ISSUES OF NATIONAL CONCERN INTRODUCTION The management of living marine resources is extremely complex and involves many biological, economic, social, and political factors. Each region and each fishery discussed in this report, and even those fisheries that are currently well managed and yielding near their long-term potential for the Nation's benefit, must continually adjust and adapt to ever changing conditions which can undermine management. If the Nation is to increase the long-term benefits from currently overutilized and depleted resources, we must confront the difficult issues and practices which have resulted in overutilization and resource depletion. In each of the 24 fishery unit reports, major issues affecting the resource and its management are discussed. Although each fishery unit has unique features, there are common themes that are significant to many, if not all, units. These can be summarized under eight headings: Management Concerns, Bycatch and Multispecies Interactions, Resource Allocation, Jurisdiction and Transboundary Issues, Habitat Concerns, Underutilized Species, Recovery of Protected Species, and Scientific Information and the Adequacy of Assessments. These issues are briefly considered here, along with recent progress made in addressing them. MANAGEMENT CONCERNS Ultimately, the management strategies employed must be a consideration when many fish stocks are overutilized or when populations are too low to produce the LTPY. Management is also a concern when the economic performance of a fishery is poor because there are more vessels than needed to harvest the available amount of fish (i.e., overcapitalization). Table 3 summarizes the status of utilization for each fishery unit. Some stocks are overutilized in most units (28% of all stocks and 40% of the stocks where status is known, Fig. 6). The situation is about the same with respect to the status of stock levels. The list of stocks that are overutilized and/or below the level required to produce LTPY includes some of the Nation's most valuable fishery resources, such as New England groundfish, Atlantic sea scallops, Gulf shrimp, several pelagic highly migratory stocks (including Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish), some Pacific salmon stocks, many nearshore stocks (including some oyster populations, bay scallops, abalones, Pacific striped bass), some rockfish stocks off Alaska, and Alaska king crab. Many U.S. marine fisheries, including both the overutilized and fully utilized stocks, are overcapitalized. As generally understood, this means that there are more fishing vessels and gear trying to catch fish than are necessary to harvest the resource efficiently. In effect, this means that the Nation may be losing more production of other valuable goods and services than it gains from the fish being harvested by excess capital. Such overcapitalization is a major factor contributing to overutilization of a resource. Where fisheries are overcapitalized and performing poorly in economic terms, short-term economic concerns tend to receive undue weight relative to the steps needed to cut back harvests and to achieve the long-term biological and economic potential. The excess capital may maintain pressure to increase catch limits beyond potential yield levels, depleting the resource, and once depleted, preventing its recovery. Many of the other issues discussed in this report are aggravated by overcapitalization. For example, when there is an excess number of boats, fish allocation and bycatch problems are exacerbated. Economic theory and experience in most U.S. fisheries (and worldwide), indicates that overcapitalization is an inevitable consequence of fisheries management that allows anyone who wants to participate in the fishery to do so. Only recently have U.S. fisheries managers begun to control access to fisheries (see Progress section, page 22). Although only discussed as a major problem in a few units, economic issues are important in all the fisheries described in this report. Data for evaluating the economic performance of most of our fisheries are scarce. More economic information will be needed to improve management of our living marine resources. BYCATCH AND MULTISPECIES INTERACTIONS The issue of bycatch (i.e., the incidental capture of nontargeted species) and interactions between species affects most of the units in this report. The management of many LMR's, including the recovery of protected species of marine mammals and sea turtles, can potentially be undermined by their bycatch in other fisheries. For example, the recovery of depleted reef fishes in the Gulf of Mexico (Unit 8) may be slowed or prevented by bycatch of young fish in the shrimp fishery. Bycatch issues affect management decisions on the allocation of resources to user groups as well. Groundfish trawl fisheries off Alaska (Unit 19) are now restricted to reduce the bycatch of Pacific halibut and crabs. Bycatch of marine mammals and sea turtles by the commercial fisheries may need to be reduced to promote recovery of these stocks (e.g., Atlantic harbor porpoise, Unit 22). Many others, such as the Pacific groundfish fishery (Unit 15), catch a wide variety of species on a single fishing trip. Management is complicated here because each species is affected differently by the different fishing mortality rates. Finding a management scheme which allows full utilization of a highly productive species, while protecting species