Two days after a ‘private interview’ with NOAA Administrator JaneLubchenco, following her "grand challenge" on oceans, the New BedfordStandard-Times, a Dow Jones Local Media Group (Ottaway) paper, observedthat "it will take more than careful planning to ensure that the oceansare preserved for all those uses."
The paper’s editorial states that "It will take investment and lots ofit by the federal government, especially in scientific research" inorder to "enable regulators to balance the need to protect oceanresources with the need to ensure that people can continue to use thoseresources to sustain themselves and their communities." Such a balanceis mandated under Federal law by National Standard 8 of theMagnusen-Stevens Act.
The Standard-Times also observed that "with hundreds of groundfishermenon the verge of being forced from an industry that can no longersupport them under current regulation, the federal government has anobligation to provide the authoritative science necessary for sensibleregulation of the fishery….Without it, hundreds of lives will beaffected as ever-tighter regulation makes it impossible for manyfishermen and industries that depend on them to sustain themselves." The paper concludes "Surely that is not what Lubchenco meant when shechallenged Americans to declare the reclamation of our oceans as apowerful vision that might help unite a great people"
Read about "New Bedford’s Next Great Quest" at the South Coast Today’s website.