Questions to be answered involved include: 1 \u2013 To whom do coastal resources belong? 2 \u2013 Should the traditional users of such resources have more say than other parties? 3 \u2013 Who should sit on fishery management bodies, and who should select their members? 4 \u2013 What should be the role and character of litigation on fishery management matters?<\/p>\n
As far as the first question goes, there seems to be a consensus in most countries that coastal fishery resources belong to the nation and hence should be administered by central governments. This has not always been the case. It still isn\u2019t in some parts of the world where local fish resources have been traditionally considered as owned<\/p>\n
by communities, tribes, etc. In the USA, fishery administration is divided between the State and Federal governments. In Europe, much of the national power has been passed to the EU.<\/p>\n
Selecting the advisors. The second question involves political and ideological persuasions. There are two extreme views: first, that the management of fisheries should be left with their traditional users. That means artisanal and commercial fishermen, and, if government is in charge, it should consult only those users. The second view is that stakeholders and NGOs can and should be involved, but not commercial fishermen, \u201cbecause you don\u2019t let cats watch the cream\u201d\u2026 In between these two extremes there\u2019re many alternatives.<\/p>\n
The composition of the management and advisory bodies (councils, committees etc.) depends on how you answer the related question. In the USA, where the States\u2019 management extends from the shore out to three miles, and the regional Councils manage fisheries in federal waters (three to 200 miles), and that leaves the Commissions doing \u201cmigratory\u201d species, the answer is located somewhere between the two extremes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some fuzziness about who does what, \u2018cause fish don\u2019t know federal laws\u201d, according to consultant Nils Stolpe, communications director of the Garden State Seafood Association and FishNet USA, (www.fishingnj.org). \u201cThose advisory bodies generally represent about all the stakeholders, such as commercial and recreational fishermen, the seafood industry up to consumer level, scientists, green NGOs and government\u2019s managers. Candidates for councils\u2019 members are appointed by the respective governors, but the Secretary of Commerce makes the final selection, and whoever has the political juice gets appointed\u201d, he adds.<\/p>\n
Litigation<\/p>\n
Whatever answers turn up to our questions, in democratic societies citizens have the right to turn to courts if they believe that they have been unduly hurt by governmental decisions. This right extends also to NGOs. In the light of the impact which some management decisions have on us, it would seem that the right to litigation is essential to all stakeholders.<\/p>\n
The question remains: should every tribunal be vested with the responsibility for making decisions on fishery and coastal ecosystem management matters. Some countries have courts of law, which specialise in particular areas, such as traffic, labour, maritime law, family matters, etc.. Their judges have specific expertise, to make sure they are not taken for a ride by smart lawyers, politicians and scientists of fortune. So why not have specialised tribunals for coastal resource management?<\/p>\n
I wonder, for example, what the procedure was, and whom the Australian government consulted, before deciding to spend more than US$100 million on buy the licenses and boats of half of Australia\u2019s commercial fishermen, and more than US$50 million to compensate other fishing businesses and fishing communities affected by reduced landings. The government will also cut TACs by up to 25 per cent in 17 fisheries considered under threat of overfishing. Press reports have fisheries minister Ian Macdonald saying: \u201cWe want to save the nation\u2019s dwindling fish stocks, to run all commonwealth fisheries sustainably, and to ensure that those remaining in the industry are able to earn a decent living\u201d.<\/p>\n
Australian fishery activist Bob McDonald reacted on FISHFOLK saying \u201cIt is restructuring of fisheries so that the owner operator fleet is crushed and replaced by a corporate fleet\u201d.<\/p>\n
The \u201cstronger\u201d fishermen and multiple boat-owners (as well as those disheartened by expensive quotas, rising fuel prices and low fish prices) would welcome the move. But fishing communities would lose business and employment. Some may not survive.<\/p>\n
Quite incidentally, and almost simultaneously, reports came from Scotland saying that the consequences of the EU-sponsored buyback scheme in many fishing ports of Scotland has caused many vessel losses: Buckie – 25; Fraserburgh – 50; Lerwick – 10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Time to ask where? What? and Why? – The FISHFOLK Internet discussion list* is a stage on which current and not so current issues are often thrashed out. The focus is usually very American, reflecting where most of its aficionados come from. Recently, however, Bill Bartlett, one of the list\u2019s notables, touched on a subject, which may be of interest far beyond American fisheries. Who should have the last say in fisheries management, and who should participate in the democratic bodies that are vested with the responsibility of advising or deciding on management matters?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-10634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10634"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=10634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}