Saving Seafood

Biden administration may reinstate Northeast marine monument restrictions

June 16, 2021 — The Biden administration could reinstate commercial fishing restrictions on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument – and bring a new court challenge from the fishing industry, just months after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts indicated he would be open to hearing a new case.

Reports Monday in the Washington Post and New York Times described a recommendation from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to restore boundaries of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, which were established by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and cut back by former president Donald Trump in December 2017.

At the urging of ocean environmental groups, Obama imposed commercial fishing restrictions after establishing the 5,000-square mile Northeast marine monument in December 2018. In June 2020, Trump issued a new proclamation lifting those rules.

Within hours of President Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, environmental groups pressed him to reimpose fishing restrictions, and fishing advocates mobilized, hoping to head that off.

How Biden decides this could set the stage for a new challenge to presidential authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which critics say has expanded far beyond its original intent.

“A commercial fishing ban serves no conservation benefit,” said James Budi of the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, which has urged the Biden administration to hold off on renewing restrictions.

Officials at NMFS themselves say “pelagic longline gear used to catch swordfish has no impact on habitat,” said Budi. “Fishing impact on the monument below us is like a bird flying over the Grand Canyon.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Haaland recommends reimposing fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 14, 2021 — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended in a confidential report that President Biden restore full protections to three national monuments diminished by President Donald Trump, including Utah’s Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and a huge marine reserve off New England. The move, described by two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not yet public, would preserve about 5 million acres of federal land and water.

A broad coalition of conservationists, scientists and tribal activists has urged Biden to expand the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which were established by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively, to their original boundaries. Trump cut Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante almost in half, in December 2017. A year ago, he permitted commercial fishing on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which removed most of the monument’s protections.

The White House is still deliberating, according to these people, but Biden favors the idea of overturning Trump’s actions. Employing the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad latitude to protect threatened land and water, ranks as one of the easiest ways for Biden to conserve areas unilaterally.

All three areas have been embroiled in legal fights for years. Fishing operators challenged Obama’s 2016 decision to restrict commercial activities for 4,913 square miles off Cape Cod, Mass., which banned seabed mining and some fishing activities immediately while giving lobster and red crab operators seven years to stop fishing there. The region is home to many species of deep-sea coral, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and deep-diving marine mammals, as well as massive underground canyons and seamounts that rise as high as 7,700 feet from the ocean floor.

“This area is very important to us,” Jim Budi, an official with the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, said in an interview. He added that his members brought in about 25 percent of their annual catch from the region last summer after Trump lifted commercial fishing restrictions. They’ve sustainably caught swordfish by staying below limits set by federal regulators, he said.

Reviving the Obama-era limits, Budi said, “doesn’t do any conservation good, whatsoever.”

Still, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gave some conservatives hope three months ago when he sharply criticized the expanse of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Noting that the law was initially aimed at protecting Pueblo artifacts in the Southwest, he said the accompanying protected land must “be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

“A statute permitting the President in his sole discretion to designate as monuments ‘landmarks,’ ‘structures,’ and ‘objects’ — along with the smallest area of land compatible with their management — has been transformed into a power without any discernible limit to set aside vast and amorphous expanses of terrain above and below the sea,” Roberts wrote, as the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court decision on the monument. “The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument at issue in this case demonstrates how far we have come from indigenous pottery.”

Atlantic Red Crab Company owner Jon Williams, who has intervened in an ongoing lawsuit to defend Trump’s changes to the monument, said he wouldn’t hesitate to challenge the administration should it reimpose restrictions there.

“I’m already standing by,” he said. “And we’ve already been given a road map to the Supreme Court.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Welcomes Atlantic Red Crab Company as Newest Member

November 5, 2020 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) is pleased to announce that the Atlantic Red Crab Company has become the latest company to join the Center’s Industry Advisory Board. With this new addition to our growing list of industry partners, the Center is ready to continue its record of collaborative fisheries research.

