FROM THE CROWE'S NEST

Time Is Running Out

 After nearly two decades of constantly shifting NOAA schemes to meet stock rebuilding targets, New England fishermen are faced with an unvarnished NOAA effort to get fishermen out of the business. Someone will catch the fish, many small boats or a few ships, so this is a reallocation of access to resources, not a rebuilding of them.
When three permit owners today can own 40% of Georges Bank winter flounder, these individuals are not fishermen, they are investors. Their investment could just as easily control subprime mortgages, soybeans, or commercial real estate. The investors long term interest is not in the health of the stocks, but in cashing in their permits to the highest bidder.
Federal policies that through gross ignorance, indifference or complicity lead to the decimation of a 400 year tradition that includes fishing businesses, families and communities, policies that will enrich a few investors encouraging the policy makers, and who knows what else from the sidelines, are sociopathic.
Prominent marine scientists recently reported that groundfish allocations are unnecessarily low and that drastic consolidation will be the result. Management argues that there are rebuilding targets that have to be met. But these dates are arbitrary, the numbers unproven and outdated. Given the consequences involved, both these need to be reconsidered.
Access should be reserved for those best able to restore, maintain and preserve the fish stocks, marine habitat, livelihoods and fishing communities.
This not what NOAA wants, but it is what fishermen in New England are demanding. They are in synch with their brothers around the globe.
Brian Riordan, an internationally known fishermen’s advocate has said, “Priority access should be given to those fishing operations that contribute most to the local economy, do the least damage to the marine environment, distribute the benefits from wild fish resources most equitably, and respect the political, civil, social, economic, and cultural rights of fishing communities in an integrated manner.” In other words the small boat fishery. This is not fringe speculation, it is mainstream thinking supported by hard science.
Time is running out. Without getting the serious attention of policy makers the resource will be stripped from it’s rightful owners. Federally sponsored industrial fleet fishing got us into this. World opinion agrees that only the small boat fleet will get us out of it.