Saving Seafood

Obama’s Marine Monument Could Spell Disaster for New England Fishermen

September 19th, 2016 — America is well-known for its glorious and plentiful national parks, and at a conference taking place in Washington, DC this week, President Obama made the dramatic declaration that he was signing an executive order to create the very first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. The almost-5,000-square-mile area—called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument—lies off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and has been dubbed an “underwater Yellowstone.”

But although conservationists are hailing the president’s move as “phenomenally exciting,” fishermen in the area are not so psyched. To say the least. They’re accusing Obama of legislating from the White House—a power, the lobstermen and crab fishers of Massachusetts say, he simply doesn’t have. There’s also the very real concern among the community that the administration is selling out hundreds and hundreds of sustainable fishermen in favor of environmental grandstanding that ignores the real culprits.

The area in question is a phenomenal expanse of extinct volcanoes, underwater forests, canyons, and reefs filled with endangered and exotic species. But it is also a place that has provided a livelihood for generation after generation of fishermen, especially those focused on red crab and lobster. If all goes according to plan, the area will be off limits to them in seven years and the good times will be over.

MUNCHIES spoke with Bob Vanasse of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities, who said about the designation, “I don’t know anybody in the fishing community who is in favor of it.” Vanasse said that the local fishermen believe their point of view was wholly ignored before the order was enacted. He believes that by creating the monument in an executive order, President Obama sidestepped the process of running the idea through Congress, which would have entailed a “consultative process where environmentalists, the industry, and regulators are involved and what comes out is reviewed by an agency for a year or more before it gets published in the Federal Register. This executive order is a short circuit around all of that—and that’s the reason it’s frustrating.”

Read the full story from VICE 

‘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

Obama’s Atlantic Monument Hurts Lobster, Red Crab, and Other Fisheries

September 15, 2016 — President Obama will designate a national monument Thursday covering thousands of square miles in the Atlantic Ocean, pleasing environmental groups but flying in the face of opposition from state officials and fishing organizations.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument will cover 4,913 square miles off the coast of New England — an area nearly the size of the state of Connecticut — the White House announced Thursday. It will include “three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and four underwater mountains known as ‘seamounts’ that are biodiversity hotspots and home to many rare and endangered species,” it said.

Robert Vanasse, executive director of fishing advocacy group Saving Seafood, slammed the declaration, saying White House officials never seriously took the concerns of locals into account.

“It’s just really obvious that the fix was in from the start,” Vanasse told BuzzFeed News. “I believe the sound waves hit their eardrums but I don’t believe they were actually listening.”

Though the exact parameters of the monument were not available late Wednesday, Vanasse said the designation could potentially cost the offshore lobster community $10 million a year. He also said red crab, squid, and other fishing industries could take significant hits by a monument designation.

According to the White House, fishing within the monument will be phased out; red crab and lobster fisheries will have seven years before having to leave, and other commercial fishers will have a 60-day transition period.

Vanasse praised the gradual change — because it’ll give the industry time to fight the designation.

“The fact that they have some time is going to be a good thing because we can fight this and we’ll be fighting it with a different administration,” he said. “I imagine that we will see a legal challenge.”

Read the full story at BuzzFeed News

Obama Designates 1st Marine Monument In The Atlantic; Draws Ire of Fishermen

September 15, 2016 — During the Our Ocean conference in Washington, D.C., President Obama announced the creation of the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’re protecting fragile ecosystems off the coast of New England, including pristine underseas canyons and seamounts,” Obama said during his remarks. “We’re helping make the oceans more resilient to climate change … and we’re doing it in a way that respects the fishing industry’s unique role in New England’s economy and history.”

Opponents are already challenging the move, calling it an illegal use of presidential authority.

“We don’t normally create laws in this country by the stroke of an imperial pen,” says Bob Vanasse, a spokesman for the National Coalition for Fishing Communities.

He adds, “This is not only an end-run around Congress, it’s an end-run around the entire system the Congress created to protect these ocean resources.”

Vanasse says the move will seriously hurt the fishing industry: “We anticipate the offshore lobster industry will be affected to the tune of about $10 million per year. On top of that one of most affected industries is going to be the Atlantic red crab industry. It is going to be very significantly impacted.”

