U.S. angles to cut overfishing

Congress approves legislation that would give the government more global influence

New rules for managing the nation's fishing industry passed by Congress should benefit Hawaii-based fishermen and help reduce global overfishing, observers said.

Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, praised the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006 for giving the United States more leverage in international negotiations on regulating high-seas fishing. The council proposes fishing policies for the Western Pacific, including Hawaii.

A key element of the bill calls for the nine regional fisheries councils to establish annual catch limits for each type of fish, based on scientific information, according to a news release from the Senate Commerce Committee. The overall catch would then be divided by "shares" among fishermen in that area.

"Catch shares have proven to be environmentally and economically effective in Alaska, British Columbia and other regions around the world," the group Environmental Defense said in a release praising the legislation.

The fisheries legislation co-sponsored by Sens. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was passed by the Senate Thursday and by the House late Friday.

President Bush is expected to sign it, Simonds said.

"This important legislation recognizes our fisheries' indisputable importance to the nation, both economically and culturally. They are living resources and must be treated as such by all fishing nations if they are to sustain communities today and remain viable for future generations," Inouye said in the Commerce Committee release.

One provision of the bill gives the United States a vote on the international Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which has proclaimed there is too much fishing for bigeye and yellowfin tuna throughout the Pacific, Simonds said.

"The tuna resource is our biggest resource and this is the largest tuna commission in the world," Simonds said. "The U.S. needs to be sitting there."

Hawaii has fewer than the 164 longline boats that the regional council allows, Simonds said. And those boats are required to use fishing methods that minimize the unintentional catching of turtles and birds and to allow federal observers on the boats to ensure their compliance, she said.

But in international waters, Hawaii boats compete with as many as 5,000 longline boats from other countries, most notably China, Japan and Korea, Simonds said.

"Our hope is that other countries would adopt similar requirements" via the international commission, Simonds said.

According to the Senate Commerce Committee, other key aspects of the fishing bill are:

» Increasing training for regional fishery council members on conflict of interest issues.
» Requiring that fishery management plans prohibit overfishing.
» Improving uniformity among different regional fishery management plans and compliance with environmental regulations
» Improving data collection on the state of fishery health.
» Requiring registration of recreational fishers who fish in federal waters.
» Increasing U.S. participation in international fishery management organizations.