with low productivity, when they are harvested together, is a major challenge. Ecological interactions may also affect management of LMR's. Harvesting one component of an ecosystem may shift the balance towards other, less valuable, species. In the U.S. northeast, commercially important groundfish once dominated the fish biomass, but now skates and dogfish make up a much larger share (Unit 1). RESOURCE ALLOCATION Allocation of fish between user groups is a difficult socioeconomic problem in many fisheries. Conflicts often arise between different sectors of the commercial industry (e.g., inshore and offshore fishermen in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, Unit 19; longliners and trawlers on the Pacific coast, Unit 15), between commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen (e.g., fisheries for coastal migratory pelagics, Unit 7), and between conservation groups and ecotourists and fishermen (e.g., reef fish resources in the southeastern U.S.). In many cases, economic analysis may help guide allocation decisions; in others, social considerations may predominate. At present, it is the responsibility of Fishery Management Councils and the Federal government to resolve allocation problems. This amounts to deciding who are the winners or losers, often times without objective criteria and adequate information. It may be possible to reduce the role of government in allocation decisions by allowing shares in a fishery to be traded (i.e., bought and sold) between participants. This way, private individuals can assess the value they place on participation (based on monetary and/or nonmonetary factors). Economic forces will move to allocate shares in the fishery to those who place the greatest value on participation. This approach requires that access to the fishery be controlled (see section on management concerns), otherwise the value of everyone's shares will be dissipated by overcapitalization. JURISDICTION AND TRANSBOUNDARY ISSUES Many living marine resources are shared with other countries, including our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Some stocks of concern to the United States, like Atlantic salmon, migrate through the waters of more distant nations such as Greenland (Unit 3). In addition, many stocks straddle the boundaries between state and Federal waters and between state jurisdictions (Unit 21). This means that several management authorities may have overlapping responsibilities for the same resource, which include data collection, scientific analyses, and implementing management controls. State, Federal, and international agencies may be involved in the management of some resources such as Pacific halibut (Unit 19) or Atlantic and Pacific highly migratory pelagics (Units 5 and 18). The search for agreement among competing interests and various entities can slow the management process or undermine it altogether. Thus, it requires careful coordination and agreement over mutual actions to promote responsible resource use. HABITAT CONCERNS The productivity of a living marine resource is a function of the environmental conditions in which the species lives as well as its biological characteristics. If, for example, the quality and/or amount of habitat available to support young fish is reduced, the overall productivity of the stock will decrease, and fewer will be available for harvest. These concerns are particularly important for anadromous species such as salmon (Units 3, 12, 13) and for many of the nearshore species, because our rivers and coastal areas tend to be more affected by pollution and habitat alteration than areas further offshore. For example, Gulf shrimp (Unit 11) in the U.S. southeast are fully dependent on nearshore habitat during a critical early phase of their life cycle. Loss of estuaries and marshes could have major consequences for the shrimp resource, one of our most valuable marine fisheries. UNDERUTILIZED SPECIES A few abundant resources, such as pelagic stocks in the northeastern U.S. (Unit 2), are currently underutilized. A much larger fishery yield could potentially be obtained from these stocks, but market conditions or the availability of more valuable or accessible alternatives has kept the harvest low. Shifting fishing pressure from one species to another could relieve some pressure from stressed stocks and aid in rebuilding of depleted resources while reducing the adverse impact of a rebuilding period on the industry. However, underutilized fish stocks may inhabit the same areas as overutilized stocks. In this case, harvest strategies need to be developed so that the former can be utilized without jeopardizing the latter. RECOVERY OF PROTECTED SPECIES Many protected marine mammal and sea turtle stocks are listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA and/or depleted under the MMPA. Developing and implementing management strategies to minimize the adverse impact of human activities on these animals and encourage their recovery, while not unnecessarily restricting commercial and recreational fisheries, is a major challenge. SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION AND ADEQUACY OF ASSESSMENTS There is a good scientific basis for assessing the status of most of the major species harvested in each region. Nevertheless, the status of utilization is unknown for about 29% (Fig. 6, Table 3) of the fish species or groups considered in this report. The recent population size relative to