Opinion

November 13, 2013 — They drove home an important message — namely, that the fishing industry essentially serves as the farming or harvesting of the sea, and that the threats faced by the industry, in Gloucester and elsewhere, is frighteningly similar to the crisis that first drove the family farm to the brink of extinction years ago as well.

We’ve noted a number of times that, by steering more of the catch toward larger corporations through its catch share management system, NOAA is driving the entire industry toward an agribusiness of the seas, freezing out the small independent boats in the process.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times

November 12, 2013 — Recently, the California DFW closed the commercial fishery for market squid a month earlier than the year before. This was the fourth straight year that the California squid fishery closed early. The difference this year, unlike the past, was that the Department collaborated with the squid industry on day-to-day management, including the closure date.

Squid fishermen and seafood processors, working with the Department, tracked catches daily from season start in April. They determined that the season’s harvest limit of 118,000 short tons of market squid would be reached early because squid began spawning far earlier than normal  in Southern California in 2013, a fact documented by industry-sponsored squid research.
 
This uncommon industry initiative – a precedent-setting voluntary effort to cooperatively manage the squid fishery – represents a big step forward for conservation and responsible fishing.
 
Beginning in 2010, the superabundance of squid available to California fishermen was the product of a decadal resource “boom” the likes of which had not been experienced since 1999. Strong La Niña conditions produced a perfect storm of enhanced ocean productivity and market squid took advantage.
 
The fishery responded in kind, and markets increased their packing capacity to process the abundance. The squid fishery exceeded the seasonal catch limit in both 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.
 
In 2012-13, in lieu of proposed “slow down” restrictions that the industry opposed, the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA), a nonprofit organization representing the wetfish industry – including squid – volunteered to help track landings at the end of season. CWPA received full cooperation from participating markets, which helped to validate the Department’s preliminary totals.
 
Department representatives attended the CWPA annual meeting in March 2013 and discussed ways to improve in-season tracking of squid landings to achieve the goal of attaining the total allowable catch as closely as possible without exceeding the catch limit.
 
CWPA members volunteered to submit landing receipts daily in order to help track landings virtually in real time from the season start in 2013, and the collaboration between industry and agency began.
 
All major squid processors signed the CWPA agreement. The Department established a single email address to accept daily landing receipts so markets could voluntarily scan and submit via email.
 
In addition, it provided a website where markets could voluntarily upload scanned landing receipts, if they preferred.  Additionally, the Department agreed to create and post landing updates on CDFW’s market squid page for individual processors and fishermen to monitor fishery progress.
 
CWPA also tracked daily landings, receiving virtually 100 percent support from both markets and fishermen. Perhaps the most amazing phase of the initiative came after CDFW confirmed landings had reached 100,000 tons. The entire industry – markets and fleet – set up a voluntary fishing schedule to slow the catches to facilitate tracking.
 
With landings approaching the maximum cap, the fleet slowed fishing to three-day weeks, and only two days the last week, stopping one day short of the Department’s announced closure date, after projecting that another day fishing might exceed the 118,000 ton catch limit.
 
 “The industry effort to voluntarily submit landings daily and slow squid fishing activity near the end was helpful to CDFW both for tracking and predicting catches,” said CDFW senior squid biologist Briana Brady.“This type of cooperative effort is an excellent example of how we can incorporate constituent involvement to achieve the Marine Life Management Act’s goal of maintaining sustainable California fisheries.
 
CWPA hopes this unique partnership with the Department to advance knowledge of the squid resource and help manage the squid fishery in California will serve as a model for other fisheries.

 
D.B. Pleschner has 33 years of fishing industry experience and is the executive director of the non-profit California Wetfish Producers Association, whose mission is to conserve wetfish resources and promote the historic industry. She is a former contributing editor of Pacific Fishing magazine, and manager of the California Seafood Council. 

November 8, 2013 — Gloucester’s Angela Sanfilippo testified before members of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Oceans Atmosphere and Coast Guard on Monday. Below is her testimony about the need of the Magnuson-Stevens Act to contain new provisions that will protect the fishermen, their families, and the fishing community as much as the Act protects the fish.

I was born into a fishing family and spent my young years on the shore of a small fishing village in Sicily. I came to the United States at the age of 13, attended Gloucester High School and graduated in 1969 with honors.

In the same year, a group of women of the Gloucester fishing community formed the GFWA with the purpose of establishing the MSA. In 1970, I married my husband John, a Gloucester fisherman, so I too became the wife of fisherman. In 1974, we bought our own first fishing boat.

As the president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association since 1977 and the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership since 2008, I accepted the invitation to testify here today on behalf of the people that I represent.

I believe that the MSA needs to be reauthorized because it lacks some very fundamental provisions to sustain this important way of life for present and future generations. Specifically the new reauthorized MSA must contain flexibility stability, responsibility and accountability.

Angela Sanfilippo is president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, executive director of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership, and director of support service of the Fishing Partnership of Support Service organization.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Daily Times 

November 7, 2013 — The best available science provides compelling justification for the catch limits that were set by the New England Fishery Management Council and approved by federal fisheries officials. The number of Atlantic cod on Georges Bank, for example, is roughly 8 percent of what a healthy, sustainable population should be. Rebuilding this extremely overfished stock is difficult but important.

There is no strict requirement in federal fisheries law that all stocks must be rebuilt within 10 years. The law allows flexibility for species whose biology or circumstances require more time to recover. Four of the rebuilding plans for overfished New England fish populations, for example, are based on schedules longer than 10 years, including Georges Bank cod, which has a 22-year plan.

