Following quote from the Conservation Law Foundation-
Today, Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke made the decision to reject Governor Patrick’s request for emergency action to increase catch limits for Massachusetts fishermen, in violation of the groundfish management plan that CLF helped to pass, which has been in effect since May 2010 and was helping to create positive, sustainable change in the state’s fisheries. Several weeks ago, the Governor petitioned Secretary Locke to declare a state of economic emergency in Massachusetts fisheries and was supporting a lawsuit that challenged the plan, putting fish and fishermen at risk.
End quote
It should be made clear that the rebuilding of the stock by a law that was passed just this past May and that CLF helped to pass did not start in May of 2010. Does anyone really think that the huge recovery in cod stocks happened in eight months?
No, the recovery of the cod stocks started with amendment 13 and Days At Sea program where the amount of cod was slashed to 400lbs and then upped to 800lbs when the regulators saw the recovery taking place. This was long before The Conservation Law Foundations Catch Share Program came along and was working well by all accounts. The government would not have raised the quota of daily cod limits from 400 to 800 if it wasn’t.
The beauty of the Days at Sea program was that it turned Gloucester Fishing from a volume
business at lower prices to quality of fish at a higher price business. The fish were coming back and because the government placed quantity restrictions on the cod, the fishermen were getting close to triple the amount of money for their fish because of the lack of a glut of fish in the marketplace.
There was less effort on the stocks but the same or very few fishermen went out of business. In fact if you looked around the harbor the fishing boats were all being maintained really well- a sign of the health of the industry for sure.
Now if I were an Eco Foodie Nazi, this would be nirvana. Less impact on the stock, much higher quality fish and most importantly all of the small independent fishermen still exist and support the same number of families.
Instead, they (because they don’t know any better and the Conservation Law Foundation has a much better Marketing team funded by PEW and hence Shell Oil) back a Catch Share Program The Catch Share program which has brought about hyper consolidation of the fleet of the stronger fishermen buying out multiple permits of their tired fishermen brethren who can barely keep up with the mountains of paperwork and regulation changes but mainly because the bigger fishing corporations have the money to buy out the little guys. The Conservation Law Foundation has backed a plan to privatize the fish – your fish – my fish – the public resource. Now instead of thousands of small fishing operations you have hundreds of big ones and within ten years or so way less. Big huge corporations are going to own our fisheries and the greenies who usually are in the corner of the small guy are aligned with The Conservation Law Foundation “clever title” but what they don’t understand is how it flies in the face of everything they usually stand for.
The Conservation Law Foundation can claim a huge victory for a law that caused hyper consolidation of fishing communities and taking massive numbers of small independent fishing families out of business, but to say that in eight months they are responsible for rebuilding the stocks is ridiculous. The stocks were rebuilt by fishermen who endured the cutbacks in cod quota and Days At Sea program over 10 years ago.
Just so the greenies know who they are in bed with.
Good Morning Gloucester 
once they get rid of those pesky fishermen on georges they can start their oil exploration out there.
NOAA/NMFS needs to rid themselves of the non-government environmental organizations’ influence in their policy making decisions. CLF, EDF, Pew, Oceana, and so on, if they have no vested stake in the industry, needs to step aside and let the government regulate it in a fair and unbiased manner.
Why does EDF have a seat on the NEFMC? Are there commercial fishermen who work for EDF? Are any of the EDF employees closet commercial fishermen? The original reason for NEFMC was to give INDUSTRY people a say in fisheries management. That went out the window when they didn’t like hearing what fishermen had to say.
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If this isn’t corruption I don’t know what is.
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I was really interested in this post, but couldn’t really understand it because I have no background for this subject. It would be nice if you added links to the sites you mention so the reader can have some frame of reference. For instance, what is Days at Sea, PEW, etc. and who funds the Conservation Law Foundation?
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I wish I could provide all the links but I’m posting from my cell phone on a beach. when I get home and have access to a real computer ill clarify.
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Try..
http://clf.org/
http://people-press.org/
http://northshorewaterman.com/
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This makes me furious! Both for environmental and strong small business reasons, this should not be. Good to know that Gov Patrick is on board. They haven’t heard the last of us by a long shot.
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The Conservation Law Foundation is claiming that any recovery of cod biomass is because of catch shares, which would be a world record in fisheries management, saving a stock in 8 months! the recovery happened because of the DAS program. Landings are up because fishermen aren’t being forced to dump 1000s of pounds of marketable fish like they were when their quota was slashed along with their fishing days. They complied with the effort reduction at a tremendous cost to themselves and their crews and now EDF and CLF can take all of the credit.
“Gross groundfish revenues for boats that are based in Gloucester and New Bedford—the two ports that are making the most noise about “economic disaster”—are even better, up 26.4 percent and 29.5 percent respectively. Total groundfish landings in those ports (including boats based elsewhere that land their fish in those ports) are ahead of 2009 by 45.1 percent and 36.6 percent respectively. This does not count the lucrative sea scallop fleet and its landings in New Bedford that consistently make New Bedford the highest value-landed fishing port in the United States. Massachusetts boats and Massachusetts ports as a whole have gross groundfish revenues that are 21.9 percent and 30.4 percent ahead of 2009.”
from the CLF Statement Jan. 7, 2011 found here:
http://www.clf.org/newsroom/clf-statement-conservation-law-foundation-applauds-commerce-departments-decision-to-preserve-integrity-of-new-fishing-management-plan/
Cod stocks had recovered before and by the May 1 2010 implementation of sector management. The reason for the almost 30% catch increases in Gloucester and New Bedford are because fishermen are now allowed to keep and sell their marketable fish instead of dumping it. EDF, Pew, and Jane Lubchenco had nothing do do with it.
