Feuding While the Fish Flicker Out

The CCA sued, eventually winning a settlement in which surface fishing was reinstated, but not before generating lots of hard feelings and bad publicity for protected areas.

Two years ago the Natural Resources Defense Council hosted a two-day bull session in which 15 marine scientists hatched an MPA wish list. Then, with no public outreach, the NRDC distributed a map of the proposed protected areas.

There was no word about activities that might be banned, but the NRDC's Web site defines MPAs as areas which "restrict or prohibit fishing" (even though most do no such thing).

The map—which carved a huge swath through mid-Atlantic fishing hot spots, including offshore waters near Cape Hatteras, N.C.—horrified the sport-fishing community.

Stung by bad press, the NRDC is now making a real effort to communicate with sportsmen, but the Ocean Conservancy, which doesn't know fish or fishermen, claims to know what's best for both.

Particularly misguided is the conservancy's "ocean wilderness" campaign. For 40 years environmentalists have attempted to convince sportsmen that wilderness is not a plot by anti-blood-sport fanatics, that hunting and fishing are legal in wilderness, in fact enhanced by wilderness.

But in "ocean wilderness," as defined by the conservancy, fishing (even catch-and-release fishing) is banned, while far more intrusive recreation, such as skin diving and surfing, is permitted. As Dr. Carl Safina, head of the Blue Ocean Institute and a leading advocate of protected areas, puts it: "The environmental community's whole effort to sell MPAs has been a public-relations blunder completely unmatched in its history."

Meanwhile, under a politicized federal-state management system that responds first to ever-ravenous commercial fishermen and second to science, fish stocks continue to fizzle out. <.p>

The resurrection of redfish along the Southeast and Gulf coasts is hailed as America's most spectacular fish-management triumph. But it is just another illustration of what fishing wags call the First Maxim of Fish Management, i.e., we don't manage a stock until we have nearly wiped it out.

Marine Protected Areas are not a substitute for proactive, scientific management; but the right kind of MPAs, designed and sponsored by sportsmen and environmentalists, could help.