Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

Who are the Older Adults Who Drown in Western Australia? A Cluster Analysis Using Coronial Drowning Data.

Drowning amongst older people is a growing concern. Exploring demographic and other factors associated with unintentional drowning incidents amongst older adults may assist to identify key target groups and refine prevention strategies. This study sought to examine the heterogeneity of older individuals who have drowned and identify population subgroups in Western Australia (WA). A cluster analysis was used to segment the population by examining coronial data 2001-2018 (n = 93). Analysis identified four groups; 1) ‘men who boat & fish in company’ 2) ‘affluent men with poor health’ 3) ‘non-drinkers who boat and fish’, and 4) ‘older men, who slipped or fell’. Males aged 65-74 years were particularly at-risk while participating in various aquatic activities such as boating, fishing (incl. rock-fishing) and swimming/recreating. This study provided insights into an underserved area and will directly inform the development of new strategies for this target group in WA

Comparison of Patient Tolerance of Photodynamic Therapy with Zone vs. Full Face Treatment

Background: Zone based photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising treatment option for actinic keratosis, superficial basal cell carcinoma, and in-situ squamous cell carcinoma. PDT has similar cure rates to 5-fluorouracil and imiquimod. Objective: Determine if PDT zone treatments improve patient comfort, tolerance, retention, and offer less severe reactions as compared to full face treatments. Methods: 500 PDT patients were divided into full face (n = 250) versus zone treatments (n = 250). All subjects completed a post-treatment phone survey assessing tolerance of procedure. Retention rates and severe reactions were tracked. Results: Zone treatment resulted in a higher number of excellent responses for patient tolerance vs. full face treatment group (85 % vs. 39%,

Chemical characteristics of air from different source regions during the second Pacific Exploratory Mission in the Tropics (PEM-Tropics B)

Ten-day backward trajectories are used to determine the origins of air parcels arriving at locations of airborne DC-8 chemical measurements during NASA's second Pacific Exploratory Mission in the Tropics B that was conducted during February-April 1999. Chemical data at sites where the trajectories had a common geographical origin and transport history are grouped together, and statistical measures of chemical characteristics are computed. Temporal changes in potential temperature are used to determine whether trajectories experienced a significant convective influence during the 10-day period. Trajectories describing the aged marine Southern Hemispheric category remain over the South Pacific Ocean during the 10-day period, and their corresponding chemical signature indicates very clean air. The category aged marine air in the Northern Hemisphere is found to be somewhat dirtier. Subdividing its trajectories based on the direction from which the air had traveled is found to be important in explaining the various chemical signatures. Similarly, long-range northern hemispheric trajectories passing over Asia are subdivided depending on whether they had followed a mostly zonal path, had originated near the Indian Ocean, or had originated near Central or South America and subsequently experienced a stratospheric influence. Results show that the chemical signatures of these subcategories are different from each other. The chemical signature of the southern hemispheric long-range transport category apparently exhibits the effects of pollution from Australia, southern Africa, and South America. Parcels originating over Central and northern South America are found to contain the strongest pollution signature of all categories, due to biomass burning and other sources. The convective category exhibits enhanced values of nitrogen species, probably due to emissions from lightning associated with the convection. Values of various species, including peroxides and acids, confirm that parcels were influenced by the removal of soluble gas and particle species due to precipitation. Finally, current results are compared with those from the first PEM-Tropics mission that was conducted in the same region during the southern hemispheric dry season (August-October 1996) when extensive biomass burning occurred. Results show that air samples during PEM-Tropics B are considerably cleaner than those of its dry season counterpart. Copyright 2001 by the American Geophysical Union

Photochemical production and evolution of selected C2-C5 alkyl nitrates in tropospheric air influenced by Asian outflow

The photochemical production and evolution of six C2-C5 alkyl nitrates (ethyl-, 1-propyl-, 2-propyl-, 2-butyl-, 2-pentyl-, and 3-pentyl nitrate) was investigated using selected data from 5500 whole air samples collected downwind of Asia during the airborne Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) field campaign (February-April 2001). Air mass age was important for selecting appropriate field data to compare with laboratory predictions of C5 alkyl nitrate production rates. In young, highly polluted air masses, the ratio between the production rates of 3-pentyl nitrate and 2-pentyl nitrate from n-pentane was 0.60-0.65. These measured ratios show excellent agreement with results from a field study in Germany (0.63 ± 0.06), and they agree better with predicted ratios from older laboratory kinetic studies (0.63-0.66) than with newer laboratory results (0.73 ± 0.08). TRACE-P samples that did not show influence from marine alkyl nitrate sources were used to investigate photochemical alkyl nitrate evolution. Relative to 2-butyl nitrate/n-butane, the measured ratios of ethyl nitrate/ethane and 2-propyl nitrate/propane showed notable deviations from modeled values based on laboratory kinetic data, suggesting additional Asian sources of their alkyl peroxy radical precursors. By contrast, the measured ratios of 1-propyl-, 2-pentyl-, and 3-pentyl nitrate to their respective parent hydrocarbons were fairly close to modeled values. The 1-propyl nitrate findings contrast with field studies in North America, and suggest that air downwind of Asia was not significantly impacted by additional 1-propyl nitrate precursors. The sensitivity of modeled photochemical processing times to hydroxyl radical concentration, altitude, city ventilation times, and dilution is discussed