Senior administration officials say to mitigate the financial harm, they’re designating a smaller area than planned, and lobster and red crab fisheries have been given a seven-year grace period before they have to comply.

Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in Massachusetts, says his company will survive, but he tells The Associated Press, “It’s a big blow to us.”

Read and listen to the full story at NPR

Seafood Industry Airs Views During Congressman’s Visit to New Bedford Waterfront

Bishop 3

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell (left) and Rep. Rob Bishop (right) discuss fishing issues in New Bedford on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Natural Resources Committee)

June 3, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published today by the New Bedford Standard-Times:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A congressman from the Mountain West got a full dose of a New England coast Thursday, as seafood and fishing industry representatives aired their views on several contentious issues — including the ongoing marine monument debate — during a whirlwind tour of New Bedford’s waterfront.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, visited the city to get a firsthand look at the highest-value commercial fishing port in the country. Numerous industry leaders from across the region took the opportunity to speak to the committee chairman, particularly about the push for monument status in the New England Canyons and Seamounts, about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Eric Reid, a general manager with Rhode Island frozen fish business Seafreeze, told Bishop during a noontime forum at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that economic impacts from monument status, which would restrict commercial fishing, could cost $500 million and “countless jobs.”

Reid unfurled a map of ocean waters on a Whaling Museum table and pointed out to Bishop where he felt commercial fishing businesses could, and could not, survive if a monument status was put in place. Reid suggested a line of demarcation in the Canyons and Seamounts area, where bottom-fishing would be allowed north of the line but not to the south.

“We can protect the industry, and we can protect the corals,” Reid said, urging that “pelagic” fishing, or fishing that occurs well above ocean floors, be allowed in both zones.

Bishop called the map an “extremely good” start to alternative proposals for which he could advocate as the issue unfolds in coming months, during the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s administration.

Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization Saving Seafood, said Bishop’s visit hopefully was the first of many lawmaker visits facilitated by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC). Saving Seafood launched the coalition last fall, with members that span the country and include New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

“We want to bring these members of Congress who have jurisdiction over the fishing industry, to visit the ports that their laws regulate,” Vanasse said. “This is the kind of communication effort that the National Coalition is about.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford-Standard Times

NOAA fisheries center won’t relocate to New Bedford

May 31, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — NOAA won’t be relocating its Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford or anywhere off Cape Cod, the agency decided this week.

After 50 years in its location, the Science Center is bursting at the seams, and NOAA is seriously considering rebuilding it at another location.

Mayor Jon Mitchell and about 50 other community leaders wrote to NOAA earlier this year, stating that moving the researchers closer to the fishing fleet that relies on their work would go a long way toward repairing the damaged relationship that the fishermen have with their regulators.

Drew Minkiewicz, attorney for The Fisheries Survival Fund, a nonprofit scallop industry group, said, “They should have looked harder. It doesn’t seem like they thought about it too much.” He said that the city offers “synergies with places like SMAST (The UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology).

Bob Vanasse of the industry group Saving Seafood said, “I do think the mayor was correct in moving the science center to a major seaport with the most economic value. It would have been a good move. It would have been good to have scientists in close proximity to the fishermen who rely on them.”

“I’m not surprised, though. I thought it was a long shot,” he said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Saving Seafood Executive Director Talks Lost NOAA HabCam

 

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – May 25, 2016 — A $450,000 camera used to survey scallops on the ocean floor was lost Friday when a NOAA-chartered vessel towed it too close to a known ship wreck, as reported yesterday by the New Bedford Standard-Times.

This morning, Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse spoke with New Bedford 1420 WBSM morning host Phil Paleologos about the accident, saying it proves the need for changes to the Atlantic scallop survey.

“The Fisheries Survival Fund [which represents members of the Atlantic scallop fleet] has been arguing for some time that the Federal scallop survey should not be done just by one single piece of equipment on one single vessel, but that there should be backups,” Mr. Vanasse said.

Compounding the problem the lost camera will have on this year’s Federal scallop survey is the fact that respected scientist Kevin Stokesbury, from UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, did not receive government funding for his own survey. Dr. Stokesbury’s surveys, which use cameras dropped into the ocean to take pictures of the seafloor, had previously been funded every year since 1999.

