Can Fishermen Manage
the Lobster Fishery?

It will be interesting to listen to the comments by lobster fishermen on the Addendum for the Atlantic States' Lobster Plan. Those hearings are being held this month in Massachusetts.

Remember that the elements contained in this part of the Plan have
been worked on and submitted by fellow fishermen working together
to address a need to improve the lobster resource.  The ideas submitted
by the Area 1, Outer Cape, Offshore and other LCMT's further south
were not easy decisions.  They were the result of many discussions of
what needed to be done and how best to accomplish the mission
without ruining the fishermen's chances of survival.  Even the Area 2
Plan for southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which was
approved in the last Addendum, was developed after hard
deliberations and a lot of time spent by fishermen.  No, none of these
plans are perfect but neither is the science that has been presented as
the rationale for why actions are needed at all.  In a sense once could
characterize these proposals using a now famous term from the movie
Silence of the Lambs, "Quid Pro Quo".  You give me the science and 
I'll give you a management response of equal value.  The plans, like
the science, all have positive elements and should be viewed as progress
towards meeting the goal of maintaining a healthy lobster resource.

So far, it has been encouraging that the government managers, who in
this case are the states themselves, have been willing to go along with
what the fishermen have presented.  It should be noted again that this
has not been the case in most of the other fisheries.  One only need
look at the groundfish debacle, the dogfish quota or any other of the
fisheries to see that in those cases whether state of federally managed,
the fishermen have not had the advantage of designing a plan and
then had the government managers approve that plan.  For the
lobster resource, our fishermen did have that opportunity.

There have been numerous government managers who have either
directly or indirectly warned against letting fishermen design fishery
plans.  It's been the old fear of letting the fox guard the chicken coop.
Nevertheless, the various area Lobster Conservation Management
Teams have worked with scientists, managers and among
themselves and have presented these proposals.

It should be expected that there will be some fishermen who will
come out of the woodwork to oppose what's being presented.  It is
hard to get everyone to agree.  If they do have ideas, will they have
been as carefully thought through as these proposals or will they
just be ideas that only affect others and not themselves?

If there is too much dissension in the ranks, it could play into the
hands of those who don't want fishermen designing fisheries plans
at all.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will be 
listening to those who participate either at the hearings or by
letter and will be looking to see if there is general support for the
proposals.

We would urge lobster fishermen in the affected areas to support the
plans presented by their own fellow fishermen.  We would also urge
these fishermen to make them work if these plans ultimately are
approved.  One doesn't have to love the ideas but one should love
the process.  It will only be important to show that the fishermen
successfully did the job and they did it their way.

Lobster Fishermen - Let's Roll!

Bill Adler
Executive Director

12/01