Management & Regulation

Phil Paleologos of WBSM radio interviews Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk about the Washington, DC fisheries rally.

[click here to listen now]

 

 

 

To the editor:

If the uninformed or misinformed general public don't know why we, as fishermen, are so upset, allow me to present, for your consideration, a hypothetical analogy for the moment.

Let's suppose that Magnuson-Stevens Act landed on shore regulating a variety of issues. What would be the implications of it implementation, as it is currently interpreted and applied, mean to the general public?

Would we be required, within a 10-year time frame to rebuild native flora and fauna to their historic levels of abundance?

Would neighborhoods be bulldozed and families dislocated to replenish spotted salamanders? Would it be mandated that we bring back wolves, panthers, and other high level predators, to their former niches in the ecosystem?

Perhaps most importantly, consider the indigenous people of this continent: Would we return their traditional lands?

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The West Coast fishing industry rooted for Arne Fuglvog, a commercial fisherman from Alaska who works as a legislative assistant for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. In July, Fuglvog dropped his name from consideration, citing conflicts presented by the long vetting process.

On the East Coast, fishermen joined U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in advocating for Dr. Brian Rothschild, a fisheries scientist and former NOAA Fisheries policy advisor who collaborates with the fishing industry in his work at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology in New Bedford, Mass.

Lubchenco finally made the appointment this month, choosing Eric Schwabb to head up the fisheries agency. Schwabb, who has spent the past 23 years working in various roles (most recently as Deputy Secretary) for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Winning the support and trust of commercial fishermen will prove difficult, especially in New England where the industry was surprised and upset by Lubchenco’s decision to overlook Rothschild and appoint someone lacking a background in  fisheries science.

Schwabb, who holds a bachelor’s in biology and a master’s in geography and environmental planning, admitted he is “just a regular guy,” not a scientist. But he said his management experience speaks for itself. He has directed Maryland’s Fisheries Service, Forest Service and its Forest, Wildlife and Heritage Service. Outside of state work, he served as the resource director for the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies in Washington, D.C.

“I think he’s got good experience for the job,” said Lee Crockett, fisheries policy director for the Pew Environment Group. “He’s had a long career here in Maryland as a natural resources manager and he’s worked in enforcement. I am more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Read the complete story at Three Beats Word Press.

Chatham fishermen worry that bureaucratic red tape will keep them from catching the fish they say will allow them to survive another year.

Usually, scientific studies showing fish population declines drive harsher regulations. But this year, new rules due to be implemented in May slash the catch of skates and pollock even though the scientists have information that those populations may actually be more robust than previously believed.

In the case of dogfish, the stock is booming and has even been declared "rebuilt" by one major regulatory body, but strict quotas remain in place because of a decade-old numbers dispute between the federal fisheries service and the regional fishery management councils.

"If we can't find a way to get higher skate and dogfish quota, and to get more pollock … we'll see fishing businesses go under in 2010," said Thomas Dempsey, a policy analyst with the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association.

Read the complete story at Cape Cod Times.

Members of the federal fisheries board who voted to consider increasing the coastal commercial striped bass harvest had to know they'd just thrown a brick at a hornet's nest. At its winter meeting the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Striped Bass Management Board approved an addendum that could give commercial fishers a larger quota, igniting an impassioned debate.

It's not surprising that commercial fishermen and sport anglers would squabble over allocation. Yet, despite the recent coastal stock assessment that found healthy numbers of stripers, this motion is contentious because it comes at a time when rockfish face serious challenges.

Unlike the crash of the early 1980s when overfishing was the obvious culprit, today's problems are more insidious. Chief among them is mycobacteriosis, a potentially fatal disease that causes Chesapeake stripers to lose body mass and mars them with nasty lesions. Myco was first diagnosed in the bay in 1997, and subsequent studies in Virginia and Maryland found the disease in more than two-thirds of the stripers sampled.

Read the complete story at Hometown Annapolis.

"It's almost Darwinian. It will be survival of the fittest," said Joshua B. Wiersma, Ph.D., the Northeast Seafood Coalition's resource economist and sector analyst.

Representatives from this port's unloading branch of the Boston Seafood Display Auction, Ocean Crest Seafood Co. Inc., Steve Connolly Seafood Co, and the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, including one of its auction seat-holders, explain what they as fish handlers fear about the industry's new management scheme, and several tell how it could change the way they do business.

"The purpose of sectors is to alleviate overfishing and discards and to consolidate the fleet. It's also a way for NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) to put the burden of management on the industry. I don't believe we need to further consolidate the industry, I think there is enough fish to sustain the existing fleet," explained Bill Holler, vice president of seafood purchasing and operations for Legal Seafoods.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The troika that is wrecking the family fishing fleet is composed of government bureaucrats, environmentalists and economists.

They are all governed by good intentions, but this is confirmation of the saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Easiest to understand are bureaucrats.

Bureaucrats obey only power, the power of the law. And we would not want them to act otherwise. So, if we believe there is something wrong in what they do, we do not address them. We correct the law under which they operate.

Hence the call to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act. You can see the specific requests to Congress at www.care2.com; search for Magnuson Act; sign your name, and add your reasons for signing, if you will. Many, from all over the world, are doing just that with poignant words.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

"It appears to many that we are rushing to put into place a major revision of the way we manage our resources — a revision that affects communities, jobs, our economy, welfare — without the analysis, the planning, the budgetary considerations, the costs and benefits, the statements of conservation consequences that typically accompanies federal actions of this magnitude."  –Brian Rothschild

Brian Rothschild, a nationally influential research biologist revered in most New England's ports, has proposed a one-year moratorium in the regional imposition of catch shares, a re-engineering of the fishing industry that is to start May 1 when cooperatives will begin working off allocations.

The catch share system, innovated and championed by the Environmental Defense Fund and made the Obama administration's panacea for the ails of the fishing industry, gives fishermen catching rights and encourages the development of an investor-strengthened commodities market, but also has a track record in American and foreign fisheries of bringing about radical consolidation — fewer big businesses supplanting the large numbers of small boats that for centuries have made up the New England industry.

"Many of our fishermen feel that the catch share system will not be economically viable," Rothschild said. "They feel that various sectors will become bankrupt in a relatively short period of time because the quotas of fish assigned to the sectors are too small to be economically feasible.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Each week, WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosts the Saving Seafood Hour on "Morning Magazine with Phil Paleologos."

Vito Giacalone, Policy Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, discusses issues surrounding the planned transition to Sector Management.

[click here to listen now]

 

 

 

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and Congressman Barney Frank yesterday released a letter asking for the National Academy of Sciences to weigh in on the "economic and ecological consequences" of committing to the full recovery of all fish stocks at the same deadline as required by federal law.

"We would like to see an independent, scientific analysis of the Magnuson-Stevens Act's 10-year rebuilding timeline mandate to determine whether it is appropriate and attainable standard," Snow and Frank wrote to Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The letter from Maine Republican and Massachusetts Democrat was dated Tuesday.

The letter was distributed to the media yesterday — a week before recreational and commercial fishermen from three coasts are planning to meet on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to lobby to convince Congress to clarify Magnuson language that requires the end of "overfishing" for all stocks by a 10-year deadline.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.