Saving Seafood

Deep-Sea Coral Amendment to Provide Sweeping Habitat Protection, Including in Canyons and Seamounts Monument

June 17, 2020 — The following is an excerpt from a release published today by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was created on September 15, 2016 by a Presidential Proclamation, which included a ban on commercial fishing within the monument area. Fishermen in the lobster and deep- sea red crab fisheries, however, were given seven years to phase out their operations.

The proclamation superseded the Council’s ability to manage fisheries through its usual process under the Magnuson- Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) within the marine monument’s boundaries.

A second Presidential Proclamation was issued on June 5, 2020 – the Proclamation on Modifying the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

This second proclamation removed the prohibition on commercial fishing and allowed management of fisheries within the marine monument to revert to the Council through the MSA process.

“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,” said Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn.

However, the Council has been concerned by some of the news coverage surrounding this most recent Presidential Proclamation. Several articles indicated that fishing in the marine monument will be unrestricted and lead to “devastating” habitat impacts and the resumption of destructive fishing practices.

“This is not true at all,” said Tom Nies, the Council’s executive director. “The monument area will not be ‘wide open to industrial fishing.’”

In the canyons and seamounts region, the Council’s Coral Amendment will:

  • Prohibit the use of bottom-tending commercial fishing gear within the designated deep-sea coral area, including otter trawls; beam trawls; hydraulic dredges; non-hydraulic dredges; bottomtending seines; bottom longlines; pots and traps; and sink or anchored gillnets; and
  • Protect the majority of coral habitats occurring in the canyons and on the slope in the New England region. The protected area will encompass 75% of plotted occurrences of corals, 75% of estimated soft coral habitat based on a habitat suitability model, and 85% of the areas with slopes greater than 30°. Steep slopes are a strong predictor of coral occurrence.

The prohibition on the use of bottom-tending gear types will provide substantial protection for deep-sea corals from being damaged by commercial fishing activities. The Council provided one exemption for red crab pots. The small-scale deep-sea red crab fishery has only four active vessels, and the canyons and slope are vital to its operation.

Read the full release here

State of Maine: Presidential order lacks public process

June 15, 2020 — President Donald Trump came to Maine last Friday to visit Puritan Medical Products, the Guilford manufacturer producing swabs for COVID-19 tests. The century-old company has a right to be proud. 

They took a traditional Maine resource—wood—and turned it into highly successful products that, like Maine itself, are more practical than glamorous. The humble toothpick, with a touch of mint flavoring added? Genius. And the tongue depressor, familiar to every child when it was time to say “aaah.” 

Puritan added “tipped applicators” to their production line in 1978. They now make 65 different types of swabs, over 12 million per day. They are an accredited medical device manufacturer, perfectly positioned to respond to a critical need in a pandemic.  

Presidential visits are planned in excruciating detail. This one was announced on the Monday prior and on Wednesday, just two days before it took place, the Guilford Town Manager said the town office had not been officially contacted about the visit. Nevertheless, it went off without a hitch.  

If the visit to Puritan was a standard “grip and grin,” albeit without the gripping, the meeting preceding it was anything but. Air Force One landed at the Bangor airport where the president met with Maine fisheries representatives. Typically, the governor hosts a presidential entourage. This time it was the former governor, Paul LePage, who did the honors. Current Governor Janet Mills was not invited.  

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Environmental groups fight rollback of marine monument protections

June 10, 2020 — Environmentalists are vowing they will sue to reinstate fishery closures to a marine national monument 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod that President Donald Trump removed by executive order last Friday at a meeting held in Maine.

 

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act of 1906, a process President George W. Bush used to create a national marine monument off Hawaii in 2006, as well as 15 presidents dating back to Theodore Roosevelt. The Antiquities Act was used, proponents said, because it can be put in place more quickly than fisheries regulations that can take years, if not decades, to be implemented. Also, the protections are in theory permanent, whereas other fisheries regulations are often amended.