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Pete, I applaud you for your responses. It can be confusing for many but I think people like Beth and Nancy Lee will glean valuable information from you comments.
It’s also important to note that you have nothing to gain as a lobsterman in this debate and you are just speaking up for what is right.
I’m in the same boat. As a lobster dealer I have nothing to gain from this debate and as a matter of fact if fishermen were put out of business many of them would probably go lobstering which would possibly help my business. However like you I can’t with a conscience sit back and let the lies profligate.
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The general consensus in “educated” circles is that fishermen catch everything they can without any regard for the environment or marine ecosystem. That could not be further from the truth. Fishermen are businessmen. They make money by catching fish. It is in a fisherman’s best interest to conserve their resource if for nothing else future use.
Paul Molyneaux of the Fishermen’s Voice wrote a book I read years ago called A Doryman’s Reflection, I think, which he related how fishermen in the old days practiced conservation. They would switch fisheries with the seasons, haddock and cod in the spring, tuna and swords in the summer, lobster in the fall, scallop and shrimp in the winter and so on. (It’s been years since I read it but it went something like that) This would let fish stocks rebuild during the “off” seasons.
Fishermen have been responsible for self implementation of conservation measures as well, for instance V-notching breed stock lobsters started in Maine by Maine lobstermen and was adopted by Maine’s division of natural resources and then by NMFS.
A fishery can’t go unregulated but it is just as bad to work under draconian regulations that may or may not be based on the best science possible, the most thorough research possible, or outside influences, agendas, or funding.
I just bought my boat last year. I love the independence of fishing. Some people indulge their hobbies on the weekends and have jobs that make it able for them to afford them and some people make their hobby their job and may not get rich but enjoy the life. For me it is a lifestyle, not a job. (for my sternman/girlfriend, not so much! just kidding- i’m in the dog house now.) Fishermen are painted with a broad brush and for as much as our lives are tied to the sea and our little communities, this issue is pretty much unheard of off of the coast. Someone has to speak up and you’re one of the guys who got the ball rolling, so I applaud you Joey.
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I don’t know Pete in my experience fishermen have become more responsible in the past twenty years or so for sure but when I was young the mentality was to catch as much as you could. At the time like the early 70s we or at least I thought that our fishermen could never catch up all the fish. Obviously we know this isn’t true but for me it didn’t become apparent til the mid eighties or so.
Today’s fisherman is miles ahead in awareness of conservation then they were 30 years ago.
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“The general consensus in “educated” circles is that fishermen catch everything they can without any regard for the environment or marine ecosystem. That could not be further from the truth. Fishermen are businessmen. They make money by catching fish. It is in a fisherman’s best interest to conserve their resource if for nothing else future use.”
As I understand it, fishermen were the first folks to come forward and say the resource was being depleted. It seems like a few crap-heaps with big trawlers scraped the ocean clean for their pockets and left the rest of the little folks high and dry, and the future generations, not just within the fishing industry either. Bigger is never better. Coming from a family where every person owns their own small business, I am an avid fan for keeping it small. You usually find the community is better, the caring is better, the products or services are better, and everyone benefits.
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Here here! I’m listening! 🙂 From my research, it seems like the recovery has nothing whatsoever to do with the Catch Share program as recovery really began to happen starting in 2003. A combination of higher water temps and less fishing (from the DAS Program?) According to the figures out there (reliable or no?) the Georges Bank cod is at 10%, while inshore is at 58% recovery and as it is a transboundary resource migrating great distances, Canada’s management matters as well which is impacted by seal’s chomping on them for din-din without management.
Cod fish were one of the worlds largest species of fish and one of the four largest predator fish responsible for creating the balance of the ground-fish species as well as providing food for larger fish in the juvenile stage. With the drastic reduction of cod numbers prior to management, the ground-fish species now noms on the juvenile cod making recovery difficult since the numbers of reproducing adult cod (5+ years) that eat the ground-fish isn’t in balance with the juveniles. Juvenile cod eat shellfish and such as I understand, until they become adults (around 4 years.)
The increase in numbers, while optimistic, is seemingly still at historic lows in the overall picture of what this species means to the eco-system and how fragile they are. So theoretically the fishermen could be seeing large pockets of fish, but the overall health of the cod numbers are still so incredibly low from their glory days of the top four of the ground-fish feeders that they still require management and that the majority would not be fully developed to adult reproductive stages in order to take back their place in the ecosystem overflowing with ground-fish.
The part I don’t understand is that they say the progress is good, but are changing the process to benefit big fishing when they admit that the fish populations are drastically less by the smaller fishermen businesses. I’d like to see more smaller fishermen stay in business and pass the knowledge then a few big aqua-businesses. If that’s the way it’s going to roll, cod will be off my nice list just to not support big-fishing. Say it ain’t so!
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therein lies the problem beth.
they changed something that was working (DAS) for the owner operated small boat fleet and working at rebuilding the cod biomass to something that promotes “bigger is better” the very same thing that they were against two decades ago when they encouraged fishermen to transform the fleet from offshore trip boats to inshore day boats.
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Although there will be far fewer of these boats, Captains and crew members and within our generation when all of these older skippers sell out very few if any independent fishermen because large corporations will be the only ones who will be able to afford the permits.
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The CLF press release does not state how many of the existing small business owner operated boats landed that 30% increase however. I would guess that it is the fishermen who got the larger slice of the pie when it was cut up and that there are several boats that are on the verge of collapse and haven’t landed anything. Hopefully the EDF or CLF will hire those guys so they can survive the winter without their livelihoods.
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Pete,
Thanks for simplifying this matter. I’ve been an avid follower of this for some time and you’ve explained it very well.
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