Opinion

March 3, 2015 — In a letter to Paula A. Kerger, President and CEO of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) which is attached and pasted below, the Seafood Coalition pointed out the inappropriateness of a publicly funded network using glaring distortions to hype an upcoming PBS miniseries.

Dear Ms. Kerger,

We in the U.S. commercial fishing industry have for the most part become inured to the distorted, mean spirited and too often self-serving attacks on domestic fish, domestic fishing and domestic fishermen that if not encouraged are definitely facilitated by a “news” industry that seems to put a much greater premium on shock value than on journalistic integrity. However, like most of our fellow citizens, we have felt that PBS has remained above that particular fray, being fortunate enough to be the recipient of significant public support.

Speaking for our membership, which is composed of the leaders of trade organizations that represent fishermen, processors and dealers who handle well over half of the fish and shellfish landed by U.S. vessels in U.S. ports, we were shocked by a promotional spot for your new series Wild. In it researcher Jeremy Jackson indicted by implication every U.S. fisherman – recreational, commercial, or party/charter – and the federal fisheries management system that we are and have been heavily invested in making the best in the world since the passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976.

Dr. Jackson started off by displaying three photographs of anglers, boat crews and dead fish. The first showed a dozen or so very large grouper. The second showed perhaps fifty not so large grouper, snapper, jacks and porgy. The third showed seven fish, possibly bonito. He then said "there's just no way that one can misinterpret what's happened here, which is that we've eaten all of these (first picture) and we've eaten all of these (second picture) and now all we have left is these (third picture). These are emblematic of a panoply of gigantic creatures that used to live here."
 
In fact it’s very easy to misinterpret what’s happening anywhere with anything based on an analysis of three photographs taken over a period of maybe 50 years with no information other than what’s depicted in those photos. And it’s apparent that’s what Dr. Jackson did.

The large grouper in the first photograph are goliath grouper. Their harvest and possession has been prohibited by federal and state law since 1990. Since this total moratorium was put in place the stock has recovered to such an extent that these large grouper are interfering with other fisheries and the managers are being pressured to open a restricted fishery on them. But since 1990 it would be illegal to have even one goliath grouper on a dock.

Of the four taxa of fish that predominate in the second photograph, the various species are now managed by size and possession limits and most have closed seasons as well.

A brief and easily accomplished review of the commercial and recreational catch data or of the more difficult to understand assessment data would reveal the true condition of the various stocks with significantly more accuracy than would holding three undated, undocumented photographs in front of a video camera. That’s why in the U.S. we spend tens of millions of dollars a year to collect that data.

We have not caught and eaten all of the big fish, nor have we caught and eaten all of the medium sized fish. In fact, from a resource perspective our fisheries are on the whole in much better shape than they have been in since the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act became law in 1976 and our management system is one of the most effective in the world.

Particularly considering the fact that PBS is in large part publicly funded, we would expect you to put more reliance on fact checking and less on sensationalist hype. There are fisheries scientists and professional managers whose objectivity is accepted by fishermen, the management establishment and other researchers who we would be eager to put PBS in touch with at any point in the future.

Sincerely,
Nils E. Stolpe (for the Seafood Coalition)

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, American Albacore Fishing Association, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, At-sea Processors Association, Blue Water Fishermen's Association, California Wetfish Producers Association, Coalition of Coastal Fisheries, Columbia River Crab Fishermen's Association. Coos Bay Trawlers Association, Directed Sustainable Fisheries, Fisheries Survival Fund, Fishermen's Dock Cooperative, Fishermen's Marketing Association, Garden State Seafood Association, Groundfish Forum, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Midwater Trawlers Cooperative, Monkfish Defense Fund, National Fisheries Institute, North Carolina Fisheries Association, Oregon Trawl Commission, Organized Fishermen of Florida, Pacific Seafood Processors Association, Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative, South Carolina Seafood Alliance, Southeastern Fisheries Association, United Catcher Boats, Washington Dungeness Crab Fishermen’s Association, Washington Trollers Association, West Coast Seafood Processors Association, Western Fishboat Owners Association

 

March 6, 2015 — Neither the industry nor fishing communities like Gloucester can afford to slide back into the dead ends and one-way regulatory streets of the past.

