West and East coast fishermen have participated in public workshops on reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Act held in Seattle in February and in Boston in March. Now their Southern counterparts can do likewise when the series continues next week in Baton Rouge, La.
The Center for Sustainable Fisheries and National Fisherman are sponsoring the workshops. The Tuesday, April 8 session is at the Embassy Suites in Baton Rouge, the site of the April Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting. The Magnuson workshop will begin after the council meeting.
The workshops facilitate discussions on revising the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Topics they're exploring include whether the act can be rewritten to strengthen the economic component of fisheries management, to give the management councils more flexibility, and to improve the science used to make management decisions.
Speakers will include Brian Rothschild, the New Bedford-based Center for Sustainable Fisheries' president and CEO, and Bob Gill of the Gulf Seafood Institute's board of directors. Following their remarks, discussion will begin on how best to go about amending Magnuson-Stevens.
The key word there is "discussion" — workshop organizers want your input. They want to learn what's important to you in revising the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
So do I. I'll be representing NF at the Baton Rouge Magnuson-Stevens workshop and I look forward to hearing what issues resonate most with you. For more information about the workshops, please visit http://www.nationalfisherman.com/magnuson.