“We’re taking them to court,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at the Conservation Law Foundation. “It’s a matter of putting the paperwork together and getting the strongest case possible.”

“It’s very clear that the president can establish these areas, but he has no authority to modify or remove them,” said Gib Brogan, fisheries campaign manager at Oceana.

Similar cases are being fought around two other national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in southern Utah. Trump stripped both monuments of federal protections by dramatically reducing them in size in December 2017 to allow for mineral extraction, mining, and off-road use.

Brad Sewell, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s oceans division, said his organization also intends to challenge the Northeast Canyons rollback in court.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Maine Voices: Trump rights a wrong by reopening marine monument to fishing

June 10, 2020 — President Trump used the occasion of a visit to Maine last week to do right by an industry that hasn’t had much good news lately when he reopened to commercial fishing nearly 5,000 square miles of ocean south of New England that President Barack Obama closed in 2016.

Stay tuned. In the process of righting a wrong, Trump’s action, announced at a Bangor roundtable, has once again set hair on fire in the environmental community, tested the limits of presidential power and set the stage for litigation.

Obama created the area, known as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, just a few months before he left office. He portrayed the monument, the only one in the Atlantic, as a hedge against climate change.

Spanning four canyons and three seamounts, the monument is home to cold-water corals, endangered whales and turtles and numerous fish species.

If Trump’s action was controversial, it should be seen as no less so than the process that created the monument. Fishing in U.S. territorial waters is managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is charged with providing productive and sustainable fisheries based on the best available science. NMFS works with regional councils to ensure all stakeholders are heard and that its regulations have “ground truth.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

JESSICA HATHAWAY: What fishermen want: Process not politics

June 10, 2020 — I had the honor of being in the press pool for the presidential fisheries roundtable last Friday. When the conversation came around to the input from industry reps, there seemed be some confusion about whether the removal of commercial fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument was going to benefit the people at the table.

With the exception of Jon Williams, who fishes red crab traps in the monument area, that’s not why they were there. The truth is, most of the panelists have never and would never fish in the monument area. Even if this declaration weren’t destined to be tied up in court, the oversight of this habitat area would revert back to the New England Fishery Management Council, which implemented protections in 2002 and extended them in 2015.

The panelists’ support was not based on their personal vested interest in fishing that area. Rather, it was a philosophical objection to the process of declaring marine monuments. So what’s all the fuss, anyway?

The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the president the power to declare monuments on lands owned or controlled by the federal government.

The use of the act in marine environments is different because ALL of our ocean rights are controlled by government — state governments out to three miles and federal government from three to 200 miles. U.S. citizens cannot own water unless we own all the land surrounding and under that water. Otherwise, we can only own *access* to water.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Trump Removing Fishing Restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 8, 2020 — President Donald Trump announced on Friday afternoon that he will be removing fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, opening up 5,000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean for fishing. The order to designate that area of the Atlantic Ocean as a national monument was signed by former President Barack Obama during his final few months in office.

“We’re opening it up,” said Trump. “Today I’m signing a proclamation to reverse that injustice, to reverse that order from the previous administration. And we are opening the Northeast Canyons and the Seamounts Marine National Monument region to commercial fishing. Is that OK? Is that what you want? That’s an easy one.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Trump Opens Atlantic Marine Monument To Fishing During Maine Roundtable

June 8, 2020 — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation in Bangor on Friday that he says will undo most of the fishing restrictions President Barack Obama ordered for a 5,000-square-mile swath of submerged canyons and mountains off the Atlantic coast that’s prized for its biological diversity. A legal battle is expected.

Obama established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016. It’s an area 130 miles off Cape Cod, within an much larger underwater formation called Georges Bank that plays a big role in commercial fisheries based in New England.

At the Bangor roundtable with several representatives of Maine and Massachusetts fishing interests — as well as former Republican Gov. Paul LePage — Trump said he would take the “no fishing” sign down from the Monument’s waters.

