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Introduction

BENEFITS TO THE NATION FROM FISHERIES

Fisheries are essential to the global economy and feed billions around the world; they, support individuals and communities, and sustain cultural heritages and livelihoods (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2016; Spalding, 2016; Sumaila, 2021). In the United States, in 2020, commercial fisheries landed 8.4 billion pounds of fish, valued at $4.8 billion (NMFS, 2022). In the same year, commercial fisheries together with the seafood industry supported $155 billion in sales, contributed $117 billion to gross domestic product, and supported 1.1 million jobs in the United States (NMFS, 2023a). Additionally, important subsistence fisheries exist, principally in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the Western Pacific, that support cultural practices, values, and identities, and contribute to food security and sovereignty, and multi-dimensional well-being. In addition to these commercial and subsistence values, marine recreational fisheries have become increasingly important (Cisneros-Montemayor and Sumaila, 2010; Ihde et al., 2011). According to estimates, marine recreational anglers took nearly 200 million trips in 2020 (NMFS, 2022). These trips benefit the tourism and hotel sectors, as well as tackle manufacturing and associated retail industries. Beyond economic value, fisheries can provide cultural, social, and other benefits, including food for family gatherings. Participants often gain an appreciation for the natural world, beyond economic values, leading to an increased appreciation of environmental issues, concerns, and stewardship.

These benefits are greatest when fisheries are managed sustainably (Sumaila et al., 2012; World Bank, 2017). The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (as amended; hereafter the Magnuson-Stevens Act [MSA])¹ seeks to ensure sustainability of fisheries in federal waters. Federal waters extend from the 3-mile offshore limit of state jurisdiction to the 200-mile territorial limit. The MSA delegates to the Department of Commerce the nation’s sovereign right to manage fisheries in federal waters. Within the Department of Commerce, management is coordinated and conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A small number of fisheries (e.g., highly migratory spe-

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¹ Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. 16 U.S.C. §§ 1801 et seq.

cies) are managed directly by NMFS. The majority of species, however, are managed under a more distributed structure involving eight regional fishery management councils.

Although U.S. fisheries have been managed for commercial fishing historically (Smith, 1994), there has been an interest more recently in better accounting for and meeting the needs of the diverse individuals, groups, and communities that rely on and participate in fisheries, or aspire to do so. In May 2023, NMFS released its Equity and Environmental Justice Strategy (EEJS), which commits NMFS to three overarching goals: “(1) Prioritize identification, equitable treatment and meaningful involvement of underserved communities; (2) Provide equitable delivery of services; and (3) Prioritize equity and environmental justice in meeting its mandated mission” (NMFS, 2023b). To achieve these goals, NMFS established objectives to incorporate equity and environmental justice into agency policies and plans and to distribute benefits of its actions equitably, amongst other things.

In seeking to make progress on these strategic objectives, NMFS requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine establish an ad hoc committee to conduct a consensus study that considers information needs and data collection for assessing the distribution of fisheries management benefits. In the first of two proposed studies, NMFS requested that the National Academies committee identify information needs, obstacles to collecting information, and potential methodologies for assessing where and to whom the primary benefits of commercial and for-hire fishery management accrue. The full Statement of Task for this study is provided in Box 1-1.

The emphasis of this study is on the information and data needed, and methodologies that may be employed, for conducting an assessment of the distribution of benefits—construed initially as benefits associated with the issuance of permits and the allocation of quota. Importantly, this study does not assess the distribution of benefits that flow from the issuance of permits and allocation of quota. A separate study (“Phase 2”) is expected to follow; as currently anticipated, that study could build from this one by looking at specific fishery case studies and attempt an assessment based on the recommendations provided herein.²

This committee held five open sessions to gather information. It also held closed-session meetings for deliberations and drafting this report. Although most of the information-gathering meetings were held virtually, the committee did meet in an in-person, open session in Washington, DC, on July 17–18, 2023.

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² Additional information regarding a “Phase 2” study will be posted to the Ocean Studies Board website at https://www.nationalacademies.org/osb/ocean-studies-board if and as it becomes available.

STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT

NMFS leadership provided guidance in early briefings to the committee that it intended the committee to interpret “primary benefits” to focus on those associated with fisheries permits and quota. The issuance of permits and the assignment of quota are starting points for considering the benefits that flow from fisheries. This definition of primary benefits considers the term “primary” to mean “first in order of sequence.” Notable challenges exist with this framing. For example, commercial and for-hire sectors, which fulfill different needs for different participants, are managed under different data collection and reporting systems. The task is complicated further by the clear regional differences among the nation’s fisheries. Appropriately, the regional approach to management responds to local conditions. The nature, pattern, and history of fisheries vary across the regions. Who holds permits varies regionally. How allocations of permits and quota are made differ between regions and between fisheries within a region.

