Press Release Continued

 

 Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries Releases Public Opinion

 

In addition, the poll showed that the public is willing to accept some change in the ocean’s natural biodiversity in exchange for food production – not clear on what this means?

The nationwide survey results are directly relevant to the new interest in spatial management, the Federal system of Marine Protected Areas, the upcoming Congressional reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act and the ongoing California Marine Life Protection Act process, as well as the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s Marine Protected Area process for Federal waters.

The public opinion polls reached 729 people nationally, representing proportionally every state, and were conducted by Responsive Management of Harrisonburg, Virginia, an internationally known polling firm specializing in natural resource issues. The margin of error is 3.63%.

Study and regional spokespersons are available, details of the study are below and the entire study can be viewed at http://www.alliancefisheries.com/pub_html/html/Reports.html.

National Study Highlights

• An overwhelming majority of U.S. residents support legal recreational fishing (90%) with most of that being strong support. Additionally large majority of U.S. residents support legal recreational fishing in National Forests (80%) and National Parks (78%) and wilderness areas (72%).

• An overwhelming majority of U.S. residents support legal commercial fishing and shellfish fishing in U.S. waters (86%)

• Among U.S. residents, 95% support protecting U.S. ocean waters and ocean life; 78% strongly support doing so and another 17% moderately support doing so

• Posed as an open ended question, respondents were then asked what “protect” means, as in “we should protect ocean waters and ocean life”. The most common responses regarding the meaning of “protect” pertains to managing for sustainable use (29%), protecting rare and fragile habitats or sea life (21%), and protecting the environment against oil spills, pollution, dumping etc. (20%) No other category response received more than 14%, including responses of “full protection—no human use” (8%), protecting “some ocean waters” (3%), protecting a “percentage of ocean waters” (1%)

• The public’s interest in fully protecting (no human use at all) some U.S. ocean waters is qualified by the public’s sentiment that the areas to be protected in such a manner should be those which have rare and fragile habitats or species.

• The survey asked respondents if they agree or disagree that some change to the natural biodiversity in U.S. ocean waters is acceptable in exchange for a continued food supply through fishing and shellfish fishing…agreement (71%) far exceeds disagreement (20%).

• The survey, after informing respondents that approximately 85% of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, asked U.S. residents how important it is to them that the U.S. maintain its ability to supply seafood to U.S. residents rather than depend entirely on imported seafood. U.S. residents rated this quite high…89% said it is important to them, with most of them saying it is very important (70%).

               

Organizational Contacts:

Kathy Fosmark, Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
(831) 373-5238 (831) 601-0559
kfosmark@aol.com

Frank Emerson
Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
(831) 277-0544
frankemerson@redshift.com

Study Contact:
Mark Damian Duda, Responsive Management
(540) 432-1888
mark@responsivemanagement.com