The congratulations that rained down on the fishery’s rule makers’ decision last week to privatize the bounty of the sea into negotiable "catch shares" for permitholders were, in essence, self-congratulations by those close to the process.
But their sentiment was not universally shared, with one member of the New England Fishery Management Council openly saying the final product of last week’s landmark meetings gives preferential treatment to a group of Cape Cod fishermen, even as fishermen in Gloucester and elsewhere remain wary of the new system.
For the most part, the congratulators were:
-Federal fishery overseers who’d conditioned the conversion decision from the legislating industry related New England Fishery Management Council with years of water torture cutbacks in days at sea and catch limits;
-ENGOs, the think globally, act locally environmental lobbies, who’d allied long ago with the overseers behind the unproved claim that catch shares save fish; and,
-Subsectors of the fishing industry tied to the ENGOs that were the biggest winners in the Portland actions and the rewrite of the defining elements on which the industry functioned. The catch-share format will be largely built upon fishermen who join business cooperatives known as sectors.