Mr. Vanasse called the loss of NOAA’s HabCam habitat camera last week “a combination of really bad circumstances.” He raised concerns about researchers aboard the R/V Hugh R. Sharp piloting the expensive HabCam so close to the well-known and charted wreckage of the Bow Mariner, where a cable apparently snagged the sunken ship and detached the camera. He also pointed out that many industry leaders raised concerns that a volunteer worker was piloting the HabCam at the time of the accident.

NOAA researchers are beginning efforts to find the HabCam today, nearly a week after it was lost, and say they will be able to make up for lost time. But scallop industry experts are unconvinced, according to Mr. Vanasse.

“That doesn’t really make sense,” Mr. Vanasse said of the industry perspective. “If they plan to go out for a certain time, they do that because they need it.”

The timing issue is further complicated because NOAA leases the Sharp from the University of Delaware for a limited period of time at high expense. Even if NOAA is able to salvage the HabCam, it will likely take more than a week of valuable time, Mr. Vanasse said.

The lost HabCam is not the first issue NOAA has had a with a research vessel in recent weeks. Earlier this month the R/V Henry B. Bigelow, the ship that surveys for groundfish and many other species on the East Coast, was delayed due to mechanical issues with its generators. The Bigelow was already running more than a month behind before its generator problems. Mr. Vanasse pointed out that Dr. Bill Karp, director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, has been pushing for NOAA to charter commercial fishing boats as backups, including at April’s NEFMC meeting (skip to 31:51 to listen to Dr. Karp).

“We need higher ups at NOAA to listen to what Dr. Karp has been saying about needing backups on the groundfish survey,” Mr. Vanasse said. “And we need everybody at NOAA to pay attention to what the [Fisheries] Survival Fund has been saying about having backups on the scallop survey.”

Listen to the full segment here

New nationwide coalition seeking to unify commercial fishing interests

November 16, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group with strong New Bedford ties is creating a national coalition of commercial fishing interests to boost outreach and communication for the industry, which supporters claim often can be overmatched by unified environmental groups that promote competing interests.

“America’s fishing communities and seafood industry have been maligned by special interest groups working in collusion, who have slandered hard-working Americans with outrageous claims and misrepresentations,” Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Saving Seafood, said in a Monday news release. “We’re aiming to bring the entire supply chain of fishermen, shoreside businesses, processors, markets and restaurants together to join this effort to move the national conversation in a positive direction.”

The Saving Seafood release said the nonprofit, formed in 2009, is conducting a membership drive for its new National Coalition of Fishing Communities (NCFC). Vanasse said the coalition, so far, has about 60 members across the country, including New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

The NCFC will formally launch in Washington in January, during the next U.S. Conference of Mayors event. Vanasse said New Bedford Mayor Mitchell will be chairman of the coalition’s mayors’ group, reaching out to municipal leaders in Seattle, Honolulu, Atlantic City and other cities with strong commercial fishing ties. Coalition members already include commercial fishing associations from Hawaii, Oregon, North Carolina, New Jersey and more.

“I believe there needs to be a stronger voice for fishing communities in the halls of Congress,” Mitchell said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard -Times

 

Group hopes to solidify, amplify voice of fishing interests

November 16, 2015 — A new coalition of seafood industry interests is being assembled to help tell the commercial fishing industry story nationally, regionally and locally without being drowned out by the larger reach of well-funded special interest groups, organizers said Monday.

The National Coalition of Fishing Communities, according to its organizers, will provide an informational platform for fishing communities, commercial fishermen, fishing advocacy groups and other fishing stakeholders “all the way up the food chain.”

“We need to balance the protection of the resource with the protection of the fishing communities,” said Bob Vanasse, the executive director of the Savings Seafood website and the driving force behind the new coalition. “We need the entire supply chain to work together.”

Toward that end, Vanasse wants to include processors, seafood marketers and even restaurants to help portray the most accurate state of the industry and “move the national conversation in a positive direction.”

The coalition boasts a familiar name.

Former Gloucester Harbor Planning Director Sarah Garcia is the director of outreach and membership for the Washington D.C.-based coalition.