For the past 7 years, SCEMFIS has brought together leading academic researchers and members of the fishing industry to identify the most pressing needs in marine science research. With the support of its industry partners, SCEMFIS scientists have published innovate studies providing new understanding of finfsh and shellfish. In 2020 alone, the Center funded $191,000 in new research projects addressing these priorities.

“The Atlantic Red Crab Company has been involved in cooperative science for years, and sees this opportunity to join SCEMFIS as a way to leverage resources and gain a broader scientific perspective,” says Jon Williams, owner of the Atlantic Red Crab Company.

Based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the Atlantic Red Crab Company harvests red crab in the waters of the Northeast U.S. The red crab fishery is sustainably managed, and red crab is listed as a “good alternative” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.

“The Atlantic Red Crab Company is a great new addition to SCEMFIS,” said Greg DiDomenico, the Chair of SCEMFIS. “Their commitment to sustainability and collaborative research closely aligns with the Center’s mission.”

SCEMFIS, established in 2013, is one of the centers in the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program, which facilitates collaborative research between academia and industry. This year, SCEMFIS researchers have published studies on the economic impact of the squid and summer flounder fisheries; how the federal government did not properly consider the impact offshore wind development has on fisheries; the current state of the Atlantic menhaden stock; and ways to improve the management of gray seals and the fisheries that interact with them.

About SCEMFIS

SCEMFIS utilizes academic and fisheries resources to address urgent scientific problems limiting sustainable fisheries. SCEMFIS develops methods, analytical and survey tools, datasets, and analytical approaches to improve sustainability of fisheries and reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates. SCEMFIS university partners, University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution), and Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, are the academic sites. Collaborating scientists who provide specific expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal research, come from a wide range of academic institutions including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of Rhode Island.

The need for the diverse services that SCEMFIS can provide to industry continues to grow, which has prompted a steady increase in the number of fishing industry partners. These services include immediate access to science expertise for stock assessment issues, rapid response to research priorities, and representation on stock assessment working groups. Targeted research leads to improvements in data collection, survey design, analytical tools, assessment models, and other needs to reduce uncertainty in stock status and improve reference point goals.

Return of Fishing in Atlantic Marine Monument Spurs Legal Challenge

June 18, 2020 — Two weeks after President Donald Trump opened the door to commercial fishing in scientifically important ocean waters off the coast of Cape Cod, environmentalists shot back Wednesday with a federal complaint.

“From our perspective, President Trump seemed to know, actually, very little about what the purpose of the monument was or what it was trying to accomplish when he signed his proclamation,” Conservation Law Foundation senior counsel Peter Shelley said in a phone call Wednesday.

“We’ve been in there for 40 years,” Jon Williams, owner of the Atlantic Red Crab Company, told Trump. “And so if the environmental groups can deem the place pristine and we’ve been operating in that area for 40 years and they can’t find any evidence where we’ve done any damage, I would say we’ve been pretty good stewards of that 5,000 miles.”

Coinciding with Wednesday’s lawsuit, the New England Fishing Management Council unveiled new steps it has taken to protect fragile corals, specifically by prohibiting the use of bottom-tending commercial fishing gear in areas where corals are common.

“We’ve said from the beginning that fishery management councils are best suited to address the complicated tradeoffs involved in managing fisheries, and we appreciate regaining our control to do so in the monument area,” John Quinn, chairman of the council, said in a statement.

“The monument area will not be ‘wide open to industrial fishing,’” Tom Nies, the council’s executive director, said in a statement.

“The council worked hard to walk that fine line between providing strong habitat and coral protections in the area while balancing the social and economic impacts to the industry,” Nies continued. “We don’t think the recent criticism from the environmental community since the announcement of the second monument proclamation is entirely warranted. Existing fishery management measures provide strong protections for Lydonia and Oceanographer Canyons, and with the coral amendment, we’re preventing commercial fishing from expanding beyond its historical footprint. The council took this step while carefully weighing the associated impacts. We look forward to the implementation our amendment.”