The announcement that NOAA Fisheries has agreed to pull back elements of last November’s emergency Gulf of Maine cod protective measures represents good news on several fronts.

For one, the easing of at least some of the conservation rules will indeed throw the Gloucester and northeast groundfishing industry a lifeline for the final weeks of the current fishing year.

Also, the step taken by NOAA — signaled two weeks earlier, when the federal agency agreed to at least reconsider an alternative cod proposal made by the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund and other stakeholders — should finally open the door to more input and cooperation between fishermen and their regulators. That can provide a significant step toward bridging the longstanding trust and credibility gaps between NOAA and the fishermen who regularly work the seas.

Now, it’s important that this cooperation be extended when it comes to setting regulations for the next fishing year, which is due to start May 1 — or in just eight weeks.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times

March 3, 2015 — Virtually all U.S. retailers have taken steps in recent years to articulate seafood-sourcing principles, sometimes via their seafood department, and others as part of an overall corporate responsibility commitment.

Whichever way these policies have been implemented, they have for the most part been positive for the seafood industry. Partnerships between retailers and suppliers have supported fishery improvements around the world, and have provided many examples of how large-scale seafood sales programs can rely on seafood that is sustainably harvested with minimal environmental impacts.

The common thread through most of these policies is the recognition that retailers are not in the business of science, and therefore have to rely on credible scientific evaluations by third parties to certify that the fisheries they buy from are meeting their commitments to sustainable practices.

In the United States, we are very fortunate in that many of the seafood sustainability principles are enshrined in federal law. Under the Magnuson Stevens Act, which governs all fisheries in federal waters, U.S. fishery managers are required to use the best available science in making decisions about harvest levels. They are required to identify essential fish habitat, and ensure that these habitats are protected, as well as being required to abide by the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Act, both of which offer extensive protections from fishing activities that are detrimental to other species.

Read the full opinion piece from John Sackton and Peggy Parker at Progressive Grocer

February 23, 2015 — The public perception of seafood’s fitness to meet health and sustainability goals is turning. The Dietary Guideline Report is a confirmation that what used to be only well known within the industry is becoming commonly accepted fact.

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Editor's View] by John Sackton — The US Government has handed the seafood industry a huge opportunity.

The newly released Dietary Advisory Guidelines (see Dietary Guidelines Advisory Report Strongly Urges More Seafood Consumption, Supports Aquaculture in today's stories)  have unequivocally called for more seafood consumption to increase American’s health, and they have taken on three controversies that have consistently held back seafood consumption.

For the past twenty years, we can argue that seafood has been the most publicly controversial protein.
 
There is a whole NGO marine protection industry organized around the idea that fisheries are depleted, and that without radically cutting back on fishing effort, most marine fisheries will disappear. The most famous expression of that was a scientific article by Daniel Pauly, since recanted, that claimed commercial fisheries would be extinct by 2048.
 
It caused a media sensation, and made eating fish a moral hazard for a large proportion of high income young consumers.
 
Since then, organizations have tended to claim disaster by conflating fisheries the FAO calls fully exploited with those the FAO calls overexploited. In fact, the percentage of global fisheries overexploited is declining. The percentage of fully exploited fisheries is stable.
 
The advisory committee report says “wild caught fisheries that have been managed sustainably have remained stable over the past several decades. ” This is exactly the argument we have been making: that strong fishery management strategies can create stable and sustainable fisheries over generations.
 
A second controversy involves farmed fish vs wild fish. Because wild fisheries, when sustainably managed, approach a range and cannot support higher removals, growth in sustainable seafood must come from aquaculture.
 
In fact, the aquaculture revolution promises to continue to transform seafood consumption. But there is again a phalanx of NGO critics who claim that aquaculture itself is unsustainable, because it depends on inputs from wild fisheries for feed stocks. So once again, they return to the argument that aquaculture growth is unsustainable, and threatens global wild fisheries.
 
What has actually happened has been that aquaculture production has doubled while world consumption of fishmeal and oil has remained constant. The reasons are more efficient feeds that have lowered the fish in / fish out ratio to close to 1:1, and the huge growth in production of fishmeal from offcuts and waste from fish processing. In some countries, such as Thailand, this accounts for the majority of their fishmeal.
 
