May 23, 2017 — Carlos Rafael can do some good for the fishing industry, fishermen and fish stocks he so badly damaged during his decades of fraud, argue Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) leaders Matt Tinning and Johanna Thomas in a recent opinion piece in South Coast Today.
“Leaders in the fishing industry have made two demands that we support: Carlos Rafael should never again be allowed to fish, and his groundfish quota should be redistributed to other participants in the fishery who were among his victims. We propose a third remedy: He should face steep fines and asset seizures proportionate to his crimes, and the proceeds should be used to fix system failures that allowed his criminality to flourish.”
Specifically, they call for the creation of a a Groundfish Monitoring Fund. Tinning is senior director of the EDF’s US oceans program; and Thomas is the New England regional director for EDF.
They argue, “One of the major causes of the New England cod crisis, and a key enabler of Rafael’s crimes, is inadequate monitoring of the groundfish fleet,” they state in the article. “Only one out of 10 groundfish boats carries an at-sea observer, and there are no monitors to document catch when fishermen bring their harvest to land. As a result, participants in the fishery can’t have confidence that all are abiding by fishing rules, and little accurate information on fishing activity exists upon which to base harvest limits. It is no wonder that Rafael’s massive fraud went undetected for so long, or that this fishery has one of the worst records of stock recovery in the country.
“A Groundfish Monitoring Fund could turn this fishery around. In other places, like the U.S. Pacific and British Columbia, successful groundfish monitoring programs have helped resuscitate stocks and put fishermen on a level playing field. There are growing calls for New England to adopt similar innovations, and the Fishery Management Council recently kicked off an amendment process that could get this done. A major remaining challenge, however, is the cost burden of effective monitoring. If a Groundfish Monitoring Fund could overcome that hurdle by helping underwrite costs, it could be a historic breakthrough.”