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

National Coalition for Fishing Communities: An Open Letter to America’s Chefs

October 31, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

Members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities have long believed that the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) is one of the great success stories in fisheries management. Originally co-sponsored in the House over 40 years ago by Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts), the MSA has become a worldwide model, and is one of the reasons the U.S. has some of the best-managed and most sustainable fish stocks in the world. The bill is named for its Senate champions, Warren Magnuson (D-Washington) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

But we are concerned by a new “nationwide #ChefsForFish campaign targeted at the new 2019 Congress, to launch after the elections in early November,” being organized by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which the Aquarium calls the “next phase” of its “defense” of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Monterey Bay Aquarium described this campaign in an October 25 email sent to its “Blue Ribbon Task Force chefs.” The email asked this network of chefs to support the “Portland Pact for Sustainable Seafood” (attached).

On the surface, the Portland Pact matter-of-factly states sound principles:

  • “Requiring management decisions be science-based;
  • Avoiding overfishing with catch limits and tools that hold everyone accountable for the fish that they remove from the ocean; and
  • Ensuring the timely recovery of depleted fish stocks.”

However, in the last Congress, the Monterey Bay Aquarium used similar language to falsely characterize legitimate attempts to pass needed improvements to the MSA as betraying these principles. In fact, these changes would have made the landmark law even better.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has repeatedly called on Congress to reject efforts, such as H.R. 200, which passed the U.S. House in July, and was sponsored by the now Dean of the House Don Young, that would amend the Act to introduce needed updates for U.S. fisheries management. If the chefs being asked to sign onto the Portland Pact were to talk to our fishermen, they would know how important these reforms are for the health of our nation’s fishing communities.

Any suggestion that the original co-sponsor of the bill would, 40 years later, act to undermine America’s fisheries, is inappropriate. In fact, most of the “fishing groups” that opposed Congressman Young’s bill, are financially supported by environmental activists and their funders.

No legislation, no matter how well designed is perfect or timeless. In fact, Congress has twice made significant revisions to the MSA, first in 1996 with the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act and in 2007 with the MSA Reauthorization Act. Like many other valued and successful laws, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is both working well, and in need of updates.

We agree that “management decisions be science-based.” One of the most significant issues with the current MSA is that it requires that fish stocks be rebuilt according to rigid, arbitrary timeframes that have no scientific or biological basis. Bills like H.R. 200, officially the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, would instead require that stocks be rebuilt according to an appropriate biological timeframe determined by the regional councils that manage the stocks.

H.R. 200 would also introduce other important measures that would better allow the councils to adapt their management plans to fit changing ecological conditions and the needs of fishing communities, which will become increasingly important as our coastal areas experience the effects of climate change.

American fishermen, like many American chefs, are committed to sustainable fishing and healthy oceans. Our businesses need sustainable, abundant fish stocks for us to make a living, and we all want a thriving resource that we can pass down to the next generation. We would never endorse a law that would threaten the long-term survival of our environment or our industry. That is why we endorse changes to the MSA that would ensure both.

We ask that any chef who is considering signing onto the Monterey Bay Aquarium letter to Congress first consult the local fishermen who supply them with fresh, quality products to learn how this law affects their communities.

NCFC members are available to connect chefs with seafood industry leaders, who would be happy to discuss how the MSA can be updated to help both fish and fishermen.

Sincerely,

Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
Kathy Fosmark, Co-Chair
CA

Atlantic Red Crab Company
Jon Williams, President
MA

California Wetfish Producers Association
Diane Pleschner-Steele
CA

Delmarva Fisheries Association
Capt. Rob Newberry, Chairman
MD, VA

Fishermen’s Dock Co-Op
Jim Lovgren, Board Member
NJ

Garden State Seafood Association
Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director
NJ

Hawaii Longline Association
Sean Martin, Executive Director
HI

Long Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association
Bonnie Brady, Executive Director
NY

Lunds Fisheries, Inc.
Wayne Reichle, President
CA, NJ

Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance
Rich Fuka, Executive Director
RI

Seafreeze, Ltd.
Meghan Lapp, Fisheries Liaison
RI

Southeastern Fisheries Association
Bob Jones, Executive Director
FL

Viking Village
Jim Gutowski, Owner
NJ

West Coast Seafood Processors Association
Lori Steele, Executive Director
CA, WA, OR