“And we’re going to send our fishermen out there — you’re going to go fishing out there in areas that you haven’t seen for a long time, I want to just congratulate you,” he said.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Trump to Allow Commercial Fishing in Northeast Canyons Nat’l Monument

June 8, 2020 — On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will remove fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, drawing praise from fishermens’ groups and criticism from environmentalists.

The reserve was designated by President Barack Obama in late 2016, and it is the first marine national monument in the Atlantic. According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the monument contains “fragile and largely pristine deep marine ecosystems and rich biodiversity, including . . . many rare and endemic species, several of which are new to science and are not known to live anywhere else on Earth.”

Recreational fishing was allowed in the reserve, and crab and lobster fishing were permitted until September 2023. Other commercial fishing – or even possessing commercial fishing gear on deck – was not permitted within the 5,000-square-mile region. The Trump administration’s decision has removed all fishing restrictions.

“What reason did [Obama] have for closing 5,000 miles?  That’s a lot of miles. Five thousand square miles is a lot.  He didn’t have a reason, in my opinion,” said Trump at a forum in Bangor on Friday. “For me, I can’t even believe they can do a thing like that. That’s a terrible thing.  That’s a terrible thing.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Food banks pushed to the brink

June 8, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic and economic slowdown has left at least 20 million Americans out of work, sending demand skyrocketing at food banks and other feeding programs around the U.S. The Agriculture Department is already spending $3 billion on surplus meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables to help nonprofits meet their needs, but anti-hunger advocates say there’s another way Washington should help: Increase food stamp benefits so hungry families can buy more groceries instead of leaning on food banks.

The president on Friday threatened once again to slap duties on automobiles from the EU because of the bloc’s tariffs on U.S. lobsters. Trump said he’s putting Peter Navarro in charge of resolving the dispute, dubbing his hawkish trade adviser the “lobster king,” reports Pro Trade’s Doug Palmer.

The EU currently has an 8 percent tariff on live Maine lobsters, plus duties ranging from 16 percent to 20 percent on processed lobster. Meanwhile, Canada can export lobsters to Europe without paying any duties, leaving U.S. producers at a disadvantage.

“That’s an easy one to handle,” Trump said at a roundtable with commercial fishermen in Bangor, Maine, on Friday. But his administration has negotiated with Brussels for two years without reaching an agreement, and in November, the EU rejected a U.S. proposal for a mini-trade deal covering lobsters and chemicals.

China, another large market for lobster exports, also imposed retaliatory duties on American lobsters after Trump slapped tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods. Trump on Friday directed Navarro to put pressure on Beijing by slapping even more tariffs on some Chinese goods.

Trump opened up a national marine monument in the North Atlantic to commercial fishing, undoing ecological protections implemented by the Obama administration. Under the proclamation, the New England Fishery Management Council will determine the amount of fishing allowed in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, some 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Mass. Pro Energy’s Ben Lefebvre and Eric Wolff have the details.

Read the full story at Politico

Reverse course: Trump declaration makes way for commercial fishing in Atlantic monument

June 8, 2020 — At a fisheries roundtable discussion in Bangor, Maine, on June 5, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation to allow commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The change falls short of eliminating the Obama-era designation and will instead be “taking down a no-fishing sign,” according to David Bernhardt, Secretary of the Interior, who was at the table for the discussion.

“Under the last administration, commercial fishermen and Maine lobstermen were suddenly informed that nearly 5,000 square miles of ocean off the coast of New England would be closed to commercial fishing without justification,” Trump said in his opening remarks. “So we’re opening it today. We’re undoing [Obama’s] executive order.”

Trump’s opening remarks included reference to his executive order that seeks to review federal fisheries laws, create a seafood trade task force and clamp down on illegally harvested seafood. But retaliating against European Union tariffs became a recurring theme for the president in the discussion.

“I heard that Canada doesn’t have to pay a tariff going into Europe, but you do?” Trump asked the panel.

Read the full story at National Fisherman