THE HISTORY, STATUS, AND FUTURE OF THE NEW ENGLAND OFFSHORE FISHERY: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

Any regular reader of a New England daily newspaper is aware that all is not well in our offshore waters. Commercial harvests of fish have been dropping and many fish populations are in trouble globally, even in our own Northwest Atlantic region. In 1995, the National Marine Fisheries Service surveyed 201 species groups of US fish and judged over 60% to be either fully or over utilized. By 1998, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 80% of commercially harvested fish species were fully or over utilized. Declines in fish stocks and subsequent fishing restrictions have translated into huge decreases in income and employment opportunities, both in New England and adjacent Canada. One report indicates closures to fishing on Georges Bank in the early 1990s cost 14,000 jobs in New England while Grand Banks closures caused 30,000 to become unemployed in Newfoundland. Most recently, in southern New England, a still mysterious die-off of lobster in Long Island Sound has thrown what was once a fairly stable segment of the industry into complete turmoil. Contrary to the general consensus on declines in numbers of commercial fish and in the number of people employed in the industry, there is considerable debate about the cause of the problem. How much is simply due to overfishing and how much to misguided regulation, pollution, or other factors is hotly debated. The History, Status, and Future of the New England Offshore Fishery Conference, held at Connecticut College in April 1999, was the second such gathering sponsored by the Goodwin-Niering Center for Conservation Biology and Environmental Studies. Like its predecessor, which dealt with the topic of New England forests (proceedings in Northeastern Naturalist 5(2), 1998), this two-day meeting was designed to examine a fairly specific subject from as many different points of view as possible. Our goal was to produce an insightful overview of current scientific, regulatory, economic, sociological, and conservation perspectives on the New England offshore fishery. We began planning this event shortly after the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs federal management of fisheries outside of coastal state waters. In the spirit of Connecticut College’s mission to foster the liberal arts, we held our ban-