Trump’s executive order on recreational fishing is a ‘giveaway of fish and ocean ecosystem’, advocates warn
President Donald Trump signed an executive order, Restoring American Saltwater Angling and Recreation, directing federal agencies to prioritize recreational fishing and reconsider scientific standards and regulations governing US fisheries. The National Marine Fisheries Service praised it for addressing data-collection flaws and streamlining permitting for the outdoor recreation economy, but conservation advocates said it furthers a retreat from science-based ocean management. Marine Conservation Institute president Lance Morgan said protections built over years are being dismantled, warning the US risks becoming a bystander rather than a global leader in marine conservation, according to The Guardian.
The order directs the commerce department to revisit fisheries guidelines under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to better account for recreational fishing, which Oceana's Gib Brogan warned could let officials redefine terms such as overfishing and "best available science." It also has the interior department convert decommissioned offshore oil and gas platforms into permanent artificial reefs, a provision Kristen Monsell of the Center for Biological Diversity called a giveaway to the oil industry, since such structures were not designed as healthy reefs and can leach chemicals. Greenpeace USA's Arlo Hemphill said reef conversions only work in some locations and merely concentrate existing fish rather than creating new populations.
The order also establishes a task force to examine why sharks and marine mammals take fish from anglers' lines, including trade restrictions on sharks. Andrea Treece of Earthjustice called that effort short-sighted given depleted shark populations' ecological importance, a concern echoed by Grace Casselberry, a University of Massachusetts Amherst postdoctoral researcher who studies shark depredation.
Summarized by PolitiKool from The Guardian’s reporting. Read the full story at The Guardian →