Fishermen, regulators fight over net assets.

• Author: Gray, Tim
• Position: Tighter regulation of North Carolina saltwater-fishing industry

A funeral wreath stands in the corner of Henry Lancaster's office. The broad, black ribbon streaming from it reads, "Death of a Commercial Fisherman." Fishermen brought the wreath and 39 others to Raleigh in February to protest a state commission's recommendations to strengthen laws governing North Carolina's $1-billion-a-year saltwater-fishing industry.

The wreath reminds Lancaster, deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment Health and Natural Resources, that he has one of the thorniest jobs in Raleigh right now. As Gov. Jim Hunt's point man on fisheries reform, he is refereeing a debate where histrionics and melodrama long ago drowned out reasoned voices.

The dispute pits commercial fishermen and a clutch of powerful coastal legislators against Hunt, environmental groups and the Coastal Conservation Association, a sports fishermen's lobby. Hunt and his allies say that without new rules North Carolina's fishery will go the way of New England's, where overfishing has depleted many species. "It all starts with making sure we have fish," Lancaster says. The commercial camp, fighting $250-per-fisherman licensing fees, gear restrictions and other proposals, say such fears are overblown. The sides have been sparring since 1994, when the legislature enacted a temporary moratorium on new licenses for commercial fishing boats.

Lancaster's boss, Secretary Jonathan Howes, has made fisheries a priority this legislative session. Lancaster must see to it that the recommendations are enacted without being gutted. That hangs on his ability to convince commercial fishermen and their legislative allies that he's no zealot but a pragmatist whose aim is compromise.

"This thing may be bigger than one man," says Bill Holman, longtime North Carolina lobbyist for the Sierra Club. "Henry alone may not be able to solve it."

But if anyone can broker a deal, it's Lancaster. In Alaska, where he worked from 1979 to 1990, the 43-year-old lobbyist-turned-bureaucrat cobbled together an unlikely alliance of oil companies and black federal legislators from around the country to support drilling in a national wildlife refuge.

Plenty of folks will be gunning for him. One bureaucrat - Bruce Freeman, former director of the state's Marine Fisheries Division already has been gaffed by the commercial camp. In February, after a consultant hired by the state criticized Freeman's management, coastal legislators used it as an excuse to stall deliberations on the...