Letters To The Editor

By Nelson "Hammer"  Beideman, Executive Director of Blue Water Fishermen's Association

Dear Mr. Schrimpsher:

On behalf of Blue Water Fishermen's Association (BWFA), I'm writing in response to the issues raised in your recent editorial, Stand Together As A Fishery and to provide background information related to the recent Life On The Line article on NMFS's impending pelagic longline closed areas. The complicated nature of this international highly migratory species (HMS) fishery has resulted in substantial misinformation and misunderstanding of this fishery. Such misinformation does not provide a good basis for your readers to develop their own opinions or a platform to assist this fishery to resolve its differences.

Years of internal fishery debate on how best to address domestic bycatch concerns that threaten the very existence of this fishery, preceded the more recent legislative and regulatory time/area closure efforts. Despite sincere efforts to minimize their catches of sub-legal swordfish, it was coastal fishermen and their fish dealers from the east coast of Florida who became convinced that closures were inevitable in areas where the majority of their swordfish catches are smaller than the minimum size allowed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Beginning in 1998, these fishermen lobbied the BWFA at two consecutive Annual Meetings to develop a fair plan that would provide a dignified way out for vessel owners whose boats are too small to fish outside the coastal swordfish nursery areas. The Charleston Maritime Center debacle, NMFS's ongoing efforts to implement closures in swordfish nursery areas, and a Congressional letter supporting the virtual elimination of U.S. pelagic longlining signed by more than eighty Representatives convinced this group that the "Handwriting Was On The Wall".

After BWFA's Board was approached to undertake this project, BWFA surveyed its members for a detailed sense of direction and acceptable parameters for an industry proposal to address pelagic longline bycatch. At the next Annual Meeting, the decision to move forward with the industry-initiated proposal was unanimously approved by the BWFA Board of Directors. The BWFA Board represents each geographical region of this fishery, including Region #6 covering North Carolina through Georgia. The decision on whether or not to negotiate with sportfishing interests on a joint legislative proposal also passed with only three of eleven Regions opposed.

By this time, it was clear that NMFS was not supportive of a buy-out, leaving Congressional legislation as the only way to achieve what Florida's fishermen needed. We also discovered that if the proposal was funded strictly from the commercial swordfish industry, the amount of funds would not cover the necessary costs. Keeping in mind the huge anti-longline sentiment and "Break" campaign in most of the press and media, we knew that the proposal would not succeed unless we could go to Congress with a coalition of fishing interests, including sportfishing groups, that could support our plan. Unfortunately, some of the commercial groups that BWFA has worked with over the years were opposed to the concept of buy-outs and did not support these efforts. However, BWFA had made a commitment to try to help Florida's fishermen, so we continued toward that goal.

Next, we convened a meeting to see what sportfishing groups might be capable of working with us on this effort. Some were obviously entrenched and wanted nothing less than our eventual elimination. However, three mainstream sportfishing groups appeared capable and willing to work with us. It is not surprising that these three have long-standing involvement in the ICCAT process and know that the U.S. HMS fisheries are a small fraction of the Atlantic-wide effort. They also recognize the need to work with U.S. commercial fisheries to continue progress at ICCAT.

As in any recent Legislative effort, you wind up "negotiating" with those in opposition - even if you have Congressional staff as the "go-between". Instead, BWFA chose to do it "face-to-face". The first order of business was to develop a "Memorandum of Cooperation and Agreement" to set down on paper what we expected from each other and secure commitments from all to support this effort and our mutual goals, which included the preservation of a viable U.S. pelagic longline fishery. The experience of working this closely with sportfishing interests was very enlightening. Their fishery is also divided, perhaps even worse than our own. The representatives from these groups worked with us in a very straightforward fashion. We spent months, involving all of our Boards, to develop and approve the Memorandum which was signed by the President of each organization. During this two year process, not even one breech of this agreement was ever raised. Each organization lost members, including members of their respective Boards, who resigned because their rigid beliefs prevented them from supporting the central and more moderate direction democratically chosen by their organization.

The U.S. Delegation to ICCAT, who must work with each other every year to provide a "united" delegation on all U.S. policy positions, has been extremely frustrated by ICCAT's reluctance to take meaningful conservation measures and by foreign fleets' blatant violations of the ICCAT minimum size limits to the point that over 70 percent of all bigeye and 50 percent of all yellowfin caught in the Atlantic are under the 3.2 kilogram (approximately 7 pound) minimum size. For years, we kept saying to each other "there must be a better way." The only things standing in the way of an all-out U.S. effort to resolve these problems is U.S. high domestic catches of undersized swordfish (up to 38 percent) and bluefin tuna anglers occasionally overfishing their schoolie category.

This alliance worked toward developing a better, more practical way to effectively address domestic bycatch in a manner that may be acceptable to foreign harvesters who are not held to the misguided "regulatory discard" policies that U.S. fishermen must work under. The model contained in the "Breaux Bill" identified true bycatch "Hot-Spots" for closure and provided the most severely affected fishermen with a voluntary offer of fair retirement. The swordfish closure areas were well defined by fishermen's logbooks identifying the discreet areas where more swordfish are discarded dead than retained. As a fisherman for nearly forty years, I've met few fishermen who will justify continuing to fish in an area with such unnecessary waste.

Well, the rest is history. Instead of rallying to the substantial content "IN" the Breaux Bill, the environmental industry and the rest of the recreational industry only wanted to "add" arbitrary closures, or buy-out the entire fleet -- anything to dismantle our important domestic pelagic longline fishery. In the end, New Jersey radical recreational groups, the Ocean Wildlife Campaign, and the hierarchy within NMFS killed the bill. In the absence of this bill, the NMFS is closing larger areas on the east coast with no compensation for fishermen or shoreside businesses. Because the NMFS regulation only addresses swordfish concerns and their analysis shows that it actually increases billfish bycatch, numerous lawsuits threaten to inflict additional time/area closures on other U.S fishermen. BWFA stands alone in this litigation to defend this fishery.

Our discussions with these sportfishing groups included a request for our assistance to support efforts to obtain billfish conservation measures at ICCAT, which we did in 2000, in a manner that does not further impact U.S. commercial fishermen. We also requested their support for "import prohibitions" that would prevent non-compliant Atlantic HMS from entering U.S. markets. If and when, the U.S. pelagic longline fishery, including its Carolina region decides to work together, this would be a common task that should be pursued. The BWFA Annual Meeting will be held in May 2001. This is the time for this fishery's participants to discuss current and future issues and to set BWFA's direction for the coming year. Those involved in this fishery have little excuse to complain if they do not attend and speak out as their fishery sets its course.

Nelson Beideman is Executive Director of Blue Water Fishermen's Association. BWFA represents a majority of the active pelagic longline permit holders, fish dealers and related businesses with an interest in the sustainable harvest of Atlantic HMS such as swordfish, tuna, oceanic sharks and mahi-mahi. The BWFA Annual Membership Meeting will be held May 18-20, 2001 in Philadelphia, PA. For more information on BWFA or the U.S. pelagic longline fishery; please call (609)361-9229.