THE COMPLIANCE FACTOR  (March2003)

Why are fishing regulations placed on any fishery?  In most cases they are enacted to protect and nurture that marine resource and keep it healthy.

 In the lobster fishery most fishermen obey these rules because they believe in them or at least understand why these rules were put in place.  They, too, want to ensure that the fishery, their fishery, remains a viable resource.  It is, of course, in their interest to do so.  Compliance with these rules, therefore, is really not a serious problem.

 Looking at the current lobster fishing regulations, it should be remembered that most of them were actually thought up by lobstermen and not the managers and they have worked well to keep the lobster resource healthy.  Most of the down cycles that have occurred have been more due to natural or environmental factors then from fishing activity.  This is even the case today in southern New England.  Trap caps, protection for eggers and trap escape vents to name a few were all ideas that came from fishermen.  Overall, if one looks at the regulations and restrictions governing the lobster fishery, it is actually a heavily regulated fishery.

 The fact that the level of compliance is high also makes the job of enforcement much easier then it would otherwise be.  The marine enforcement agencies continue to struggle under the constraints of being under funded, under manned and being assigned more non-fishing enforcement tasks.  Having a high compliance rate in a fishery eases the strain.  Enforcement can concentrate on the few instead of the many.

 A rule governing lobster in the regulation rulebook doesn’t save one lobster let along a resource.  Jamming another rule into the rulebook because on paper or in a computer model it helped a resource doesn’t mean it helped.  Oh it may save those paper or statistical lobsters but not the real ones; the ones that count.  It is imperative, therefore, that a regulation that is formulated for the lobster fishery be supported by the industry if it is going to work and it needs to work in order to serve its intended purpose.  This purpose is to protect and nurture the resource.  What good is the rule if it doesn’t achieve its intended purpose.

 In designing ideas, therefore, it is necessary to have the industry’s support otherwise it becomes a paper exercise and an invitation for some fishermen to think up ways around the rule.  Fishermen are very good at that if they are so inclined.  This, in turn, complicates the enforcement process and can negate any benefit that was expected.

 We would, therefore, urge managers to seek solutions to concerns they may have which will have the support from the industry and should those solutions come from the lobster industry itself, all the better for the resource.

 Remember all the ways prohibition didn’t work !?

  Bill Adler, Executive Director