“This is a really exciting and innovative idea that will help us develop a shared message among all of the nation’s fisheries,” Garcia said. “We’re not just a clearinghouse for information for those with an interest in the management of the fisheries. We’re spreading the message that we all have to speak up for the domestic fishing industry so we can hear fishermen’s voices as well as the environmentalists.”

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

 

Saving Seafood Announces the National Coalition of Fishing Communities

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — November 16, 2015 — The National Coalition of Fishing Communities (NCFC) has been organized to meet the challenges of modern communication for the commercial fishing industry and related business and civic communities. NCFC is a unique partnership of seafood interests, dedicated to transmitting the voices of fishermen and their communities. NCFC will ensure that fisheries managers, scientists, academics and elected officials understand the positions of our members, and address their concerns. We will accomplish this through dialogue, education and outreach.

“This is a very exciting time for us,” says Sarah Garcia, former Harbor Planning Director of Gloucester, Massachusetts and the Director of Outreach and Membership for NCFC. “The strength and diversity of NCFC can make a big impact in the way fishing communities deliver their message in Washington.”

The Coalition will formally launch during the next U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, to be held in Washington, DC on January 19, 2016, and is currently engaged in a membership drive. Already, over 60 members have signed up, drawn from America’s top commercial fishing ports, leading fishing businesses, and regional associations.

Saving Seafood will provide the communication and media relations in numerous forms and venues, creating the opportunity for our messages to be received. Too often, misleading information about the industry makes its way into print, and the media hear only one side of the story. The NCFC allows its members to make their positions clear, and deliver their messages to a wider audience of media, policymakers, and likeminded industry members. 

“Five years ago, Saving Seafood began as a trade news and information organization, aimed at telling the truth about our industry,” said Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director of New Jersey’s Garden State Seafood Association. “They have proven to be capable of helping the industry, and can assist locally, nationally, and globally”

The Coalition is made up of different types of communities. In addition to municipalities with economic, social, and cultural ties to the fishing industry, NCFC includes associations who represent and are supported directly by working commercial fishing families; businesses who are involved in the harvesting, processing, distributing, marketing, and serving of seafood; and individuals in fishing communities across the country who see first-hand the necessity of local knowledge informing policy.

“America’s fishing communities and seafood industry have been maligned by special interest groups working in collusion, who have slandered hard-working Americans with outrageous claims and misrepresentations,” says Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse. “We’re aiming to bring the entire supply chain of fishermen, shoreside businesses, processors, markets, and restaurants together to join this effort to move the national conversation in a positive direction.” 

Members can join at the NCFC website, fisheriescoalition.org, and choose one of the three membership plans that best suits their needs, with plans for individuals, small business, and corporations starting at $10, $100, and $500 per month levels.

Members receive the NCFC’s newsletter, which contains the most up-to-date information on current events, and through the NCFC mailing list will be connected to a nation-wide effort to make sure their concerns are communicated to policymakers, media and the public, to bring a new perspective to important industry issues that have been overwhelmed by special interest campaigns. 

“An umbrella group like NCFC makes it easier for fishing organizations around the country to be vocally involved in the management process,” said Rod Moore of West Coast Seafood Processors Association in Portland, Oregon and a NCFC member. “The Coalition is a platform through which we can speak out about issues that are important to our members.”

Like Saving Seafood, NCFC is committed to the proper implementation of U.S. fisheries management law, which requires that regulators take into account “the social and economic needs of the States.” [Magnuson-Stevens Act (2)(b)(5), Public Law 101-627] 

NCFC is founded on the principles of integrating the needs of communities with the goals of conservation, utilizing the best available science, and connecting members of the national fishing community to each other. The Coalition will create a proper understanding of the struggles of our community, and articulate our message.

Join us now to be a part of the movement. Visit http://fisheriescoalition.org/join-us/ to support America’s fisheries and let your voice be heard.

Saving Seafood is a 501(c)(6) Washington, DC – based non-profit that conducts media and public outreach on behalf of fishing communities, and keeps the public informed on fisheries issues. Saving Seafood’s national reach and influence provides fishermen with a recognized voice in the nation’s capital to communicate their concerns and build public awareness of the industry’s priorities.

View a PDF of the release here