Of the 500 or so commercial boats working in the New England groundfishery today, only half of them — perhaps even fewer than that — will still be fishing in 2011, industry innovator Vito Giacalone predicted yesterday. Giacalone made his projection a day after the New England Fishery Management Council, in a dramatic reversal of votes taken in June, agreed to tighten fishing constraints on the "common pool."
Even among councilors who approved the pivotal motion 15-0 Wednesday night, late in the middle day of a three-day meeting in Plymouth, the consensus was that the common pool had been consigned to a common grave.
Rodney Avila, a New Bedford fisherman and councilor, called the action the "death knell" for the common pool.
"Because of what they agreed to last night," said Giacalone, who helped organize 13 sectors at the Northeast Seafood Coalition where he is a founder and its guru, "one half will be gone, maybe more."
He also blamed "absolutely ridiculous" catch limits, the ceilings for the catch shares, set by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The most notorious of these was the quota put on pollock, barely one-third of the commercial catch from last year. Giacalone has said quotas, no matter how tight, pose no threat so long as they fit the availability of the species.
Only tight quotas on healthy stocks could force an early shutdown of the fleet, he argues.
Read the story in the Gloucester Times