Posted on 09/21/2005 3:52:07 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration proposed new guidelines Monday that it said would prevent overfishing, part of a plan for managing the nation's marine resources.
Critics say they ignore important recommendations from a presidential commission.
Tougher fines and penalties, more peer-reviewed science studies and market-based decisions are other measures that will "help us toward ending overfishing and rebuilding our fish stocks," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The bill describes how to reauthorize the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs the nation's ocean fisheries. Its authorization expired after 1999, though its provisions remain in effect. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, led the last reauthorization in 1996.
The legislation would guide local and regional fishery councils.
Steve Murawski, chief science adviser to the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service, said the administration didn't back the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's recommendation that a group of scientists suggest the total number of allowable catches each year because "it would have Balkanized the process."
Murawski said the administration recognizes that good fishery management is based on peer-reviewed science, and that the government should help fishermen make better business decisions through the use of fishing quotas.
"In many cases they do not make market decisions that are in their own best interests and the long-term interests of the country because of this race to compete with each other," he said. "This 'survival of the fittest' _ it generates a lot of conservation issues."
Advocacy groups such as Natural Resources Defense Council quickly denounced the bill, saying it revokes the requirement to rebuild an overfished species within 10 years and allows overfishing on some species to continue for years before legal protections kick in.
NRDC said the bill also would undermine public participation by closing off meetings and comment periods to citizens, and require only that the amount of bycatch _ fish caught unintentionally _ be reported "to the extent practicable."
The Marine Fish Conservation Network, another advocacy group, said the administration would be "turning back the clock on ocean protections by at least a decade."
The presidential commission that reported on ocean policy a year ago after 2 1/2 years of study had no comment Monday on the administration's proposals.
In a statement two weeks ago, the commission said that any reauthorization of the law must include a shift toward ecosystem-based management, a stronger scientific process, broader public participation and adequate funding to support fishery management and recovery.
The current system has forced the administration to implement this socialist model. I beleive the greatest amount of fish and wealth that can be generated will be from privatising the fisheries.
Just like a timber company ensures that it has a constant supply of timber on its land, so would companies do a great job with the oceans. If the forests were a free-for-all, competitors would chop it all down as well as the scarcity drove up the market price.
The tragedy of the commons is easily solved by selling off the commons.
A pre-emptive note for those fond of fish-farming. Fish-farming is not "free" food. The oceans provide "free" fish and all we have to do is catch them. Fish "farms" require feeding those fish, so were are merely transferring one form of food we already have into another. No actual gain of food.
Quotas are doubleplus good. All business decisions are improved by inclusion of government-imposed quotas. Yessir.
An issue is how to keep other countries, Japan, Russia, and Norway as examples from plowing up the oceans with their factory ships.
Substitute illegals for fishing and it's a much better proposal.
Thanks for posting the article.
Your comments were altogether ridiculous, but good effort!
"Just like a timber company ensures that it has a constant supply of timber on its land, so would companies do a great job with the oceans."
There is a distinct difference: the timber company owns the land, and can enforce restrictions against third parties attempting to trespass, up to and including the use of deadly force in many circumstances.
That situation does not exist in international waters--or even in territorial waters. Property rights end at the shoreline, because common law has never recognized the ocean as any sort of real estate.
You'd have to (a) transfer international waters to private ownership (which is unprecedented), and (b) allow the owners to enforce sanctions against trespassers, up to and including the use of deadly force.
Let's set a specific case: the XYZ corporation, chartered in Country A, somehow has acquired ownership of a parcel of open ocean that they use as a fishery. Unfortunately, Country B decides to use that parcel as a patrol area for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), and refuses to leave. The XYZ Corporation then sinks the SSBN.
What happens next?
Wow you just attacked my comments and then didn't back it up at all. Why didn't you just call me a "poopyhead" and really go the juvenile route?
Sorry pal, you should be around here long enough to know that calling someone ridiculous without any counter argument makes you look like the idito.
Wow you just attacked my comments and then didn't back it up at all. Why didn't you just call me a "poopyhead" and really go the juvenile route?
Sorry pal, you should be around here long enough to know that calling someone ridiculous without any counter argument makes you look like the idiot.
I didnt say it was an easy solution. I am also not sure that deadly force is always called for. If a camper wanders into a forest the company doesn't shoot him unless he is trying to steal their trees.
The military situation below is similar. The submarine is not in the water to fish.
Clearly agreements would have to be made and enforced. But, we have managed to do so on land and air, I see no reason why it would not be possible with oceans and GPS.
