Mike Nussman
ASA President and CEO
The snow storms that walloped much of the East Coast this winter are going to have a devastating effect on businesses across this region. After a lackluster holiday season, many businesses, small and large, are struggling to make ends meet. At this point, the tons of snow lining the sidewalks, streets and highways in the Washington, D.C. area have melted and clients and customers are finding their way back. We can’t control the weather, but it’s clear that as a nation, we can ill afford any more events, natural or man-made, that further affect peoples’ lives and livelihoods.
However, on January 4, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency responsible for overseeing commercial and recreational saltwater fishing, imposed a six-month ban on recreational fishing for red snapper in federal waters off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the Atlantic coast of Florida. NOAA is also considering closing the entire bottom fish complex in the Atlantic Ocean to all fishing based on the first red snapper stock assessment in ten years. NOAA says that closing just the red snapper fishery isn’t sufficient to end overfishing because snapper by catch from other bottom fish would just be too high. This comes 34 years after the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act was voted into law to prevent this very thing from happening.
In a region that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, these decisions are being made despite a significant lack of reliable economic data. In fact, NOAA said in its red snapper ruling that “cost and revenue data for even the most directly affected businesses, such as fish dealers and bait and tackle shops, is unavailable.”
To help answer the red snapper data challenge, Big Rock Sports, LLC and ASA have partnered with an independent economic firm to survey hundreds of Southeast dealers to collect and analyze information about the Southeast sportfishing retail market. We want to document the economic impact of the red snapper closure and the potential bottom closure, something the federal government has clearly not done.
Since its inception, NOAA has allocated very little of its resources to collect reliable recreational sportfishing data, focusing largely on commercial fishing. However, the nature of recreational saltwater fishing and its impact on our economy has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. Using NOAA’s own data, the recreational sector creates 50 percent of the jobs coming from domestic saltwater fisheries while taking only three percent of the saltwater fish harvested each year.
Folks, whether we call the red snapper ban and the potential for a complete closing to bottom fishing the first car in the train wreck or the tip of the iceberg, it’s imperative that NOAA, Members of Congress and the Obama administration understand that the current methods for managing our federal marine fisheries simply aren’t working. What we’ve got isn’t fisheries management; it’s crisis management. Simply slamming the door on marine recreational fishing will have a devastating impact on our coastal communities and the sportfishing industry at a time when our country can ill afford either.
It’s time for NOAA and our administration to value our contributions to the economy and the jobs we create by investing the necessary resources for data collection and revamping our nation’s marine fisheries management systems.
In a February 23, 2010, letter to the administration, ASA and our recreational fishing and boating partners requested that immediate administrative action be taken to address the short- and long-term issues regarding resources for data collection and revamping our nation’s marine fisheries management system. If the proposed administrative remedies don’t work, then it will be necessary to examine those existing statutory requirements on overfishing that cannot be reasonably met with existing data and management tools. Thirty-four years ago, our nation took the first steps to address marine fisheries management issues. Now is the time for a bold, new approach to solving our marine fisheries management problems.
Mike Nussman
President & CEO