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

Time to Clean House



The greatest sign of blossoming hope for commercial groundfishermen was the 15 college students in orange T’s that read “Who Fishes Matters,” when they showed up at the New England Fishery Management Council meeting. They infused the morbidity of another “same old” council meeting with possibility. Wow, someone actually gives a damn! People with the energy, imagination and endurance to upset this cart of rotting apples. Fifteen not enough, we’ll bring seventy-five. Public policy people not enough, we’ll bring the law school. Questions not getting good answers, we’ll dig deeper. The intellectual ground troops the big players and NGOs have been able to afford.

Kids today. They’re just as they have always been, the voices offering to save us from tumbling into the holes we’ve spent years digging for ourselves. The holes management positions itself in are trenches from which they defend their grand design from challengers armed with evidence of the design’s failure. Let’s hope this new blood returns bringing with them the bright light of day to shine into that trench.

At the same time management leadership says they are seeking fleet diversity, the National Marine Fisheries Service submitted a budget increase request of $2,216,000 for 2016 so targeted that “the implementation of catch share programs can yield efficiencies that lower fisheries management costs.” Read privatization.

Catch shares have driven more fishermen out of business faster than any action to date. Catch shares were promoted by NGOs whose stated goal was consolidation. Under catch shares, the cost of buying some quota is higher than the market price. Who or what is setting these quota prices? A mystery the light of day may reveal. It is not supply and demand. This is the inverse of supply and demand. Might it be the violation of the federal statutes governing the restraint of trade via price-fixing? Now there’s something for bright, ambitious, research-savvy, agile young minds that yet retain a sense of justice and fair play to run with.

They’ll know they are on to something when those who’ve fattened themselves on the status quo sit slack jawed with forked tongues a hangin’.

Ah, spring. A time for youthful enthusiasm. A time of renewal, a fresh start, a time to clean house.