Securing a prosperous fishing future

For the last two decades the Marine Fish Conservation Network has united fishermen, conservationists, scientists and citizens around a shared mission: saving and revitalizing wild ocean fisheries. Working together we've won a series of critical victories that are producing tangible results—to the benefit of everyone who relies on healthy fisheries for food, work or recreation.

In the early 1990s, with US fisheries in crisis, our diverse membership’s clarion call for responsible management put the Network at the forefront of a movement for change. We went on to rewrite American fisheries law and overhaul its operation. We’ve mandated more responsible choices that ensure our marine fisheries can be healthy and our coastal communities can remain strong. And we’ve mobilized against long-term threats to wild fisheries.

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved together since our founding. But the truth is: enormous challenges remain. If we’re to maintain the quality of life that healthy fisheries make possible we need to build an even stronger movement for change. Join Us.

Making History in 2012

“In an effort to sustain commercial and recreational fishing for the next several decades, the United States this year will become the first country to impose catch limits for every species it manages, from Alaskan pollock to Caribbean queen conch.” Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post

2012 marks the first year that all US fish stocks are being managed under annual catch limits—a management tool that sets a clear limit on the amount of a particular fish species that can be caught in a year. Annual catch limits, or ACLs, as they are informally known, are one of the strongest conservation measures of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was reauthorized in 2007.

The inclusion of annual catch limits in the reauthorized law was brought about by a coalition of bipartisan legislators working with conservationists, scientists and fishing interests who were concerned about the future of their fisheries. The result is a one-of-a-kind fisheries management system, that has the potential to change the way the world fishes.