FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

The Fish Belong to the People

With no end in sight of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s shell game to defraud New England fishermen of their fishing rights, New England fishermen are developing Community Supported Fisheries, which they, along with seafood consumers, wholly own. Consumers are voting with their taste, and their wallets, in favor of local, higher quality seafood; and against the low-grade industrial super-market stuff.

The traditional small boat New England fishing fleet is making an end run around the rigged fisheries management process. The hope for a sectors plan that would give small boat fishermen more control over sustainable fishing, has rapidly flipped into the dreaded privatized, commoditized, and saleable quota system.

Individual Fishing Quotas have led to corporate consolidation in other regions and to the expansion of heavy industrial fishing techniques. It is these techniques that scientists, and most fishermen today, agree are wrecking the ocean habitat, increasing damage through by-catch, and therefore the ability of fish to multiply. NMFS has ignored these facts and has chosen to reduce the number of small, family owned boats, in favor of fewer large, corporate owned ships.

In other parts of the country, and the world, fishermen have turned to CSFs, as have farmers turned to Community Supported Agriculture, to retain the right to fish and farm, as well as to preserve the right of the rest of us to access to decent fresh food. CSAs have become a major source of support in the development of sustainable small farm agriculture in America. The more recent CSFs have benefited from their linking to the established CSA network, and have seen rapid growth in popularity.

According to the Magnuson Stevens Act the economic well-being of fishing communities is supposed to be considered in NMFS management schemes. NMFS is also ignoring this.

With fewer fish caught and fishing businesses collapsing, fishermen set a new course. They have become the harvesters, sustainability innovators, middleman, and consumer educators in an effort to hold on to what has always been the peoples right.

Glen Libby, a Port Clyde, Maine fisherman and recent New England Fisheries Management Council Member, helped establish a CSF in his region. He said, “the fish belong to the people.” They belong to all the people, the fishermen deliver them.