October 13, 2014 — It is clearly time for a new model that shelves the insular response to new quotas and instead draws on lessons from all over the nation. The cod industry has become analogous to a wheezing factory about to be shuttered or an exhausted mining operation facing closure.
With codfish at their lowest level in history, it is hard to give credence to fishermen and political leaders who believe New England’s iconic catch would be just fine if only nosy researchers and regulators would get out of the way.
The New England Fishery Management Council has recommended emergency regulations to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the remainder of the 2014 fishing year and is considering more permanent measures that could cut the cod catch down to 1 percent of what it was two decades ago — or cut out codfishing altogether. The reaction, predictably, has been fierce as NOAA is expected to respond by next month.
In the Globe, the Gloucester Daily Times, and the Cape Cod Times, fishermen are again protesting that they will lose everything, with one calling further restrictions “premeditated murder” of inshore fleets. Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk has retreated to the decades-old default political stance of calling the science “questionable,” declaring in a letter, “we cannot have any more direct hits on the Gloucester fishing community.” This is after the region this spring received $32.8 million in federal disaster relief from prior restrictions. In Massachusetts, which received $14.5 million of the funds, then-Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rick Sullivan said, “We must protect the sustainability of our fishermen, and this financial assistance will help our fishing industry survive until the resource recovers and federal harvest regulations can be relaxed.”
The Globe editorial page in the past has consistently supported such aid in hopes the industry would use the money to focus on sustainable marine enterprises. But the reflexive insistence on the status quo is untenable when the worst hit of all is coming, with no telling if cod will recover and when limits on the harvest can be relaxed. For instance, Newfoundland shut down its cod fishery in 1992, costing 30,000 jobs. There have been signs of recovery in the last couple of years, but the codfish population is still 90 percent below levels of the 1980s, a far distance from commercial viability. If that is any guide, Gulf of Maine cod may not be a marquee fish again until the 2030s. From a catch of 21,000 metric tons in 1992, proposals are now being discussed to limit the catch to as little as 200 metric tons.
Read the full editorial at the Boston Globe