Management & Regulation

NOAA Fisheries Service announces effective 0001 hours November 29, through 0001 hours December 3, 2010, a temporary removal of the 2,000-lb trip limit for the Atlantic herring fishery in Management Area 1A.

Read the complete notice from NOAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Rod Moore and Nils Stolpe of The Seafood Coalition have written a letter to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

They write "While we strongly support having a national fisheries science workshop, we are concerned that it be meaningful and yield products that the seafood industry can embrace.

We urge you to direct your staff to have the workshop developed and conducted by a credible independent science organization such as the School of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Science at the University of Washington or another which is acceptable to independent fishermen to avoid questions of conflict or politicization of science."

Read the letter here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean Emeritus Brian Rothschild of the UMass School for Marine Science and Fisheries (SMAST), and Director Paul Diodati of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), co-chairs of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute, the organization that produced the Economic and Scientific report submitted by Mass. Giov. Deval Patrick to Commerce Sec'y Gary Locke, discuss the Governor's request and the report.

The report was prepared by Steve Cadrin, Dan Georgianna, Kevin Stokesbury, Emily Keiley, & Cate O’Keefe of SMAST, and David Pierce, Melanie Griffin, Micah Dean & Story Reed of DMF.

[click here and listen now]

  Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

 

If you're a recreational angler, Catch Shares are coming to a fishery near you.

As it did with creation of the National Ocean Council, the Obama Administration is following an agenda set by green groups. This time around, that means expanding a management strategy for ocean fisheries that critics say is inherently anti-fishing and really is more about big-government intrusion into the sport than caring for the resource.

Some also charge that, at its worst, Catch Shares is a variation of a much discredited cap-and-trade energy policy, in which government limits access and gives away a public resource for commercial profit by a few.

But at least the latest news is good. With the release recently of its Catch Shares policy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, seem to be heeding the concerns of sportfishing advocates.

Read the complete story from ESPN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the turmoil in the Northeast, on Nov. 4, NOAA released a nationwide Policy on Catch Shares. In that document, NOAA commits itself to supporting new and existing catch shares systems by providing knowledge and other resources to regional Fisheries Management Councils pursuing catch share programs.

This bifurcated reality, with NOAA endorsing the spread of catch share systems around the nation while fishermen under catch shares in New England rail against them, is further polarizing two already divided worlds.

“Initially, we did not have a time when fishermen felt we were at war with the federal government,” said Richie Canastra, head of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction, at the New Bedford meeting. “There was a time when felt we would see the reward of our sacrifices.”  

The first six months of sector management in New England’s groundfish fleet are another reminder that those halcyon days are long gone.

Read the complete story from ecoRI News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear Nov. 9 as a panelist at the forum you hosted on fisheries management at the Fairfield Inn. While it was clear that there was plenty of disagreement in the room, it's clear that we all do share the goals of maintaining strong fishing communities and robust fisheries for generations to come.

I wanted to clear up some incorrect statements made during the evening so that as people evaluate fishery management options, they are basing their opinions on accurate information.

First, the statement that "most countries are getting rid of their catch share programs" is simply incorrect. In fact, out of nearly 300 programs in existence, there are only two such documented cases in the world (British Columbia abalone and chignik salmon in Alaska). In British Columbia, an individual quota system was halted and the fishery was ultimately closed because fish stocks failed to rebound, possibly due to illegal harvesting by non-licensed operators. In Alaska, the program — which succeeded in increasing profitability for fishermen and lengthening the season — was discontinued due to a lawsuit over the cooperatives' profit-sharing arrangement.

Read the complete letter from The South Coast Today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is now clear that when President Obama talks about creating or saving jobs, he is not talking about those of this region's fishermen.

Obama's choice to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, has demonstrated since her appointment in early 2009 that her goal is the opposite — to destroy fishermen's jobs. Earlier this month, the Obama administration formalized its support for the national implementation of the so-called "catch share" policy that Lubchenco has said she hopes would reduce the Massachusetts fishing fleet by a "sizable fraction."

Indeed, that is what catch shares have done in most of the two dozen American fisheries where it is already in place. Instead of spreading the wealth, it consolidates it into the hands of fewer, larger players. The system encourages fishermen to sell or trade their shares of a catch limit to other fishermen or to outside corporations or investors and makes a mockery of the administration's mantra of standing up for the middle class.

And according to a number of marine scientists, it doesn't do that much for the conservation of the resource — which is presumably the prime purpose of regulation.

