FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

Doing Nothing

While the year ain’t over till its over, the past year has brought New England fishermen more than their fair share of difficulties, bad news and ominous forecasts. Ground fishermen have been booted into a yet deeper hole by mismanagement. General category scallop boats have been virtually cut out of the fishery. Maine lobstermen continue to be made the fall guys by the National Marine Fisheries Service over float rope. NMFS continues to press for costly gear changes, despite mounting scientific evidence that ship strikes, chromium pollution and changes in sea water chemistry are killing off the right whale.

Concerns about the long term health of the herring fishery, some would say it’s survival, led to an Amendment that restricted mid-water herring trawlers from the inshore area for four months this summer. That long, hard fought, battle by fishermen to preserve this important fish resource has been followed by a successful effort to prioritize herring with the New England Fisheries Management Council this fall.

Lobstermen, backed to the wall by a federal agency that moves so slow it has to abide by the mistakes it knows it has made, brought together their collective strength to challenge misbegotten gear rules. Their effort may lead to a compromise.

Ground fishermen, lobstermen, tuna fishermen, and others saw changes in sea life in the Gulf of Maine after mid water trawlers arrived in the 1990’s. They heard stories of herring collapsing elsewhere from this type of gear. Some remembered the collapse of herring in the Gulf in the 1970’s. Management was unresponsive, the trawler companies were unresponsive, so fishermen organized a challenge.

What’s more, they realized challenging management’s apparent complacency and the industrial fleet’s deep pockets would require political sophistication, so they formed alliances. Some of these alliances were with “environmental” groups that were at one time considered the “other side”, if not the enemy. This has given pause to some fishermen, others see it as the only available means. Political alliances can be fluid and evolve as need be, but knowing exactly where they will go is impossible, where as doing nothing can be very predictable.