Conservation & Environment

A NMFS decision to initiate the process to uplist loggerhead turtles from "threatened" to "endangered" is scheduled to occur on Monday, March 8. FSF sent this letter to NMFS Administrator Eric Schwaab.

The secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior says representatives of two Native American tribes and a developer have failed to agree on a wind farm off Cape Cod by Monday's deadline, leaving the future of the initiative in the hands of an Obama administration that's pledged to make the U.S. "the world's leading exporter of clean energy."

In a statement, Secretary Ken Salazar said that he was sending the proposal on Cape Wind to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which has 45 days to allow the public to express its views on the project.

Salazar said he will then take comments from the council into consideration before deciding whether to approve the wind farm.

"The time has come to bring the reviews and analysis of the Cape Wind Project to a conclusion," Salazar said. "The parties, the public and the permit applicants deserve resolution and certainty."

Read the complete story at WBZ 38.

The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), the largest national organization dedicated to protecting and strengthening the nation’s Atlantic sea scallop fishery, is  joining with fishermen and others from around the country at a rally in the nation’s capitol, to urge congressional action and Administration support for a review of and change in the nation’s federal fisheries management laws.
 
FSF representatives will join with thousands of supporters at tomorrow’s United We Fish rally in Washington, D.C. to call attention to the impact of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary federal law governing America's fisheries, on the nation’s fishing communities.    
 

Feb 23, 2010 – Atlantic sea scallop fishermen and their families are proud to join with the nation’s fishermen in calling for a more appropriate balance between the need for environmental conservation and the importance of maintaining the economic and social health of the nation’s commercial and recreational fishing communities.

Too often fisheries are being managed by artificial and arbitrary targets and timelines that bear little or no connection to our nation’s fish stocks or the working families that rely on them. FSF appreciates the efforts of a bipartisan group of legislators from Maine south to the Caribbean and west to the Gulf of Mexico who are trying to protect fishermen, their families, and the communities in which they live from these kinds of top-down laws that fail to account for local environmental and economic conditions.”
 
Atlantic sea scallop fishermen have long recognized the importance of improving and strengthening the management of the nation’s scallop fishery, and for more than a decade, they have been working constructively with officials at the federal, state and local levels to help design and build what is today one of most important sustainable fisheries in the country.

The Pew Trusts have issues a fact sheet citing New England Scallops, Mid-Atlantic Bluefish, and Pacific Lingcod as Fully Rebuilt Stocks.

The fact sheet states: Efforts to protect and rebuild America’s ocean fish populations are working. Rebounding fish populations create jobs, support coastal economies, repair damaged marine ecosystems, provide increased recreational fishing opportunities and bring back fresh, local seafood. The benefits of ending overfishing and rebuilding depleted fish populations are far-reaching, and the cost of further delay would be significant.

View fact sheet

Aboriginal fishermen on Georges Bank are worried. Very worried. For hundreds – if not thousands – of years their ancestors have fished the rugged, rocky coastlines and the more subdued shorelines and sandy beaches on and surrounding the Gulf of Maine, including Georges Bank.

From the sturdy hollowed log canoe of the Wampanoag to the reliable birch bark craft of the Mi'kmaq, Beothuk and Maliseet/Passamoquoddy peoples, native populations hunted many species of fish, as well as whales and seals.

After having been essentially excluded from the commercial fishery in Nova Scotia for some time, Aboriginal fisherman have seen a dramatic growth in their ranks in the past ten years and they are worried that this productive period could come to an abrupt end by the dangers posed by recent moves to approve oil and gas production on Georges Bank.

Read the complete story at Cape Cod Today.

The already twisted Nantucket Sound wind farm saga just got a bit stranger: A Wampanoag tribal member says it is "fabricated cosmology" that his tribe performs sun ceremonies that need an unobstructed view of the Sound — as the tribe has claimed in a campaign to halt the energy project off Cape Cod.

But the tribal member made the allegation only after his law firm was recently hired by the developers of the Cape Wind project.

Jeffrey Madison, a Martha’s Vineyard lawyer, wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that his father and grandfather were both medicine men of the tribe and "I am stating to you with complete honesty and knowledge that I never participated in, witnessed, or even heard of a sacred spot on the horizon that is relevant to any Aquinnah Wampanoag culture, history or ceremony. Nor did I see, or hear, either my father or grandfather conduct such ceremony."

Madison also submitted a petition to Salazar with eight signatures of other Wampanoag tribal members, saying they did not believe the wind turbines would "materially interfere with any significant cultural activity."

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Among the many motions to come out of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission winter meetings held last week in Alexandria, Va. was the one to find New Jersey out of compliance with the ASMFC when it comes to its coastal shark management plan.

That motion begins the process by which New Jersey shark fishery can be shut down.

Here it is as contained in ASMFC meeting summary:

"Move that the Spiny Dogfish & Coastal Sharks Management Board recommend to the ISFMP Policy Board that the state of New Jersey be found out of compliance for not fully and effectively implementing and enforcing the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Coastal Sharks. New Jersey has not implemented the regulations of the Interstate FMP for Atlantic Coastal Sharks. The implementation of these regulations is necessary to achieve the conservation goals and objectives of the FMP to rebuild depleted shark species and ensure sustainable harvest of others. In order to come back into compliance the state of New Jersey must implement all measures contained in the Interstate FMP for Atlantic Coastal Sharks."

Read the complete story at APP.

Well below the low-water line for news, the White House is moving to create a system for managing the space — surface and depth — of federal waters that amounts to ocean zoning and is known as "marine spatial planning."

If adopted by Congress and imposed, the new approach would force radical alteration of the historic American understanding of the "open seas" — by purpose, they would no longer be open and instead zoned for pre- and proscribed uses.

Gov. Deval Patrick has a state task force at work drafting a parallel zoning program for the three mile ribbon of state water inside the 200 mile federal water frame.

A simple model cited by the White House task force to exemplify the nature of marine spacial planning is how the main shipping channel through the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary was shifted slightly to the south about four years ago to reduce collisions with whales.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The wily striped bass – admired by New England fishermen for centuries – nearly disappeared from East Coast waters in the early 1980s. A series of fishing moratoriums restored the stocks, and today a Cape Cod scene is not complete without surfcasters trying their hand against the powerful fish.

But the number of young stripers in Chesapeake Bay, where many of New England’s fish come from, is mysteriously beginning to slip again, a warning sign that the population could be in trouble.

As scientists try to figure out why, a group of recreational fishermen is lobbying the Massachusetts Legislature to ban commercial fishing of stripers, exposing long-simmering animosities between some bass fishermen who cast for fun and those who do it for a living. Each group blames the other for the declining numbers – though research does not seem to implicate overfishing.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Several federal agencies that reviewed the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm felt they were "unnecessarily rushed" to finish their work before President George W. Bush left office, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Interior Department's inspector general.

A final environmental report on the project required under federal law was released by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) more than a year ago, only days before the changeover to the current administration.

While supporters praised the largely favorable review, opponents criticized it as premature and flawed.

The inspector general investigated the review of the project by MMS after receiving multiple complaints, including a petition-style letter from a staff member of the project's primary opposition group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, and a letter from the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Read the complete story at The Cape Cod Times.