Western Fishboat Owners Association
Wayne Heikkila, Executive Director
AK, CA, OR, WA

PRESS CONTACT

Bob Vanasse
bob@savingseafood.org 
202-333-2628

View the letter here

 

East and West Coast NCFC Members: ‘H.R. 200 Will Create Flexibility Without Compromising Conservation’

June 25, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Today, East and West Coast members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) submitted a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in support of H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, which would update the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The letter, which was also sent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Emeritus Don Young, and other top Congressional officials, states that H.R. 200 will “create flexibility without compromising conservation.”

“We want a Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that allows for both sustainable fisheries management, and the long-term preservation of our nation’s fishing communities,” the groups wrote. “We firmly believe that Congress can meet these goals by allowing for more flexibility in management, eliminating arbitrary rebuilding timelines, and adding other reforms that better take into account the complex challenges facing commercial fishermen.”

The letter does not include support from the NCFC’s Florida, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic members, which supported the legislation from the beginning, but withdrew their support due to a late change to the Manager’s Amendment that would negatively impact their region. The NCFC’s East and West Coast members continue to support the bill on its overall merits, but share the concerns of Gulf and South Atlantic fishermen over this late alteration.

Organizations affiliated with the NCFC do not accept money from ENGOs, and represent the authentic views of the U.S. commercial fishing industry.

The letter signers represent the American Scallop Association, Atlantic Red Crab Company, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, BASE Seafood, California Wetfish Producers Association, Cape Seafood, Garden State Seafood Association, Inlet Seafood, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Lund’s Fisheries, North Carolina Fisheries Association, Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, Seafreeze Ltd., Town Dock, West Coast Seafood Processors Association, and Western Fishboat Owners Association.

Read the full letter here

 

Review renews debate over first Atlantic marine national monument

August 7, 2017 — BOSTON — During his eight years in office, former President Obama protected more than 550 million acres of public land and water as national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Unlike creating a national park, which requires an act of Congress, a president can declare a national monument to protect “objects of historic or scientific interest” with a proclamation.

Critics of the monument say President Obama overstepped the powers set forth by the Antiquities Act and did not provide enough opportunity for public comment. In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking his Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, to conduct a review of 27 monuments created since 1996. The purpose of the review is to determine if these monument areas qualify under the terms of the act and to address concerns from the community.

Two days later, Trump signed another executive order outlining his “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy.” The plan demonstrates Trump’s vision for the exploration and production of energy on federal lands and waters to decrease America’s dependence on foreign energy.

Fishing industry’s concerns

Captain Fred Penney, a lobsterman out of Boston Harbor, believes that the monument will hurt the future of fishing in New England because the new restrictions were implemented without much input from the fishermen themselves.

“To have no regulations and have it be a free-for-all, that’s completely unacceptable, I understand that,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see that. But what they’re doing now doesn’t seem to be it.”

Many in the industry felt fishing in the area should have been regulated under the Magnuson- Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, which created eight regional fishery management councils to maintain sustainable fisheries and habitats in the U.S.

The councils are divided up by region, including the New England, Mid-Atlantic and South- Atlantic councils on the East Coast. Each council sets regulations for certain fisheries such as limiting catch size, issuing permits and monitoring fishing equipment.

Fishermen argue the council’s lengthy public process is more transparent than a proclamation from the president and allows for more input from the community.

Jon Williams of the Atlantic Red Crab Company said the fishermen were not given much notice about meetings and the scope of the monument. He argued the area was thriving under the council’s management before the monument designation.

“We’d been in there for 40 years and if it’s… pristine now, after our presence for 40 years, why is there an emergency for the president to use an act to protect this thing?” Williams said. “Why not give it to the council and let the council do its job?”

Before the Obama administration announced the monument, the New England Fishery Management Council was working on a coral amendment that would protect deep sea corals, one of the goals of the monument. The South and Mid Atlantic Councils passed similar regulations years earlier.