You can have my share of the world's supply of Purina Fish Chow and the fish fed on it. I will reduce my food intake enough that I can eat a smaller amount of wild, naturally fed and caught fish.
"The military situation below is similar. The submarine is not in the water to fish."
Let's assume its presence is damaging the fishery. (Scaring away the fish, etc.) For example, a "hiker" engaged in tree-spiking can (and has) been shot by security.
OK, so Country B has just lost a submarine to a corporation chartered in Country A.
What next?
FYI.
I am just not buying a scenario where a corporation that has resources large enough to have equipment capable of sinking the submarine of a nation capable of fielding nuclear power naval vessels would actually do so.
You are trying to get me to believe (a) a submarine disrupts fishing which is not true (b) that a fishing company would be able to detect a nuclear submarine (c) that company would have the equipment to sink it and (d) that company would not have the wherewithall to first turn to its political leaders to solve the problem?
Your "what if" is too far-fetched to be a realistic problem. But, I am sure you can do better if you put your thinking cap on.
For instance, trees don't swim. Who actually has access to the spawning areas? Can a fishing company put up a virtual wall around its propety in the form of a net or other device to prevent the movement of fish? These are better questions than a conflict between Company A and nuclear sub.
Excellent comments. I would also add that "trees" don't get up and migrate from territorial waters to open ocean or the waters of other sovereign nations. Control of fisheries more closely resembles the old commercial hunting that nearly or did wipe out the beaver, bison, passenger pigeon, etc. at the end of the 1800s.
People do not realize how close to unsustainable levels many of the fisheries are. Swordfish are now brought to market as juveniles; it may already take a century or more to get them back to the levels they were in the 1960s if they were completely banned from further fishing.
"I am just not buying a scenario where a corporation that has resources large enough to have equipment capable of sinking the submarine of a nation capable of fielding nuclear power naval vessels would actually do so."
Then you're saying that ownership would be worthless, since the owners will not be able to enforce their
"You are trying to get me to believe (a) a submarine disrupts fishing which is not true (b) that a fishing company would be able to detect a nuclear submarine (c) that company would have the equipment to sink it and (d) that company would not have the wherewithall to first turn to its political leaders to solve the problem?"
(a) Yes, submarines can damage fisheries. Some commercial fish do not like the tonals put out by submerged machinery, and they go elsewhere when they encounter it. If that fishery area is mine, and Country B's submarine drives away the fish, the Country B just damaged my property, as surely as if they dispatched an airborne battalion to spike trees on my land.
(b) If they don't have the resources to detect the submarine, then their ownership of that piece of ocean is essentially worthless, a nice little piece of paper and nothing more.
(c) If they can't sink it, they can't enforce their ownership. My R&WTBKA is the final enforcement of my property rights.
(d) If the company has to go whining to the government for every such violation, then that patch of ocean is not their property.
"Your "what if" is too far-fetched to be a realistic problem."
It is THE problem. Ownership is sovereignty. If I cannot keep the armed forces of a hostile power off of my property, I cannot exercise sovereignty over that property, and I don't own it.
More socialistic regulations that'll do more harm than good from the Bush administration.
Ownership is not sovereignty. Ever hear of eminent domain? The Supreme Court actually thinks it extends further than most people think are reasonable.
You are way off your rocker.
I appreciate the support, but of course socialism is the only alternative to privatization. Otherwise, the market mechanisms don't really work. Unless the goal is to make sure there are no fish left.
If you read the debate, some out there don't think pivatization would work.
"Ownership is not sovereignty. Ever hear of eminent domain?"
Yes. It's a specific process for revoking YOUR sovereignty over your property by forcing a transfer of that property to the government. Until that event, you are sovereign over your property.
"You are way off your rocker."
And out comes the ad hominem.
Please explain how the free market that laid waste to the Grand Banks (now a barren undersea desert) is going to police themselves on a commodity that is first come first serve in international waters?
This is not envrio-wacko overstatement of a problem. Nearly all commercial fisheries are being fished at an unsustainable level to where the breeding populations will soon be decimated. And, that is the commerce department's report!
Populations currently at risk are: swordfish, marlin, sailfish, blue fin tuna, yellow fin tuna, albacore tuna, rock crab, Atlantic cod, most salmon, sturgeon and that is off the top of my head. Please check the CCA and IGFA for information. You are arguing with the sport fishermen, NOT PETA! This is like saying Ducks Unlimited didn’t know what they were talking about.
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