Last week’s two-day seminar on the dynamic potential in transforming the commonly owned resources of the sea into private, tradeable catch shares produced many concerns and worries.
But only one voice was heard against the transformation already underway in New England — and that voice was muted and constrained at that.
Food & Water Watch was the conference contrarian. A Washington-based, non-profit, consumer group, Food & Water Watch has staked out a lonely position in unequivocal opposition to privatizing common wealth and the creation of a limited-access commodities market in fisheries. That’s the expressed top priority of the Obama administration for reinventing fisheries conservation through catch shares, industry management and product availability on the world market.