The NMFS Habitat Protection Program: Lost in the BureaucracyMy October 1993 editorial emphasized that conserving, restoring, and developing fish habitats must be accepted as equally important to rebuilding depressed fish stocks. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's 1990 Needs Assessment of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) documented that NMFS is pitifully understaffed and funded, especially its Habitat Protection Program. The state of this program was further detailed in a 1991 program assessment by William Chandler Associates. Now yet another major assessment, this time by the Department of Commerce's inspector general, confirms the previous findings: the program has too few resources and too many diversions to meet its mandated task.
On the surface this may not appear newsworthy. In this tight federal budget climate, many important programs are short on staff and resources. However, field staff of this tiny program are the federal front line in advocating conservation of marine and estuarine fish and shellfish habitats in thousands of federal development projects, permits ,or licenses, e.g., those of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, etc. Bill Fox, past assistant administrator for fisheries, has stated that in the long-term, the loss of nearshore ocean and estuarine fishery habitat is probably the greatest threat to U.S. marine fishery productivity. If ever a strong front line has been needed to focus the best scientific information to advocate for productive fish habitats, it is now.
The inspector general's report provides fast but unsettling reading. Highlights include attrition rates that cut staff from 87 in 1988 to 63 in 1993; funding that dropped 16% between FY 1993; and a small (48) field staff that is hard-pressed to handle agency responsibilities that include 10,000 annual federal permits, license applications, and other proposals. A stepchild of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), program expertise is being diverted to meet habitat-related priorities of other NOAA and NMFS elements. Particularly alarming is that the program receives virtually no support from the agency's own science centers, and a regionalized "two-track" NMFS administrative structure blurs responsibility (and accountability) between national and regional offices. Field staff lack confidence that NOAA will effectively support their controversial findings, recommendations, and decisions regarding habitat protection with the Army Corps of Engineers and other. Further, NOAA has not supported requests for a strengthened program mandate during current reauthorization of the Clean Water Act Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Even the request for a Senior Executive Service position to the program was denied!
A great diversion has been transfer of habitat protection staff to fulfill time-specific agency requirements under the Endangered Species Act. Ironically, the endangered status of many species is symptomatic of the cumulative, ongoing nature of broad-based habitat deterioration -the very thing that a strong Habitat Protection Program would work to prevent. It is short-sighted to focus our greatest energies only on maintaining the existence of endangered and threatened species. Ultimately, future biological diversity will depend on the effectiveness of our collective habitat protection programs.
NMFS Deputy Assistant Administrator Nancy Foster, in her address at the 1993 North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, stated the NMFS charge well: "I believe the most effective habitat conservation role for agencies like ours is advocacy at local level. This advocacy should be carried out by influencing the many individual federal permits, licenses, and construction project, and conducting related habitat research and public education. Much protection is possible under existing provisions of the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the Federal Power Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and other. . . . Within NMFS we take this responsibility seriously. It is the cornerstone of our Habitat Protection Program."
The NOAA leadership must take dramatic steps to create an effective NMFS Habitat Protection Program. Words alone will not stop the loss of, or damage to, essential marine fish habitat, and results so far are only cosmetic. NOAA spends more than $100 million a year on "habitat related" activities, of which less than 5% goes to this program. This must change. NMFS should not be required to cannibalize its Habitat Protection Program to meet its other tasks. Further, the agency's research programs should become a strong partner to the Habitat Protection Program. Congress and marine fisheries constituents must move to the front line to keep this program from being lost within NOAA's broader marine science orientation.