Read the complete editorial from The Salem News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, December 16, 2010
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Urban Forestry Center
45 Elwyn Road., Portsmouth, NH 03801 There are several pressing decisions on the horizon related to river herring management in the Gulf of Maine:

    • implementation of Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Shad and River Herring of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
    • development of Amendment 5 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan of the New England Fishery Management Council
    • the Adaptive Management Plan for Alewife in the St. Croix River of the International Joint Commission of Canada and the United States; and
    • initiation of Amendment 14 to the Atlantic Mackerel Fishery Management Plan of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

This roundtable will provide an update on each of these developments and discuss the dove-tailing of these different management actions as they relate to river herring.

Speakers:

    • Jamie Cournane, University of New Hampshire/Environmental Defense Fund
    • Jake Kritzer, Environmental Defense Fund
    • Terry Stockwell and Joan Trial, Maine Department of Marine Resources

For more information contact:
Rachel Feeney, Northeast Consortium
603-862-2276, rachel.feeney@unh.edu
The Portsmouth Public Library is handicap accessible. Light refreshments will be served.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the founding of North Carolina, it has been accepted as fact that if you work hard, if you persevere, if you are determined, and if you are lucky, you can be a fisherman.  You can own your boat. You can be your own boss. You can feed your family and the larger community. And you can put smiles on the faces and adventurous memories in the minds of countless charter customers who you help experience the wonder and mysteries of our waters.

The only apparent problem with this scenario of being independent, of being a self reliant contributor to society, of providing a service for others is that you do not necessarily get rich.  The fishermen do not seem to find this to be a problem, but an alleged environmental group called the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) does.

 That’s right, even though its employees do not live here or fish for a living, this group has decided that North Carolina’s fishing communities need to be fixed.  Or, in their words, they need to be “more vibrant.”  

EDF has published an endless stream of slick brochures and publications, held numerous conferences, and attempted to enlist numerous fishermen in an attempt to explain how society — make that the government  — can implement a plan that will “create vibrant fishing communities”.  

The plan is called catch shares.  If you eat fish or like to catch fish, catch shares will affect you.  

The Environmental Defense Fund has been the driving force behind this concept. The group has spent thousands and thousands of dollars promoting this concept.  (In the name of full disclosure, I went to Vancouver, B.C., on EDF’s dime to learn about it.) 

Catch shares are here.  They are, as you read this, being implemented by NOAA through the National Marine Fisheries Service. The goal is to reduce the number of working watermen in the United States by more than 60 percent.  The propaganda “informs” fishermen that the ones left standing, after their neighbors are economically destroyed, will be able to get rich and somehow fishing towns and villages will then “be vibrant.”

Welcome to catch shares.  They are designed to kill off the fishermen.  The infrastructure will then die and then somehow, according to the slick brochures produced by EDF and edited by the finest legal minds they can hire, fewer fishing boats and fewer fishermen will result in “vibrant fishing communities.”

Just what is a catch share?  A catch share is an exclusive guarantee that whoever holds the catch share has the exclusive right to harvest a certain percentage of the total allowable catch of a particular species of marine life.  That’s a mouthful, and you read it correctly.  

It does not grant the right to catch a certain number of fish each year.  How many fish can be caught is a number that National Marine Fisheries Service already determines and has imposed on fishermen for years. So if catch shares is not about saving fish, since we already have that scientific process in place, you may be wondering just what the purpose is.

The catch share program is not about how many fish can be caught.  Catch shares is only about who gets to catch fish.  Catch shares can be bought, they can be sold, and they can be leased or traded.  

So the logical question is what is the conservation advantage of catch shares?  The answer is that there is no conservation advantage.  Catch shares policy is about taking the right to fish away from the masses, from those individuals who want to become fishermen for a lifetime or for a day, and giving that right to harvest fish to a select few.  Catch shares is designed to privatize the ocean.  As a free American citizen, you might want to think about that one for awhile.

Who will get catch shares? Basically, it will be those with the best past history of landings.  That’s right — those who have caught the most in the past will be selected to keep on fishing — in the name of conservation and, of course, “vibrant fishing communities.”

Read the complete commentary from The Island Free Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang joins Bob & Phil to discuss his request, joined by Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, to the Commerce Department Inspector General asking that the fisheries rule-making process be reviewed to include the activities of NOAA and NMFS.  The mayor also discussed the Standard-Times Fishery Forum and his conversation at the event with NMFS director Eric Schwaab.

[click here and listen now]