Another attack on aquaculture has been that aquaculture fish have less DHA and other essential Omega 3’s than wild fish.
 
The committee says “evidence demonstrated that farm-raised seafood has as much or more EPA and DHA per serving as wild caught. “
 
The attack on aquaculture fish both because of its production methods, and because it is imported, with campaigns that say such fish is over treated with antibiotics or other drugs, that it has lower health value, and that it contains contaminants like PCB’s, has depressed consumption.
 
Again, many younger consumers believe that aquaculture fish is unsustainable, and full of drugs and chemicals.
 
Finally, regarding mercury, a global contaminant in many foods that results from use of coal fired electric plants and volcanic sources, the panel stated unequivocally that the benefits of eating seafood far outweigh the risks from contaminants such as mercury, where potential exposure is far below the limits the FDA considers to risk harmful impact.
 
The committee said "the benefits of seafood far outweigh the risks of small amounts of contaminants. ”
 
What is the opportunity.
 
The Government’s Official Dietary Advisory panel has taken on and debunked the three primary reasons younger, highly educated, and affluent consumers are not eating seafood.
 
We are in the midst of a dietary revolution in the US, where meat consumption is declining, more people are choosing vegetarian options, and more people are trying to eat healthier foods.
 
Here is how that has affected Yogurt and Seafood.
 
In 1990, Yogurt consumption was about 4 pounds per person, or an annual volume of .95 billion pounds. That year seafood consumption was 15 lbs. per capita, or about 3.7 billion pounds annually.
 
Both Yogurt and Seafood have been identified as part of a healthy low fat diet.
 
By 2012, Yogurt consumption had increased to 14.4 lbs per capita, or about 4.5 billion pounds. That year, seafood consumption was also 14.4 lbs per capita, or about 4.5 billion pounds.
 
How did one of these foods show a 250% increase while the other was flat. Both foods are widely identified with a healthy diet and consumed by younger affluent consumers.

I think this disparity partly shows just how seriously seafood consumption has been depressed by the controversies discussed above.

The public perception of seafood’s fitness to meet health and sustainability goals is turning. The Dietary Guideline Report is a confirmation that what used to be only well known within the industry is becoming commonly accepted fact.
 
But I doubt we will be able to do anything with this opportunity, because it takes a communication and marketing effort far larger than anything done with seafood.
 
The Seafood Nutrition Partnership has show with pilot projects that educating consumers about health benefits and working with them on diet interventions can permanently increase their seafood consumption.
 
But they don’t have the resources for a national campaign.
 
There is a push to fund seafood marketing efforts though a congressional bill that would target S-K funds, and set up regional seafood market councils. But like all national marketing schemes, each region will only promote their own seafood, so you would have campaigns for oysters and shrimp alongside campaigns for scallops and wild salmon.
 
The real dollars in seafood advertising and awareness come from the largest branded foodservice companies, especially Red Lobster, but also companies like Long John Silver, Rubio’s and others who advertise fish dishes.
 
There is also advertising on retail products by Gortons, Trident, Pacific, High Liner and others.
 
But there is no room in all these campaigns for a simple basic message, fully supported and echoed by the Government:
 
Seafood is sustainable.
 
All Seafood is good for you.
 
To be Healthy, Eat More Seafood.
 
Our industry is too small and fragmented to ever counter the money spent by NGO’s and those fund raising off the ocean crisis, who have a vested interest in not assuring consumers seafood is totally safe and sustainable.
 
That is why I doubt we can repeat the history of yogurt, despite having a product that fits the same healthy life style and targets the same demographic.
 
But wouldn’t it be spectacular if we could.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

February 23, 2015 — Now we only hope that this overture leads Bullard and his colleagues to accept the alternative proposal that was largely crafted by Vito Giacalone, executive director of the Gloucester Fishing Community Fishing Partnership and those within Northeast Sector 4, one of several cooperative groups of fishermen working under NOAA’s catch share system.

The reconsideration of the preservation fund and sector-based proposal gives new life to a plan that should throw a lifeline to Gloucester-based and other small-boat fishermen, while addressing Bullard’s cod preservation concerns alike.

