F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

Do The Math



The likely emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod, not George Bank cod, that resulted from a surprise update of a groundfish assessment is cause for many questions about the current fisheries management process in New England. The eruption over the questionable validity of that surprise update assessment should be one of them. The short comings of that assessment were voiced by many at the council meeting and were submitted to the council in a statement by Dave Goethel.

At issue is not the credibility of the scientists, but the bureaucracy that controls them, who controls the bureaucracy and due process in the management of this public resource.

The call for an emergency action was a response to science based efforts to deliver more timely, less than 3 years old, stock assessments. The data presented was from earlier assessments and presumably considered from another angle. This new assessment may be fresher and more timely, but it remains an abstraction. Small amounts of scientific data expanded and run through computer models.

For 50 years scientists have known climate change is happening. But this remains to be included in the fisheries science. The 400 years of cumulative knowledge from fishermen remains untapped. Collaborative science is given what amounts to lip service.

Compounding this stunted analysis, fishermen’s rights are additionally under assault from the non-scientific sector. Lawyers for environmental groups would like to fill their donation coffers with claims to having saved fish. However, the stated plan of at least one ENGO is to have fish commodified and traded like pork bellies prior to being caught. More than the health of the fish stocks, this may be the single greatest threat to the future of commercial fishing as we have known it.

The denizens of this shadowy influence peddling lurk in the corridors outside the council meetings coaching their council members on strategey one motion vote at a time. This may be legal, but it is not fisheries management. It is fishery access manipulation. All of which increases the need for greater transparency in the management process, management structure and who is working for who in it.

The New England Fisheries Management Council is run by NOAA, which is run by the Department of Commerce. The Secretary of Commerce makes the final call on NEFMC membership. Congress funds the DOC. Do the math.