Sustainable seafood practices are discussed in light of efforts to conserve food sources. CNN's Tom Foreman reports.
Sustainable seafood practices are discussed in light of efforts to conserve food sources. CNN's Tom Foreman reports.
Follow a group of family fishermen in Port Clyde, Maine as they work to save their fishing grounds.
WHEN: Sunday, Apr 11 4:00p to 6:00p
WHERE: Boston University Life Sciences Building 24 Cummington St., Room B01, Boston, MA
RSVP to kdeuel@pewtrusts.org
www.NewEnglandFishing.org
www.HerringAlliance.org
View the event flier at: http://www.herringalliance.org/images/stories/FBTTP_Flyer.
Now or Never Radio, a web-based radio show on the environment, recently interviewed Tim Fitzgerald about catch shares and the currently failing fisheries management system of "days at sea" (see segment titled "To Sea or Not to Sea").
While Tim expounds on the ability of catch shares to end overfishing and improve fishing jobs, Now or Never also interviewed Gary Hall, a gill net fisherman from Block Island, Rhode Island who acknowledges overfishing as a result of conventional fishery management, but he's skeptical of catch shares.
Read this story in full at The EDF.
When it comes to marine protection, the United States is among the most progressive countries in the world. We are the leader not only in sustainable seafood programs, but also in establishing marine reserves, essentially national parks of the sea. Our stores can achieve perfection and our consumers behave in a completely principled manner, and none of this has an effect on what happens in Spain or Norway or Japan.
When Greenpeace started ranking seafood retailers they were all pathetic. “We were ranking them on a scale of one to 10, and the highest score — Whole Foods — was 3.9. But it’s changing. Real leaders are emerging. Whole Foods, Wegman’s, Ahold, Target — these companies are making good decisions.”
When companies develop specific policies, he explained, those policies allow them to move forward according to certain rules. “Like ‘we won’t buy anything with over a certain percentage of discard rate.’” (Discard rate, also called by-catch, refers to non-targeted fish that are killed during the harvest of the primary fish.) “Like ‘We’re going to work with E.D.F. (the Environmental Defense Fund) to develop a shrimp standard.’”
Not that these moves approach perfection, he cautioned. But some companies are getting better, he said, “and the fact that they’re taking the time to do this shows that there are really differences in the industry. We’re seeing a real split in the retail sector — these stores are really much safer to buy seafood than places like Publix, Price Chopper or Costco.”
Read the complete story at The New York Times.
On a warm day last fall, I found myself standing in a crooked line with about 20 other people, each of us armed with empty coolers and insulated bags. "Have you had jumping mullet before?" the woman next to me asked.
"Never," I said. "I have no idea what it looks like, and I have no idea how to cook it. I'm glad they're giving us recipes."
In fact, I had never even heard of jumping mullet until I received an e-mail message the day before, yet there I was, standing in a parking lot on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina, eager to take it home and throw it on the grill.
The message also informed me that although mullet is rarely found in local stores or restaurants, it's actually a common fish along the Carolina coastline. But what I most enjoyed was learning that this mullet had been caught by Ron Sparks, a fisherman a few hours away who landed his bounty with gillnets strung from his 24-foot boat. I conjured up an image of Ron the fisherman — my fisherman — landing that night's dinner. I liked it.
Rockport has become the latest community to participate in a national program aimed at providing fishermen a cost-free solution to recycle and recover energy from old, derelict fishing gear.
When fishing gear is lost off boats, it's not really gone. In webs and rolling clumps, the nets, ropes and traps endure for decades as destructive artifacts of the fishery, suffocating life on the ocean floor, snaring fish and getting caught in propellers.
Now, gear collected in Rockport beginning today will be stripped of metals for recycling with the help of Schnitzer Steel, and processed into clean, renewable energy at the Covanta Energy-from-Waste facility in Haverhill.
An opening ceremony marking Rockport's "Fishing for Energy" partnership is scheduled for 11 a.m., on Pigeon Cove Wharf, located at the end of Breakwater Avenue. The rain location is Conference Room A in Town Hall.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
New England environmentalists and fishermen breathed a small sigh of relief today with President Barack Obama’s announcement to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.
