OVERFISHING

Managing North Atlantic Fisheries

ANNE HAWKINS

On North America’s northeast- ern coastline, fishing is a way of life. Entire communities in coastal New England states of the United States and in Canada’s Atlantic provinces depend on the fishing industry for their survival. In New England—stretching from Connecticut northward to Maine—686 vessels landed 76 million live-weight metric tons (mt) of cod, haddock, flounder, and other groundfish (a group of 20 stocks of bottom-dwell-ing fish) in 2008—earning an estimated $85 million.

But this ocean bounty has a long and complex history, and overfishing in recent decades has seriously depleted many historically significant stocks. To ensure the continued viability of both fish and fishermen, the U.S. and Canada are working together to find a balance between conservation and profit.

One example of transnational resource management began in 1998, with the establishment of the Can-ada-U.S. Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee and later, the Transboundary Management Guidance Committee ( TMGC). The committee allows for non-binding guidance to be provided on fishery management as part of an informal bilateral agreement. Authorities in both governments recognized that only by working together could they address the problems associated with major declines in stock sizes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Both countries had much at stake
in finding common ground. Fish
don’t recognize borders, and the rich
North Atlantic fishing grounds ex-
tend from the Georges Bank region
of New England to beyond the coast
of Newfoundland in Canada. Reve-
nue in the jointly managed area to-
taled $42 million in 2008, and the
catch of just three stocks brought in
$8.6 million. That year 147 U. S. ves-
sels made 1,273 trips, catching 501 mt
of cod, 1,649 mt of haddock and 1,531
mt of yellowtail flounder. The Cana-
dian fishery caught 1,529 mt of cod,
14,815 mt of haddock and 158 mt of
yellowtail flounder.

The U.S. and Canada are
working together to find
a balance between
conservation and profit.

1996 and 2007), for example, requires that “overfished” stocks be placed under rebuilding plans to return to healthy levels within 10 years. The Canada-U. S. effort under the TMGC was designed to provide complementary coordination in this effort.

Under this system, representatives from each country meet annually to allocate catch limits for these stocks using a formula based on historical catch percentages and current resource distribution. The decade-old U.S.-Canada agreement—seen by both sides as an effective tool for optimizing harvests—has enabled each country to follow their respective management plans. But a major snag in 10 years of collaboration arose over 2010 catch levels for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder.

In 2009, the U. S. proposed a har-
vest level in accordance with its for-
mal rebuilding plan for the stock,
which under Magnuson could not
be exceeded. Meanwhile, the Cana-
dians, who were not restricted by
the U. S. rebuilding plan, cited in-
creases in stock size and low fish-
ing levels as justification for a higher
catch threshold. The two sides came
to an impasse: U. S. laws offered no
flexibility, and the Canadians would
not agree to what they considered
artificially low catch limits. Ulti-
mately, each country unilaterally ad-
opted limits, placing the advantages
of joint management in peril.