New Federal Rules May Boost Price of Fish at Market

Consumers could pay more for a filet of their favorite fish once the government is through imposing the toughest and most comprehensive series of restrictions ever on fishing in U.S. waters.

The rules will sharply limit the net amount of fish and places where they can be pulled from the sea, “and that’s going to mean less fish,” said Richard Gutting, executive vice president of the National Fisheries Institute, an industry organization representing more than a thousand companies.

He said it is still too early to gauge the full economic impact of the federal fisheries management plans. “The plans are still being amended. Rules are still being developed. The full ramifications probably won’t be felt until sometime next year.”

The rules are the culmination of a long and frequently bungled effort to control the wanton exploitation of the nation’s fisheries.

Congress passed the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 mainly to regulate the heavy fishing in U.S. waters by foreign fishing fleets. The act established an exclusive U.S. fishing zone ranging from three miles off the coast to 200 miles out. The coastal waters were left to the states.

The act also created eight regional fishery management councils made up of state and local government officials, environmentalists and, most influentially, members of the fishing industry. It was on the watch of these councils that overfishing reached its disastrous levels.

The act was amended in 1996 and the National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency that controls fishing on U.S. ocean waters, ordered all of these councils to come up with plans to end overfishing and rebuild fish stocks by Sept. 30.

“Obviously, the next few months are going to be crucial. There are dozens of public hearings on many different issues,” said Sonja Fordham of the Center for Marine Conservation, an environmental group in Washington.

Virtually every rule hurts somebody badly, often wiping them out. “Marine resource management is not a well-honed instrument,” said Jennifer Atkinson, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation in Rockland, Maine. “It’s very difficult to be surgical. There’s a large wake behind you of people that you harm.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service insists it will meet its mandate and, if necessary, impose its will regardless of local or industry objections, said Gary Matlock, head of the service’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries. “I think we will have the system in place,” he said. “The law certainly provides the authority.”

Globally, North America catches only about 6% of the world’s fish. Yet the United States is second only to Japan in importing fish, more than twice as much as it exports, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

The total international fish trade is roughly $50 billion. East Asia, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, catches about half the world’s fish, while South Asia and Southeast Asia land about 27%. Latin America and the Caribbean have about 22% of the total catch.

The FAO says there are no more undeveloped parts of the globe’s oceans, and that the two big ones, the Atlantic and Pacific, which supply 93% of the commercial fish, are “fully fished.” It has been estimated that fishing would have to be cut back by 30% worldwide to rebuild depleted species.