قانون مگنوسان -استیونس (1976) و مجوزهای مجدد آن: شکست یا موفقیت برای اجرای توسعه پایدار و مدیریت شیلات در ایالات متحده؟

The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (1976), opened a new era of federal fishery management in the United States. It was enacted primarily to establish a system for conserving and managing fisheries in the new 200-mile (EEZ). The US assumed exclusive authority for managing all fisheries within the EEZ, except for highly migratory species such as tunas and billfishes. Within the framework of the Act, eight Regional Fishery Management Councils (Regional Councils) were created, which are responsible for preparing Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) in federal waters under their jurisdiction. Each FMP must meet a series of National Standards (NSs) for conservation and management. The Act was reauthorized in 1996 with the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA), which aimed at fine tuning the fishery regulatory apparatus that was established under the original Act. This "fine tuning" involved increased attention to biological concerns, and removal of ambiguities within it. The Act was reauthorized again in 2007, mainly to provide for more clear directives and regulations to end overfishing. After more than thirty years since the Act was passed into law, the debate among conservationists, commercial and recreational fishery representatives, and politicians on the effectiveness of the Act in achieving its purported goals it still continues. Is the Act delivering on its promises? Do NSs reflect the most important priorities for the US fishery resources, conservation and sustainable exploitation? Do the Regional Councils represent all parties that should be involved in the fisheries resources management? The aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis to answer these questions. This paper begins with a review of the Act and its background, followed by discussion and analysis of the Act's benefits and flaws. Finally, suggestions for the implementation of its structure and future directions in fishery management strategies are made.

The environment is a prime site of conflict between competing values and interests [1]. Thus, managers of natural resources have to strike the balance between highly political, economic, and conservationist lobbying pressure, which complicates their job of providing the most efficient management design for resource sustainability. Some experts [2] assert that central governments should control the management of most natural resource systems. Others see resource privatization as the only way to save common resources [3]. The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (hereinafter referred to as the MSFCMA or the Act), Public Law 94–265 as amended, provides for the conservation and management of fisheries resources within the US EEZ. The EEZ extends from the seaward boundary of three nautical miles of each of the coastal States (nine nautical miles for Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Gulf of Mexico coast of Florida) to 200 nautical miles from shore. In order to hold its validity as a tool to ensure and promote the fishery sustainability in the US, it has been the object of further reauthorizations, which redefined its objectives under more conservative political influence [4]. However, the belief that a complete understanding of the complex interrelationships in an ecosystem would improve the management, with no regard for the socioeconomic aspects of those decisions, is naïve and ineffective, as the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem studies demonstrated [4]. The cause of this ecosystem deterioration is the excessive concentrations of phosphate and nitrogen run off. Increasing the efficiency of sewage treatment plant in removing those inorganic nutrients and closing the oyster fishery so that these populations of filter feeders can increase and clean the bay’s water are the most clear solutions [4]. However, all interactions among species in an ecosystem are difficult to be understood and require consistent investments for their research [4]. This misleading strategy brought to the erroneous conclusion that the Act failed in delivering its conservation promises, shifting the search for problem solutions to the symptom, instead of the real cause of the problem, that is the – open access – nature of the fisheries in US waters. Giving the possibility that fisheries resources protection issues have at least a partial non-anthropocentric ethical dimension for a significant portion of the American public [5], what are the implications for the concerns of different parties involved? What are their different values, priorities, and needs in the current institutional arrangements for the US fisheries management, namely the MFCMA? Is the Act delivering on its promises? Are the National Standards reflecting the most important priorities for the US fisheries resources conservation and sustainable exploitation? Do the Regional Councils represent all parties that should be involved in the fisheries resources management?