the stock level that would produce LTPY is also unknown for 29% (Fig. 6). The trend in abundance is unknown for 83% (Table 2) of the marine mammal and sea turtle stocks. Many of the stocks whose status is unknown (Unit 8) may have relatively small potential yields compared to major species such as walleye (Alaska) pollock or Atlantic cod, however, important fisheries still focus on these species. Even for the stocks included in Table 3 where the status or trend in abundance is known, the information is often imprecise. This is usually because of the difficulties of sampling catches and surveying over large areas for many species. Even when new sampling programs have been implemented in recent years, the lack of historical data complicates the estimation of population status and trends. There are also large gaps in fundamental understanding of the structure and dynamics of LMR populations and the ecosystems of which they are a part. Many potential benefits from LMR's may not be achieved because of insufficient information. When the status of LMR's is unknown or imprecisely known, it is necessary to harvest conservatively to guard against accidental depletion. The groundfish fisheries in the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska (Unit 19) are examples of such a cautious strategy. On the other hand, lack of precision in assessments of fishery resources has unfortunately been used in other cases to argue that the evidence of overutilization was not strong enough to justify restricting a fishery. This argument has led to the depletion of many historically abundant stocks (e.g., most traditional New England groundfish and flounders in Unit 1). Uncertainty about the relationship between marine mammals and fisheries now threatens both. For example, Steller sea lions (Unit 23) may rely on many of the same species of fish harvested in the Alaska trawl fishery. While the sea lion population has declined substantially, the scientific basis to determine if the fishery is negatively impacting these marine mammals is inadequate at present. A potential outcome of making management decisions without sufficient information could be that, in the case of Steller sea lions, a valuable fishery is unnecessarily restricted to protect the population or, alternatively, that the fishery unknowingly contributes to the further depletion of the sea lion population. PROGRESS Considerable progress has been made over the last year in improving the management of U.S. living marine resources, though it may take several years before the benefits of these activities accrue to the Nation. In this section progress on various issues is briefly noted and summarized across the fishery units. Management concerns for the overutilized resources in the Northeast have been addressed by the development of new management strategies for groundfish (Unit 1) and scallops (Unit 4) by the New England Fishery Management Council. The plans are not panaceas that will solve all the problems that affect these valuable fisheries, but they are an important beginning. Further work is well underway on lobster management also. For these resources, the proposal is to control access and facilitate rebuilding of the stocks by controlling fishing effort. In the short term, this will result in reduced catches by the commercial fleet, but as the stocks rebuild it is expected that catches and revenues will recover and exceed present levels. Management controls to rebuild the summer flounder stock enacted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council in 1992 already appear to be paying off with signs of improved recruitment. Resource rebuilding programs are also underway for western Pacific bottomfish (Unit 17), Gulf and Atlantic coastal pelagics (Unit 7), reef fish (Unit 8), and drum and croakers (Unit 9). Access control has also been implemented for Pacific groundfish (Unit 15) and western Pacific pelagic species (Unit 18). Serious management concerns for the Atlantic shark resource (Unit 6) have begun to be addressed in a newly implemented FMP. Data collection will improve, and wasteful fishing practices are prohibited in the plan. Access control through Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) systems for surfclams and ocean quahogs in the Northeast (Unit 4) and wreckfish in the southeastern U.S. (Unit 8) have reduced the size of the fleets to rationalize the fishery and the shares appear to be holding their value. A similar system will soon be implemented in the Alaska region for Pacific halibut and sablefish. Controlled-access fisheries management, particularly ITQ's, remain controversial. It is up to the Councils to decide when these management tools are to be applied. Clearly the trend is in this direction. New initiatives to mitigate the bycatch of nontarget and protected species have been undertaken in the Southeast with the development of an industry-NMFS cooperative research plan for bycatch. In the Northeast shrimp fishery (Unit 4) a device called the Nordmore Grate is being used by the industry to reduce finfish bycatch, with encouragement from the New England Fishery Management Council and NMFS. On the Pacific coast the Pacific Fishery Management Council has amended the groundfish FMP to authorize new management measures to reduce bycatch of salmon and other nongroundfish species (Unit 15). The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is actively managing salmon, halibut, and marine mammal