That’s because he gave Georges Bank off New England – historically one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world – a reprieve.
“This is a five-year ‘stay of exploration’ for New England’s shores,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming who has worked to protect the submerged land mass.
Read more of this analysis in the Boston Globe's Green Blog
Peter Baker, manager for the Pew Environment Group’s New England Fisheries Campaigns, issued the following statement today in response to the Obama administration’s policy announcement on offshore oil and gas drilling.
“Georges Bank off the coast of New England is among the most productive ecosystems on the planet, supporting dozens of commercially viable fish species, marine mammals and other wildlife, and has functioned as a veritable engine of commerce for centuries.
“The biological value of the bank is well known and should be preserved for all the food it provides for our nation and jobs it provides for our fishermen.
“We are opposed to oil and gas drilling on Georges Bank due to its fragility and the potential for tremendous, long-term damage to the ecosystem of any large-scale release of toxic pollutants from oil or gas drilling.”
For statements regarding the Obama administration’s announcement of the withdrawal of Bristol Bay from oil drilling and its cautious approach for new U.S. Arctic Ocean leasing, please contact: Ruth Teichroeb, 206.453.2374, rteichroeb@pewtrusts.org.
Read the complete story at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
President Obama’s announcement today that he will open up previously closed areas off the Mid-Atlantic coast to offshore oil and gas drilling, including the waters off North Carolina, have led to a flurry of statements and press releases for and against the move.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Today’s announcement by President Obama opening much of the U.S. east coast for the first time to oil and gas drilling risks too much for the South, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. The Southern Environmental Law Center urges protection of the Atlantic coast and beaches of the South, and pursuit of energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy sources rather than drilling for the small amount of oil offshore.
“Opening the South Atlantic Coast to oil and gas drilling will do nothing to address climate change, provide only about six months worth of oil, and put at risk multi-billion dollar tourism and fisheries industries. One oil spill could devastate a coast,” said Derb Carter, director, Carolinas Office of the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Instead, reducing our dependence on such old, polluting energy sources by bringing America’s innovative talent to bear on fully exploiting energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources should be the first step in an energy policy that generates jobs and keeps America technologically competitive.”
Read the complete story at Star News Online.
The federal government today finalized the most fundamental changes in New England fishing rules in more than a generation, over the strenuous objections of many fishermen who say they will be put out of business.
While some fishermen say the idea has merit, most say it is going into effect too quickly and the catch limits are too harsh. The end result, they say, will be fishermen losing jobs across New England.
“The bottom line is there hasn’t been enough analysis on these catch shares," said Richie Canastra, co-owner of the Whaling City and Boston Seafood auctions. He said that he feared 50 percent of the region’s fishermen could be squeezed out of business by the new rules. “We are getting these sectors forced down our throat,” he said.
While the new rules allow boats to still catch fish under the old rules, it makes it financially unattractive to do so. About 812 of the region’s 1,480 boats that fish for bottom-dwelling species have opted for sectors — they represent 98 percent of fish landings in recent years.
“Fishermen are understandably apprehensive about the changes, not only because they mean significant catch cuts, but also because for many it means doing business in a completely new way," said Patricia Kurkul, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration northeast fisheries regional administrator. “Taking these actions is critical to the long-term health of the fish and the fishing businesses that rely on them.”
The new rules are also highly complicated. While catch shares have worked in many fisheries, this is the first time the concept is being broadly applied to New England’s unique bottom-dwelling fish, where species of many types are found together and hauled up in nets.
“Under the plan, the weakest fish controls everything else," said Brian Rothschild, Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Last week, New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang asked NOAA officials to temporarily delay the new rules until they get the “science straight” on fish populations.
But NOAA officials said the new rules allow Kurkul to alter catch limits far more quickly than in the past if stocks are shown to be improving. The agency is currently reanalyzing two species, including pollock.
“If these stocks are improving — and we do not know that yet — we will work to put that information into action, which could mean an increase in the allowable catch for both stocks without damaging rebuilding," said Eric Schwaab, assistant administrator for the NOAA Fisheries Service.
Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.