under the Marine Mammal
Protection Act, but only 7 presently include observers. Even for those
fisheries that do have observer coverage, levels are generally not
adequate to determine the full extent of fisheries' impacts. In some
cases, limited observer coverage has resulted in closures or
restrictions of fishing effort. In other cases, a precautionary
approach has been adopted, which may be underutilizing a fishery's full
production capacity.
FISHERY RESEARCH VESSELS (FRVs) AND CHARTERS ($158M ONE TIME COST;
$34.7M ANNUAL COST)
Vessels are needed for collecting the data on the physical
environment and sampling the biological components of the ecosystem.
These data will improve our knowledge on the relationship of habitat,
physical characteristics of the ocean, and the ecological
relationships. The data are used in ecosystem models that will improve
analyses of population status and trends. In ecosystem-based management
a complex web of diverse data feeds into the population assessments and
ecosystem management processes. Of critical importance is the
acquisition of fisheries-independent data, requiring at-sea research.
NMFS convened a workshop of stock assessment ecosystem and vessel
experts to review the requirements for days-at-sea (DAS) to meet these
needs. A total of over 6,000 additional DAS are needed to fulfill NMFS
mandated mission. Meeting this need requires building three additional
new fisheries research vessels and funding for chartering commercial
fishing and other vessels.
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ESSENTIAL FISH HABITAT STUDIES ($10M; FTEs TBD)
The Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act
(MSFCMA) requires NMFS to identify essential fish habitat (EFH) in all
fishery management plans (FMPs), minimize the adverse effects of
fishing on EFH to the extent practicable, and consult with other
agencies to develop EFH conservation measures for actions funded or
undertaken by a Federal agency. NMFS and the Councils have incorporated
initial EFH information into existing FMPs, and NMFS has begun
conducting the required consultations, but existing resources are not
sufficient to implement the EFH requirements. NMFS has been criticized
heavily by Congress, the fishing industry, non-fishing industries,
environmental groups, and other stakeholders for not doing enough to
focus its activities on the most valuable habitat areas and the most
pressing threats to those habitats. NMFS has summarized available
information to identify broad areas as EFH; identified a number of
fishing activities that may have adverse effects on EFH; and reoriented
longstanding environmental review functions to focus on the habitats
needed by federally managed species. However, the agency has not made
substantial efforts to fill recognized data gaps regarding the habitat
needs of managed species; has not identified whether fishery management
strategies should be adjusted to minimize impacts to EFH; and has not
addressed the expectations of Federal action agencies or other
stakeholders for NMFS to provide input on ways to reduce the impacts of
Federal actions on EFH. Additional resources are necessary to refine
the EFH designations, identify Habitat Areas of Particular Concern
within EFH, improve our understanding of the effects of fishing on EFH,
and ensure that EFH consultations are efficient and effective. Doing so
would improve the conservation of the habitats that are essential for
building and maintaining sustainable fisheries.
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT AND OTHER REGULATORY ISSUES ($15M)
NMFS is facing a major challenge in developing long term compliance
with regulatory requirements, including the National Environmental
Policy Act. It is currently estimated that over 25 of the 102 fisheries
based lawsuits facing the Agency involve NEPA related issues. Findings
against the agency in litigation over NEPA have the potential for
significant economic loss to coastal communities; Federal courts have
ruled that NMFS has failed to meet its obligations under NEPA and
enjoined the pelagic longline fishery in the Western Pacific. By
building a solid foundation of all regulatory requirements, especially
NEPA, the agency will significantly reduce the risk of unsuccessful
legal decisions.
To insure success in reducing the litigation against NMFS, all
partners in the MSFCMA must be brought into the process. It is
especially critical that the MSFCMA Councils, which FMPs and, in some
cases also the Environmental Assessments and Impact Statements, be
given additional support to meet all regulatory requirements.
FISHERY ECOSYSTEM PLAN DEVELOPMENT ($5M for each ecosystem within
Council jurisdiction)
The development of fishery ecosystem plans (FEPs) will require
considerable communication, education, and outreach efforts by NMFS and
the Councils. To serve as a proxy for FEP development costs, NMFS has
reviewed the programmatic costs (internal NMFS and external contract
costs) for developing the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
(SEIS) for the Alaska Groundfish fishery. It is anticipated that this
SEIS will cost approximately $4.0M when completed. Over 8,000 comment
letters have been received and reviewed. This document is still only in
the draft stage. Development and refinement of FEPs is anticipated to
be a significantly more complex task and will require greater
resources.