bycatch problems through time and area closures to groundfish fishing and bycatch limits for individual vessels. The continuation and expansion of at-sea observer programs around the country is also an important component needed to address the bycatch problem. In the Northeast, new analyses of observer data on bycatch of harbor porpoises (Unit 22) will be used in developing plans to reduce incidental capture and its impact on the porpoise population. In the North Pacific, the United Nations' sponsored moratorium on large-scale driftnet fishing, which went into effect at the beginning of 1993, has ameliorated the bycatch of mammals and sea turtles (Units 23 and 24). Allocation problems between different sectors of a fishery are widespread and difficult to address equitably. In Alaska, community quotas have been instituted which reserve a portion of the total allowable catch for small scale fishermen from coastal communities (Unit 19). The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council has addressed allocation problems in their highly migratory pelagic species plan (Unit 18) by reserving nearshore areas for certain gear types and limiting the number of longline permits. Similar measures have reduced conflicts between fixed-gear and mobile-gear fishermen in the Southeast (Unit 11). Interjurisdictional issues have been addressed in recovery plans for summer flounder (Unit 1) and king mackerel (Unit 7), where state and Federal fishery scientists and managers have worked together to improve resource management. A major advance for the conservation of Atlantic salmon (Unit 3) was achieved by international agreement to close the salmon fishery off Newfoundland and to keep the quota low for the Greenland fishery. And now, even that small quota has been successfully purchased by private action to protect salmon. In the international waters of the central Bering Sea, cooperative multilateral research and negotiation has closed the walleye pollock fishery in this zone in 1993 and 1994 to allow rebuilding of this portion of the pollock resources. New research on aquatic habitat needs for invertebrates in the Southeast (Unit 11), Hawaiian green turtles (Unit 24), and Atlantic marine mammals (Unit 22) is underway. These studies, along with other work which has improved our knowledge of the basic biology of marine resources, are an important component of scientific advice for management. The scientific basis for management has also improved through a large number of new assessments (e.g. American lobster, Unit 4; Atlantic sharks, Unit 6; Atlantic harbor porpoise, Unit 22; Hawaiian monk seal, Unit 23; Pacific mackerel and Pacific sardine, Unit 14; California sea lion and eastern Pacific spinner dolphin, Unit 23; and widow rockfish, Unit 15). This summary of progress during the last year is illustrative, not exhaustive. Improving the management of marine resources requires balancing a large number of competing concerns and interests and includes many difficult technical problems. Each year we are improving the scientific basis for management, strengthening management plans that maintain productive fisheries, and implementing new plans to recover overutilized fisheries and conserve protected resources. STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE Many of the issues and problems described in this national overview and in more detail in the individual fishery units to follow, have existed for many years in U.S. and indeed world fisheries. The many case studies in fisheries management both inside and outside the United States and the large body of scientific information now available, which makes a document such as Our Living Oceans possible, is pointing the way to solutions to many of our fishery management problems. The NOAA Strategic Plan (1993) has as goals, with respect to marine resources, to build sustainable fisheries for the long-term benefit of the Nation, recover protected species, and promote healthy ecosystems. The strategic plan advocates conversion of fisheries management from open access to controlled access (recognizing that it is the prerogative of the relevant Council to decide when such measures need be instituted); rapid expansion of scientific information; and risk-averse decisions on management actions. These three general strategies relate to each of the issues discussed above. Controlling fisheries access addresses the problems of management controls, overcapitalization, allocation, and jurisdiction. An increase in scientific information addresses the approximately 30% of stock groups whose status is unknown, and provides a stronger basis for the development of future management controls and recovery plans for protected species. In addition, improved scientific information will be essential for ensuring ecosystem health and addressing habitat concerns. Risk-adverse decision-making is a key element in the development of any improved management system. This means that managers should err on the side of caution with respect to long-term resource health when making decisions. Making decisions based on short-term goals often places long-term health at risk. The NOAA Strategic Plan and the NMFS are tasked with managing living marine resources for the sustained benefit of the Nation. We are moving in the right direction and there is great promise for increased benefits for the domestic fishing industry, recreational anglers, the general public, and future generations.