Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Fish group seeks community organizer

December 30, 2016 — Gloucester-based Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance is looking to add an experienced community organizer to help bolster its goals of changing the current food system to build healthy fisheries and fishing communities.

The new organizer, according to NAMA Coordinating Director Niaz Dorry, will be a point person to sustain and expand the organization’s decade-long efforts at “achieving food justice and seafood market transformation.”

“What we’re really looking for is a person who can really help us do a better job of connecting all the dots,” Dorry said. “We had a community organizer that was working for us for a couple years who has gone off to do other things, so we saw this as an opportunity to evaluate what our needs are at this moment and tweak the position for what is happening now.”

The person will also work to expand NAMA’s reach into the public market by maximizing the buying power of a coalition of consumers — including health care and educational organizations — within the fishing communities.

Dorry said the position probably will be based in Gloucester, though NAMA is open to other arrangements for the right candidate. The organization has set Jan. 15 as the deadline for receiving cover letters and resumes, though that could change depending on the response.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center to host Seafood Throwdown

August 29, 2016 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, in collaboration with the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, Mass in Motion New Bedford/New Bedford Farmer’s Market, is pleased to present a Seafood Throwdown on AHA Night, Thursday, September 8th. The free event will take place beginning at 5:00 pm in Custom House Square located in downtown New Bedford.

Chefs Henry Bousquet (Culinary Arts Instructor at NB Voc-Tech) and Chris Cronin (Executive Chef at Farm & Coast Market, Padanaram) will compete to create a winning dish using a surprise locally caught seafood ingredient (usually an abundant, underappreciated, and underutilized species of seafood) and local produce. Judging their creations will be Heather Atwood, author of In Cod We Trust, Maria Lawton, author of Azorean Cooking: From My Family’s Table to Yours, and Andy Tomolonis, author of Organic Hobby Farming: A Practical Guide to Earth-Friendly Farming in Any Space.

Seafood Throwdowns are a collaboration between the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and fishing communities. They provide a unique opportunity to learn more about our local seafood, local fishing fleet and fisheries related issues affecting our ocean, fishing economies and coastal food systems. Chefs Bousquet and Cronin will educate and entertain you with their skills as they demonstrate how to work with whole, fresh, and very local seafood. The chefs can bring three of their favorite ingredients and once they discover the secret seafood they will be using, they are given $25 and 15 minutes to shop the Custom House Square Farmers’ Market for ingredients. After their shopping spree, they have one hour to cook and present their entry for the judge’s consideration.

Following the Throwdown, the public is invited to the Fishing Heritage Center (38 Bethel Street) to view the exhibit From Boat to Table and meet the judges (Atwood, Lawton, and Tomolonis) who will sign copies of their books from 7:30-8:30.

NEFMC Declares Amendment 18 Flawed Then Votes It In

November 4, 2015 — PLYMOUTH, Mass. —“The core message, across the board, is—we don’t want this fishery owned and controlled by a small group of people.”

That was the consensus, as expressed by Brett Tolley, of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, delivered to the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) during their latest deliberations on Amendment 18 to the groundfish management plan.

Tolley continued, “That’s no good for communities or the fish or the seafood system. And right now, at the end of this process, we’re debating whether seven or five entities should control this fishery….So there’s something fundamentally flawed with this public process.”

In late September, NEFMC was considering measures that would impose limits on the amount of fishery permits and/or Potential Sector Contribution (PSC) that individuals or groups may hold, as well as other measures that might promote fleet diversity or enhance sector management.

But fishermen and others at the meeting said Amendment 18 failed to achieve the goals outlined by NEFMC.

“It feels like we’re making things up on the fly,” said NEFMC member John Pappalardo. “The document here doesn’t answer a lot of questions that have come up today. I’m still toying with the idea of making a motion to scuttle this whole thing and send it back for further development….There’s a sense that folks just want to get this over with, but I’m not sure that’s the best course of action right now.”

Ed Barrett, a commercial fisherman from Marshfield, Mass., said he predicted, during the development of Amendment 16, that sector management would never work.

“We’re here in Amendment 18, pretty far down the road in a process that’s included years of scoping and committee meetings, and we have an amendment that’s not going to fix a thing,” Barrett said. “Right now, all we’re arguing over is the minutiae of a bad business model. This has been a waste of taxpayer money. It has failed me as a business owner, it’s failed my family’s business, it’s failed my fishing community. We need to stop this amendment right here. We need to go forward with something that will fix the problems that are killing the industry right now.”

“Give us the names of the five or seven guys who are going to own this fishery,” said Sandwich, Mass., fisherman William Chaprales. “We’re going too fast. Slow down. Let’s shelve this.”

Chaprales referred to the report produced by consulting firm Compass Lexecon (CL), which was charged in 2013 by NEFMC to determine if excessive market share currently exists in the groundfishery and to recommend potential constraints that could prevent excessive shares in the future. CL concluded there was no evidence of excessive market share and recommended accumulation limits in the 15.5 to 25 percent range on stock-specific potential sector contributions, and said lesser controls could reduce efficiency unnecessarily. PSC is an individual fisherman’s historical share of landings of groundfish species.

Read the full story at Fishermen’s Voice

 

 

Former Patriot Jarvis Green stumps for small fishermen

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — September 30, 2015 — Former New England Patriots football player Jarvis Green says federal fishing managers need to do a better job of protecting the futures of New England’s community fishermen.

Green joined a group called the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance on Wednesday to lobby regulators to urge them to consider small fishermen when setting policy.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen planning to stage protest in Plymouth

September 25, 2015 — PLYMOUTH – Local fishermen angry over federal catch-limit policies are gearing up for a demonstration at Wednesday’s meeting of the New England Fisheries Management Council in Plymouth.

Fishermen said the regional fisheries council has stonewalled input from smaller, family-run fishing operations in favor of larger, corporately owned boats.

Stephen Welch, who lives in Hanover and fishes out of Scituate and Hyannis, plans to be at Wednesday’s demonstration.

Welch, who owns a 45-foot trawler called the Mystic, said federal regulations on fishing implemented five years ago have hurt fishermen like him and are not doing a good job of protecting certain fish stocks.

“I used to have two boats and eight employees. Now I have one boat and one employee,” said Welch, a member of Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, a fishermen-led organization.

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

Catch Shares Take Toll Council Called To Task

September 4, 2015 — At the April New England Fishery Management Council meeting in Mystic, Conn., a dozen university students from New England, members of fishing families, other fishing organizations, and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance community organizer Brett Tolley were in attendance. About a dozen people among this group wore orange “Who Fishes Matters” T-shirts.

Among the topics addressed, by these folks and several other groups, were the importance of Amendment 18 and its relationship to subjects such as fleet consolidation, reduced fleet diversity, the disappearance of the small boat fleet, and a report, paid for by the council, that said there was no evidence of consolidation.

The council chairman told Tolley there was no time for the group to comment during the public comment period. Tolley asked that the chair consider the long distances they had traveled to be at this public hearing. Again, the chair said no. He then publicly called Tolley a derogatory epithet. In the minds of critics of the council, that proved to be a statement that said much about how the council sees itself in relation to taxpaying citizens. (The council is overseen by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Members are selected by New England governors and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce.)

Read the full story from Fishermen’s Voice