 

Read the full story at The Groundtruth Project

‘Sad day’ for the fishing industry following marine monument designation

September 16, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Backers of the Northeast U.S. fishing industry reacted with anger, chagrin and legal arguments Thursday to President Barack Obama’s declaration of a marine national monument south of Cape Cod, saying the ocean preservation effort circumvented public process and will significantly damage a key economic engine — and way of life — in the region.

“It’s all anybody’s talking about, that’s for sure,” said Jon Williams, president of Atlantic Red Crab Co. on Herman Melville Boulevard. “The general feeling is (that) it’s a sad day for the New England fishing industry.”

Obama’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — in two areas also known as New England Canyons and Seamounts — permanently bars those areas from an array of commercial and industrial uses, including commercial fishing. The areas total 4,913 square miles, are more than 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod and are the first such monument in the Atlantic Ocean. The designation follows at least a year of concerns and opposition from advocates of the commercial fishing industry, who feared yet another financial hit from government regulations that already include catch limits and quotas broadly questioned by fishermen.

“Millions of dollars of lost revenue are at stake” in the monument decision, states a letter from the Washington, D.C. office of international law firm Kelley Drye & Warren.

The firm sent the letter Sept. 14 to Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, on behalf of the Southern Georges Bank Coalition. The coalition of fishing representatives includes Williams, J. Grant Moore of Broadbill Fishing in Westport, and at least 10 other members from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York.

The letter said those entities “are directly affected by the monument description, as it includes their fishing grounds,” and called Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act to declare the marine monument, “an illegal and illegitimate use of presidential authority.”

“I think there’s widespread and pretty much universal disappointment, anger, frustration and feelings of betrayal in the commercial fishing industry,” said Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Saving Seafood.

“There is widespread and deep feeling that our fisheries should be managed under the public process of the Magnuson-Stevens Act,” Vanasse added.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Contention Over New Marine Monument Off Georges Bank In New England

September 16, 2016 — President Obama announced the creation of the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument sits off Cape Cod. The newly protected marine environment that has been called an “underwater Yellowstone”.

It is almost 5,000 square miles, the size of Connecticut, a submerged ecosystem of oceanic canyons, vivid corals and teeming marine wildlife.

Obama created the monument by executive order. Oil and gas exploration and drilling are immediately banned in the area, as well as most commercial fishing. That is why many in the New England fishing industry are protesting Obama’s declaration.

Guest

Tim Shank, associate scientist with tenure at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which tweets @WHOI. Shank is attending the sixth International Symposium on Deep-Sea Corals at the Long Wharf Marriott in Boston.

Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company, based out of New Bedford, and president of the New England Red Crab Harvesters’ Association.

Listen to the full story at WBUR

Obama Closes Ocean Waters South of Cape Cod

September 15, 2016 — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will declare the first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean today, barring uses including commercial fishing in nearly 5,000 square miles of waters southeast of Cape Cod.

Obama’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — in an area also known as New England Canyons and Seamounts — follows at least a year of concerns and opposition from advocates of the commercial fishing industry, including local elected officials.

Marine monument debates over the past year have involved balancing the preservation of marine life, ocean health and sustainable fisheries with potential oil and gas exploration, unsustainable fisheries, mineral mining, fishing-reliant regional economies and more.

Jon Williams, president of Atlantic Red Crab Co. on Herman Melville Boulevard, said in November 2015 that a monument designation “would be a big hit for the company,” which employs about 150 full-time workers in New Bedford and fishes several times a year in the affected areas.

Mayor Jon Mitchell acknowledged potential challenges for the commercial fishing industry Wednesday night.

“While I believe the industry generally was in a position to manage the implications of the so-called ‘seamount’ area of the monument, the inclusion of the ‘canyons’ area would have benefited from more industry input,” Mitchell said. “I appreciate that the White House sought out more input than is required, but these types of decisions should be subjected to the more robust regulatory processes under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which has successfully led to the protection of sea canyons in other parts of the Atlantic without unduly burdening the commercial fishing industry.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times