WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- An ocean policy advocacy group has issued a new report that warns of a possible collapse of America's ocean ecosystems and proposes a more science-based, sustainable management policy for U.S. fisheries backed by federal law.

The report, "Body of Evidence: The Fragile State of America's Oceans," was released Tuesday by the Marine Fish Conservation Network and sent to governors of coastal states and members of Congress, in preparation for the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's pending recommendations for policy reform. It reinforces findings of a June 2003 report by the Pew Oceans Commission that some lawmakers had dismissed as overstated.

The MFCN describes itself as "a coalition of over 155 national and regional environmental organizations, commercial and recreational fishing groups, aquariums, and marine science groups dedicated to conserving marine fish and to promoting their longterm sustainability."

Citing 77 scientific papers, the report's authors recommended "structural reform," in which scientific knowledge and federal law act in tandem to reach decisions for the management of ocean fisheries.

"A boundary needs to exist between conservation of the (fisheries') resource and allocation of its use," the report said. "When socioeconomic considerations supersede ecological decisions, everyone loses."

"We're hoping to put a balance in the system," Lee Crockett, executive director of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, told United Press International.

The report cites several violations of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which called for fisheries to reduce bycatch -- fish not meant for harvest -- as well as damage to the sea floor from fishing methods. Despite attempts at strengthening the act, its enforcement has been inconsistent at a regional level, Crockett said.

Members of the eight regional councils that manage the 200-mile-wide coastal fishing zone on an advisory basis often have a personal stake in the industry they regulate, Crockett noted. He said he recommends council members forfeit voting rights when a financial interest is involved, that the public participate more in council meetings, and that scientists be given a more binding authority to determine an overall quota for each harvest with distribution decided by the councils.

Robert Alverson, of Seattle, manager of the Fishing Vessel Owners' Association and a member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, told UPI some councils might not enforce quotas.

Industry and science already cooperate in the Pacific and North Pacific regions and enforcement there has been strict, he said, and cited as an example tighter quotas for several species of endangered rockfish in recent years.

Alverson said some fishing groups are "yelling and screaming" but their own log books are showing that catch per effort has been decreasing over the past 10 years. He added revoking voting rights from industry members was impractical.

"Are you going to put cattle people on apple committees because they might not know what they're talking about?" he quipped.

Crockett conceded few specifics are included in the report about how recommended changes would be carried out.

"That would be something for Congress to decide," he said.

Andy Rosenberg, dean of the University of New Hampshire's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture in Durham, said he agreed with the report overall, but added he is more optimistic than the picture the report painted.

"This is an advocacy piece, it's not a science piece," Rosenberg, one of the report's reviewers, told UPI. "In some cases, it's too easy to dismiss that there have been no successful cases."

The report outlined the state of the ocean as a looming environmental and economic crisis, and cautioned that failing to act is dangerous as well.

"We're making decisions about the future even by doing nothing," Reg Watson, senior research fellow at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Center, told UPI. "It's not at all clear that they're reversible."

Over-fishing -- attributed to the industrialization of the industry -- has depleted the world's fish supply, and the biomass of larger predatory fish such as swordfish, marlin and tuna is at about 10 percent to 33 percent of its World War II level, the report said.

When a supply of fish is depleted, fisheries often turn to another catch that is more readily available until that, too, runs low; then, the previous supply is again fished at a lower level, the report said.

"Changes are happening," Watson said. "We are losing our resources, our support base for our communities."

Over-fished populations may take up to 10 years to grow back to their original stock, and fishing often begins before the population has been fully restored, the report said, adding that ecosystems -- where organisms, habitats and physical factors coexist in a fragile balance -- also are being damaged by fishing practices that later affect fish supplies higher in the food chain.

Certain fishing methods -- particularly trawling, common to the Atlantic coast -- flatten the sea floor and reduce its biodiversity, the report said. Depletion of a fish population can affect other organisms fed upon by the fish, leading to imbalance in the ecosystem. Ecosystems include kelp forests, coral reefs, and sea floor and deep-sea habitats.

Some types of fishing gear bring in large amounts of bycatch, and many animals do not survive being thrown back after an accidental catch, the report said. Shrimp trawls -- large, funnel-shaped nets -- account for about 9.5 million tons of bycatch a year. Gillnets, which hang from surface floats, catch an average of 42 whales per year, despite a limit of four, according to the report.

Rosenberg said changes must be made to the "current climate" and noted most ocean conservation issues are dealt with by constituents rather than scientists and usually favor the industry.

"You have to make the decisions based on science up front, then figure it out," he said.

The MFCN report is available online at conservefish.org/site/mediacenter/network_reports/bodyofevidence.pdf