August 5, 2021 — Tim Malley, a founding partner of Boston Sword & Tuna, is currently investing nearly a million dollars into purchasing and repurposing an idle fishing vessel in New Bedford, Massachusetts. But a proposal in Washington to reimpose commercial fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument threatens New Bedford’s iconic fishing industry and undermines the fisheries management system that sustains it, Mr. Malley writes in an op-ed for New Bedford’s Standard-Times.
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Malley’s op-ed:
I was a founding partner of Boston Sword & Tuna, which today employs over 180 Massachusetts residents with good wages and benefits. The company processes and distributes swordfish and tuna harvested by American vessels in the waters off New England and the mid-Atlantic. After selling my ownership in the company several years ago, I decided to return to my origins as an owner-operator of commercial fishing vessels. Recently, at the age of 74, I signed an agreement to purchase and re-purpose an idle fishing vessel in the port of New Bedford. This project will cost me close to a million dollars, but I consider it an investment in the future of Massachusetts’ storied fishing industry.
But that future is at risk from a proposal in Washington.
Last month, the Washington Post reported on a confidential memo sent by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to the White House, urging President Biden to enact a full ban on sustainable American fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Located 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, this monument covers over 3 million acres and nearly 5,000 square miles – a vast stretch of ocean approximately the size of Connecticut.
This area was managed successfully by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) for nearly half a century before it was designated as a marine monument in 2016. The management was so successful that even advocates for the monument designation argued loudly that the area was “pristine.” Fishermen had been active partners in keeping it in that “pristine” state, collaborating on projects like the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment, which protects over 25,000 square miles of corals and their habitat, including 82 percent of the monument area.
Nevertheless, over the protests of fishermen and fisheries managers, fishermen were booted from the area when it became a monument in 2016. Even fishermen targeting swordfish and tuna, like the ones who supply fish to the company I helped found, were not spared, despite the fact that they fish well above the corals the monument purports to protect, and do not come close to interacting with them.
Thanks to the combined efforts of fishermen, fisheries managers who unanimously called for their expertise to be respected, and fisheries scientists who have questioned the environmental benefits of marine protected areas, sustainable American fishing was restored in the monument last year. But now the Biden Administration may consider reimposing the ban, without so much as meeting with fishermen first.