F R O M T H E C R O W E ’ S N E S T
Please Stand Up
The National Marine Fisheries Service just released a report on 2014 revenues, showing that earnings for New England fisheries have increased. That’s not in all fisheries, nor is it by much, nor for everyone still fishing. The report mentioned neither the politics that have put groundfishermen in the dire economic position they are now in, nor who will benefit from the recovery of fish stocks and the subsequent increased value of fish quota.
Nor was there an explanation for why this report, produced with elementary school-level math, took two years to deliver. Has anything changed in the world, the oceans, the fish stocks, the fishing industry, or your business in the last two years? The two-year wait, for now largely irrelevant information, does again answer questions about “government work.”
On a related topic, as the Northeast approaches being the first of nine coastal regions to offer a proposal to be included in what will become a National Ocean Policy, public awareness of the Northeast regional ocean plan, let alone engagement of the public in the planning process and what it means, has been strikingly miniscule.
What the plan means, what it has to do with the price of fish, and future access to fish are one and the same. Both fish quota and who gets to use the ocean are a result of the tax haven corporate foundation funding of the catch shares system which is privatizing the fisheries resource, on the one hand. On the other hand, it’s the result of the same corporate foundation funding the development of a national ocean policy that preempts the popular mandate. Anticipated dramatic increases in the use and exploitation of ocean resources prompted a call for a National Ocean Policy. Congress deferred to corporate money, which stepped in to fashion an ocean investment opportunity policy for a commonly held ocean resource.
The federal fisheries revenue report cites low catch numbers for cod being the result of a 77% cut in quota. Once again, taxes funneled into corporate foundations funded the environmental non-governmental organizations and individuals who were falling over each other at New England Fishery Management Council meetings in 2014 to demand these cod quota cuts. As planned, more permits and quota floated into the hands of consolidators. Citizens’ taxes makeup for the taxes these corporations do not pay. Tax haven corporate foundations forced out citizens’ fishing businesses and fishermen’s own tax money was used to implement the federal policies that made it happen.
Will the real U.S. government please stand up?