July 2024 - Director's Corner
By Melissa Mahoney - July 8, 2024
Why fishermen voices are needed in the management process, now more than ever…
Hopefully you read last month’s newsletter article about deep sea coral research and restoration efforts by the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS), which involved a request by the National Marine Sanctuary Program to prohibit bottom contact fishing gear in three areas currently used for targeting blackcod and other groundfish. This regulation was needed, they said, in order to conduct valuable deep-sea coral research and monitoring in the MBNMS.
After a lengthy scoping process, lasting over a year at the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), a final decision was made in early June by the Council on whether to approve closures in service of the MBNMS request. But first, a backstory…
On the eve of Memorial Day weekend, I met with a group of local Vietnamese-American fishermen. I knew they were heavily dependent on blackcod fishing in our region, and they kept to themselves, so I suspected they were not up to date about the proposed closures to fishing grounds.
Despite a robust outreach campaign by MBNMS staff to inform and receive input on these closure areas starting last December, there remained pockets of fishermen who were still unaware they could lose access to some valuable grounds within the Sanctuary’s boundary. This is partially due to the culture of the fishing community - fishermen know the regulations to be in compliance, and mostly just keep their heads down doing the best they can to stay in business.
This group of soft spoken gentlemen and one fully fluent English speaker (the son of one of the fishermen), reviewed the interactive mapping tool of the proposed closure areas and shared with me that they indeed rotate through those areas as part of their local fishing grounds. From our conversation I was able to summarize this: the 12 or so vessels operating out of ML who are currently 100% dependent on the blackcod fishery for their livelihoods would soon be without a fishery…and essentially out of work. The relative value to access these areas vs. the potential negative impacts closing them was on the table.
I included a short summary of this information in our letter to the PFMC, and I also encouraged the younger English speaking fisherman, whose father has been fishing in Monterey since they immigrated to California in the late 1970’s, to consider sending in public comment directly. They thanked me for their time and I never heard from them again. So it was much to my surprise when I saw their public comment show up in the final discussion and I was even more appreciative when Council members stated they were seeing this as new information coming forward at a critical time by an historically underrepresented group of local fishermen.
After at least two hours of reporting, discussion, and an amended motion, the Council voted by a 7-6 margin to allow only one of the three proposed areas (the Sur Ridge area) to go forward.
Bob Dooley (CA commercial seat) held firm that this additional 'new information' must be considered, and held strong against an initial motion to allow all three areas to close. Six other of his counterparts agreed, and with that these valuable fishing grounds to the fleet were off the table.
Does this mean fishermen are against science and conservation? Certainly not. But they did not think it was their burden to carry, especially at this time, and I tend to agree with them. However, we as a community of ocean stewards now have the opportunity to come together and collaborate on ways that fishermen can support MBNMS science research while continuing to access valuable fishing grounds. I look forward to supporting that discussion in the coming months. If you are interested, please contact me at info@mbfishtrust.org.