Area 13 was a situation that came up years ago, actually before we were fully engaged in the precautionary approach and looking at biological limits in harvest limits. Area 13 was one in which we relied almost exclusively at the time on the biological differences between males and females, so we had a very heavy fishing effort on the mature males. The result was that the stock crashed, the fishing had to stop, and directed fishing has been just coming back now, at a very low level. It has had a significant impact on the fishermen in that area, because we didn't have the same degree of knowledge that we have now and didn't apply the precautionary approach at that time because of a lack of understanding of what it meant and how to establish the biological limits that drive the precautionary approach.
This demonstrates that if you put the interests of the fishermen and the plant workers ahead of those of the population, what happens is that the plant workers and the fishermen suffer more. It's been a lesson that we've learned in this crab management process, that you have to look after the stock first, if you're going to have the possibility of looking after the fishermen and the plant workers.
It's something we've certainly taken on board. We don't want to do it again in any other area; we want to keep the harvest rates within reason. We don't want to rely 100% on the fact that there's a size difference between males and females and on the idea that you can fish the males as hard as you possibly can as long as you leave the rest of the population alone. That didn't work in area 13. We don't want to take a risk in the management of crab stocks throughout Atlantic Canada. We are therefore taking the steps necessary this year to ensure that we have the stock necessary to rebuild the population in the southern gulf on the upward side of the cycle and stay for as short a time as possible on the bottom end of the cycle.