Early on the committee considered how our deliberations might change if we considered an interpretation of “primary benefits” as being those “of high importance.” This framing would require consideration of benefits beyond those associated with the receipt of permits or quota and involve assessing equity in the distribution of fishery benefits quite broadly. The challenge in this framing is the identification of importance. Specifically, the flow of benefits from agency actions are complex, involving multiple actors and groups, and accrue over a range of temporal and spatial scales. For example, analyses of the full flow of benefits might evaluate equity considerations throughout the seafood supply chain. Such an analysis might consider questions of food (in)security and sovereignty. Similarly, there is precedence in the fisheries policy literature to consider equity versus economic efficiency tradeoffs (Kroetz et al., 2015). It was necessary for the committee to determine where to draw the line regarding importance in its own work. In balancing the time available for the study and the data demands, the committee determined that it would restrict its work to consider those directly involved in the harvesting and processing of fish caught in response to the issuance of permits and the allocation of quota. This means the committee did not extend their consideration to equity across consumers and taxpayers. The committee recognizes there are equity issues in the seafood supply chain and particularly when considering non-domestic fisheries (Cochrane, 2021). The committee held that many of these questions arise from the harvest of a common pool resource, rather than from the specific issuance of permits and allocation of quota. Accordingly, the committee felt that a natural division exists between the issuance of permits and the processing of harvest product in fishing communities and the subsequent flow of benefits to consumers and companies in the seafood supply chain. In this framing, the committee considers first a narrow interpretation of primary benefits as those accruing directly from the issuance of permits and allocation of quota, but subsequently widens the interpretation to consider important benefits of management that accrue to participants in the fishery and processing sectors subsequent to the issuance of permits and the allocation of permits.

This report comprises five chapters. Following this introduction, Chapter 2 presents a multidimensional and contextual definition of equity that will be used in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 also establishes a theoretical grounding for the discussion of equity and maps the dimensions of equity key the work of NMFS as a whole or that of a regional fishery management council. The chapter reviews the legislative mandate contained in the MSA and recent Executive Orders that frame and guide NMFS’s work on equity. Finally, the chapter introduces ways in which equity has been considered in fisheries management.

Returning to the focused lens of permits and quotas, as suggested by NMFS. The committee addressed the first question in our statement of task by considering a stylized fishery in which all necessary data are available to monitor and describe the distribution of permits and quota. The committee asked, “What would the availability of data from such a model system enable us to infer and

understand?” Although few, if any, federally managed fisheries meet the data quantity and quality available in the model fishery, some non–federally managed fisheries come closer—for example, data collected at the State level—but are still far from the stylized, model fishery. Consequently, Chapter 3 then describes information currently available and identifies information gaps that prevent an assessment of to whom and where benefits of permits and quota accrue. The committee did not enter into data access agreements with federal or state agencies. Accordingly, the information summaries and data that the committee presents in Chapter 3 come from publicly available information sources. Chapter 3 emphasizes the general need for improved demographic data and better linking community-level data with fishery-level data. The committee provides examples of the demographic information available for select regions and fisheries, particularly from the Northeast, Gulf of Mexico, and North Pacific, to demonstrate the heterogeneity across fisheries and management regions. The committee did not attempt to comprehensively review fisheries from all regions, in part because the use of regional examples was intended to be illustrative, and in part, because the committee’s examination of regional examples was limited by scope, time, available information, and collective expertise. The committee considers some of the administrative, logistical, and statistical obstacles in current data and in collecting additional data. The chapter concludes with approaches that could be used for collecting the data and information necessary for a focused assessment of to whom and where the benefits of fisheries management, construed as benefits derived from permits and quota, accrue.

The committee is aware that some very or equally important benefits of management occur subsequent to the issuance of permits and the allocation of permits. These benefits include impacts to non-permit-holding captains and crew, shoreside facilities, distribution networks, fishery-dependent industries, and local communities. The benefits received by these groups are likely both monetary and non-monetary. Chapter 4 considers this more expansive view of the flow of benefits, starting with common categories of beneficiaries. A strong contextual history lies behind to whom and where these benefits flow. Accordingly, Chapter 4 concludes by acknowledging “potential beneficiaries” who were once, or who may be in the future beneficiaries of fisheries management actions.

Chapter 5 returns to the framing of equity presented in Chapter 2, providing examples of efforts that may offer lessons learned or best practices for considering equity in fisheries management decisions and how NMFS could move forward in its important work on equity in the nation’s fisheries.

Within the diverse literatures consulted for this report, the people who participate in and/or are impacted by fisheries management are referred to in a variety of ways, including as actors, stakeholders, beneficiaries, and subjects. Participants may be members of Tribes with sovereign rights to specific natural resources. Each of these terms can be applied to individuals or groups, invokes different connotations, and can be defended or challenged for a variety of reasons. This report employs various terms in ways that reflect the relevant literature. For example, the equity literature often uses the term subjects, while the term stakeholders is common in reference to participants in resource management—this term is, however, inappropriate when referring to Tribal Nations and citizens. While the committee recognizes the importance of labeling and that our decision to use multiple labels could be confusing, it was beyond the study scope to resolve these broader definitional debates. In attempt to provide some clarity, Box 1-2 provides basic definitions for several of the terms used throughout the report.

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