The National Research Council report, which the column references, does not say that the current approach to rebuilding overfished stocks is all wrong. In fact, the report says that the current rebuilding approach has "demonstrated successes in "¦ rebuilding overfished stocks" and that "the long-term net economic benefits" have been "positive."

Read the full letter at the New Bedford Standard-Times

November 6, 2013 — Monday’s Boston hearing did not focus on how to throw money at the fishing crisis, but on carrying our reforms to the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

For too many years, NOAA officials have been allowed to ignore one important act “standard” that requires the feds to take into account the economic impact of any new regulations and policies on fishing communities such as Gloucester.

Since May 1 — the start of the new commercial season — the dire catch limits clamped on Gulf of Maine cod and other species by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has turned the spotlight on the industry’s increasingly urgent need.

The need is for a financial aid package addressing what had been recognized by the Department of Commerce as a legitimate “economic disaster.” Congressman John Tierney and other federal lawmakers had sought to provide relief for months.

In recent weeks, some signs of that potential aid have surfaced.

First came a pool of up to $10 million in NOAA money through the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act. Yes, that’s just a tenth of what the 1954 act meant to provide when it was designed to steer 30 percent of all imported seafood tariff money toward marketing the domestic fishing industry and funding improvements for it. But the $10 million has spurred a rash of applications, including a total of seven from Gloucester alone.

Then came a Small Business Administration low-interest loan program just approved Friday for fishermen or waterfront businesses who could get up to $2 million each at a rate of 4 percent over up to 30 years — if they qualify for it, which most struggling fishermen cannot.

Read the full opinion piece at the Newburyport Daily News

November 5, 2013 — Since May 1 – the dawn of the new commercial season — the dire catch limits clamped on Gulf of Maine cod and other species by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has turned the spotlight on the industry’s increasingly urgent need.

That’s some type of financial aid package addressing what had been recognized by the Department of Commerce as a legitimate “economic disaster,” for which Congressman John Tierney and other federal lawmakers had sought to provide relief for months.

In recent weeks, some signs of that potential aid have surfaced.

First came a pool of up to $10 million in NOAA money through the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act. Yes, that’s just a tenth of what the 1954 act meant to provide when it was designed to steer 30 percent of all imported seafood tariff money toward marketing the domestic fishing industry and funding improvements for it. But the $10 million has spurred a rash of applications, including a total of seven from Gloucester alone.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Daily Times

November 3, 2013 — The SBA loan approval is a positive step, but, like the limited grant program that may allocated up to $10 million in Saltonstall-Kennedy Act funds for innovated fishery improvement projects, is just another tiny step toward confronting a giant economic problem.

The approval by the federal Small Business Administration of a low-interest loan program for fishermen and fishing-related business is, as noted in Saturday’s Times story, good news for fishing families and waterfront businesses in communities such as Gloucester and others along the Massachusetts coast into New Hampshire.

After all, if this program helps one fishing boat owner or one other struggling waterfront business to stay afloat — it will be a good investment.

But Massachusetts congressional leaders and Gov. Deval Patrick had better be aware that the SBA program may indeed not help more than a handful of fishermen when easily hundreds are in dire need of federal and state assistance. That’s because the conditions mapped out by the SBA may block the vast majority of fishermen from even qualifying for the financing.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times

November 4, 2013 — A couple of dozen boat owners don't matter a hill of beans to the federal government. But these men pursued the American dream, worked hard, played by the rules, and in the end were left with worse than nothing.

That's just wrong.

Imagine, for a moment, that you would like to retire and draw your pension from the fund into which you've been paying for years, maybe decades.

Then imagine that your pension fund turns around and tells you that you may collect the monthly check for $500 or so, but at the same time you have to cough up a half million dollars to cover your share of the pension fund's unfunded obligations to its 600 or so beneficiaries.

Does that sound reasonable? I didn't think so.

But this isn't far-fetched. For a handful of New Bedford groundfishermen, it is real life.

Everyone knows by now that the federal government has clamped down on fishing for all the reasons I don't need to get into here.

So that has stopped almost all the groundfish boats from fishing. That, in turn, has nearly cut off the supply of funds being paid into the New Bedford Fishermen's Pension Fund, which collects 2.2 percent off the top of the catch of every boat, before expenses.

That, plus the recession of 2008 that drained $4 million from the assets of the fund, leaves the fund underwater with only 80 percent of the assets it needs to meet its obligations.

And as you might expect, there's nobody to bail it out. Too small. No Wall Street safety net. No bonuses for the managers who preside over the mess. No sympathy from the green eyeshade crowd that sees the cold, hard numbers.

I sat last Friday in a corner of the ballroom at the Fishermen's Club on Orchard Street in the South End with the pension funds actuary, its trustees, a couple of lawyers, and about eight angry and desperate boat owners/operators who are trapped in this dilemma, and who insisted that a reporter stay in the room so you could learn about the fix they are in.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

October 31, 2013 — The following opinion piece was written by Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF):

It is always interesting but rarely informative to read the often whining editorial opinions that emanate from the nation’s richest fishing port, New Bedford. The recent column, “Don’t take NOAA for an answer” (New Bedford Standard Times, October 28, 2013), is no exception.

Why former Congressman Frank—the reigning political champion for the chronic overfishing that led to the loss of so many groundfishing jobs and fish product in the region—would find anything to “gloat” about from a report that supports fishery management actions in New England that he routinely opposed and that fundamentally blesses a fishery law that he voted against is beyond my ken.

The report, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States,” was prepared for the National Research Council by an eminent international panel of fisheries experts. It is a good read and an important document. But you have to actually read it, not just grab talking points that suit pre-existing opinions or biases. The report actually reaches none of the conclusions claimed for it by the Standard Times column.

Read the full opinion piece by Peter Shelly at TalkingFish