What's New
On December 9, 2006, the U.S. House and Senate passed the Magnusen-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, a
bill that is critical to maintaining healthy
fish populations, marine life and oceans. The bill mandates an end to
overfishing, the first important step toward rebuilding our own depleted
fisheries. The bill also mandates that decisions by regional fishery management
councils be based on the findings of their science advisors, rather than on the
self interest of members of the councils who are for the most part fishermen.
These are major steps forward built on a decent framework that has been in place
since 1996. While the bill does not contain
everything that the fishery conservation community had hoped for, its authors
–to their credit-- resisted attempts to rollback important provisions; and they
crafted several important steps forward on conservation. Recent scientific reports in Science and Nature warned about the declining productivity of our oceans because
of global warming and the potential worldwide collapse of commercial fisheries.
Brief Summary
The Gulf of Mexico -- the world's largest gulf and the ninth largest water body -- has the most
extensive coastal wetlands and coral reefs in the continental U.S. It
is home to five species of sea turtles that are threatened or endangered,
including the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle which often becomes enmeshed in shrimp
nets and drowns. The Gulf supports more
than 30 varieties of dolphins and whales, and thousands of species of fish and
birds also. Unfortunately, its rich ecosystems are threatened by upstream
pollution, reduced supplies of freshwater, poorly planned coastal development
and over-exploitation of fish stocks.
Over fishing is a
substantial part of the decline in our oceans' health. Fish are being taken out
of our oceans at rates too fast for them to recover. Factory trawlers
strip-mine the ocean, destroying precious sea floor habitat and corals, and
indiscriminately scooping up everything in their paths. Commercial fishing
fleets catch not just fish, but sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals, as
well.
The Texas coastal economy
depends heavily on the fishing industry.
However, in recent years catch levels have dropped, devastating the
fishing economy. This is due in part to
over fishing that has depleted supplies of fish and shrimp in the Gulf.
This is happening because America's
oceans are the country's only public resource controlled directly by those who
profit from exploiting them—more than 60 percent of the people who sit on the
committees that decide how much fish can be taken from the ocean are part of
the fishing industry themselves.
In order to protect the Texas Gulf
we must recover depleted fishery stocks and enhance the
region's economy using a new market-based approach to fishery management. We
must also safeguard key marine habitats, conserve biodiversity and endangered
species, and improve fishery productivity by creating a network of marine
protected areas.
Strict regulation at the federal level needs
to be enforced in order to protect the Texas Gulf’s
environment and economy. The Magnuson-Stevens Act needs to be renewed in order to
promote a healthy fishing economy for future generations.
