F R O M T H E C R O W E ’ S N E S T
Testicular Fortitude
The groundfish catch shares program is imploding under it’s victims here in the northeast.
Catch shares, stock assessments, quota, and the cost of buying fish from permit holders who don’t fish, before being able to catch them, are the leading problems. Each has it own particular elements that are stifling the sustainability of fishing businesses. Markets, market prices, enough quota, operating costs and flexibility are in disarray.
At the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) meeting in Gloucester in September, fishermen spoke in no uncertain terms about how the catch shares system, which special interests pushed through over decades, was causing their businesses to fail. Those interests manipulated the management system, NOAA and the NEFMC, with appointees to both agencies. Appointees from the council level to the former head of NOAA Jane Lubchenco. The result has been the transfer of the public fisheries resource to the private hedge funds that now own large pieces of it. They did it by driving out small vessel operators.
The ocean generates trillions of fish every year. The fishing industry generates billions of dollars every year. Owning the permits that enable the right to lease the right to catch those fish is the gift that keeps on giving. It is the motivation behind Wall Street’s concerted effort to wrest those rights from our hands.
Federal authorities, as they should have years earlier, convicted federal fisheries felon Carlos “The Codfather” Rafael. At the same time, NOAA has given a pass to Rafael. Enabling Rafael to make a fortune selling his fishing boats and permits while in jail. It has been reported that NOAA has facilitated the behind closed doors transfer of ownership of a big chunk of the northeast fishery to a handful of corporations. One a Dutch-German owned hedge fund. Our national food security being taken out of the hands of U.S. citizens?
When will the brakes be slammed on this piracy? Where are “our” lawyers, our congressmen who could follow the money that paid for this transfer of public wealth? After college forty five years ago, David Goethel went fishing and he still does. He has served as a member on the NEFMC and remains an advisor. He has said NOAA and the council have enabled those who turned New England groundfishermen into share croppers. Goethel said, “there is a way and a means to correct this, but the NEFMC doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to do it.”