Ending overfishing in the US

Fisheries management has improved in the US in the last 2 decades, and overfishing has been dramatically reduced. I spent 10 years working with a great team of people at Ocean Conservancy and, together with colleagues from OC and other organizations, helped to spur this change through advocacy, science, and lawsuits (when needed). One particularly valuable product was the Overfishing Scorecard I developed, which was a comparative ranking of the 8 US Fishery Management Councils. The scorecard ranked the Managment Councils for their success at ending overfishing. This was the first time the Fishery Management Councils had been ranked, and the results were powerful in showing what was successful and what was not successful in fishery management.

I used the Overfishing Scorecard to help illustrate the need for change in US fisheries legislation with members of Congress and their staff. The release of this scorecard generated a tremendous amount of media coverage and interest from fishery managers. I even got a phone call from Chris Oliver, the current head of NOAA Fisheries, and we discussed how to improve the score of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (he was then Executive Director of the NPFMC). This was interesting to me because Chris’ North Pacific Council (fisheries in Alaska) was already ranked #1. This showed me 2 important things. First, the power of an insightful synthesis of existing information, and second, the industry-leading diligence of Chris Oliver and the NPFMC.

Did this information matter? I used it to help find common ground with Republican Senator Ted Stevens’ staff during discussions on strengthening of federal fisheries law. Improvements passed in early 2007, in a Republican Congress. Senator Stevens, no friend of conservationists, wanted to “rebuild public confidence in fisheries management” and the scorecard helped clarify the conversation with his staff on how conservationists agreed with that principle.

Here’s an excerpt from the Overfishing Scorecard, as presented by Ocean Conservancy’s CEO at the time, Roger Rufe. From the proceedings of the “Managing Our Nation’s Fisheries 2” conference in Washington DC.

An excerpt from the Overfishing Scorecard, 2005