It also closes the door on what one of the most downright frustrating NOAA-fishing clashes yet. That came in January, when Bullard essentially dismissed the alternative proposal on the basis that he and other NOAA officials simply didn’t have time to fully review it ad consider its implications.

With that, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition and other fishing industry groups understandably cried foul, noting that NOAA never even reached out for clarification or showed any other signs of working with the industry. And that was despite repeated calls from fishermen and lawmakers alike to allow more cooperative research and other industry input when considering regulatory policy and catch limits. So when Moulton and other members of the state’s House delegation backed the industry proposal, there was scant outward hope that the agency might even respond, let alone agree to reconsideration.

In a nutshell, the fishing partnership and sector proposal — backed by other sectors and stakeholders across the groundfishing industry — calls for the fishermen’s sectors to surrender up to 60 metric tons of their annual cod catch entitlement if NOAA either drops or scales back some of the emergency cod measures it instituted last November. Those new area closures and other steps came after an  unscheduled stock assessment — again, carried out without either the industry’s knowledge or input— showed the Gulf of Maine cod stock in worst straits then believed, even when NOAA cut fishermen’s landing limits by 78 percent in 2013.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

February 20, 2015 — Reaching out to students about 'responsibly harvested' seafood will benefit the Gulf of Maine fishery's long-term health.

Busy consumers don’t have time to research where their food comes from. They need a label they can trust. But while it’s easy to say that a product is good for the environment, it can be hard to get someone to back up that claim.

People who have fish on their shopping list can trust in its origins, as long as it has the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s “responsibly harvested” label. Now the Portland-based institute is targeting a different audience: students at the many colleges and universities in New England. And the facts show there’s definitely a place for this consumer education campaign in institutions of higher education.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute launched the branding program in 2011. The label applies to 10 species caught in the Gulf of Maine, between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. To get the label, vendors must show that the seafood has been harvested in a way that supports the stock’s long-term health, as outlined in stock assessments and management plans.

Read the full editorial from the Portland Press Herald 

 

February 17, 2015 — Yet, for all the sighs of relief, the announcement that the second phase of this $75 million aid package will soon be en route casts another spotlight on some important timing issues — and not just the absurd length of time it has taken NOAA to pull these phases together.

Remember that, in theory, there’s still phase 3 of this aid to come — one that may include a complex and likely controversial boat or permit buyout or buy-back program. And, most of all, remember that all the aid dates to a $75 million congressional appropriation that gained approval in early 2014.

While that package addressed the economic disaster across the industry declared by the Department of Commerce in the fall of 2012, the Northeast ground fishery has been socked since that time with Gulf of Main cod landing cuts of 78 percent covering the last two fishing years. And NOAA Northeast administrator John Bullard imposed an “emergency” set of area closures last November that have limited fishermen even more — especially affecting Gloucester’s day-boat fishermen, who rely on fishing inshore and whose smaller, independent boats can’t safely reach areas that have been opened.

When will our federal lawmakers begin addressing a desperately needed new aid package to address all of that? And when will those lawmakers take the real necessary steps to get to the root of this problem?

That can only come through forcing NOAA to not only reconsider its regulations, but to re-examine the science and the assessment methods behind them. Let’s start now.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times

February 9, 2015 — The message here is clear: climate change is taking dollars and jobs away from New England’s fishing communities.

Scientists, fishery managers and industry members recognize the necessity of better understanding this phenomenon, and numerous research projects are already underway. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Rutgers University have partnered to analyze data from oceanographic and fisheries-dependent studies. Their project, OceanAdapt, has confirmed that fish species off the northeast United States are collectively moving to higher latitudes and deeper water in search of the cooler temperatures they require to survive.

Of course, fishermen are the ones who know their ocean the best. So in order to get their perspective on what they are experiencing on the water, the Center for American Progress (CAP) commissioned a poll of participants in the groundfishery as well as the lobster fisheries in Maine and Massachusetts.

The CAP poll shows that majorities of all these fishermen and women believe climate change poses a significant risk to their industry, as warming waters lead to lower profits and lower catch limits. Respondents are deeply concerned these impacts could force them from the fishery or result in the disappearance of traditional markets for their product.

This perspective is consistent with the findings of the “Risky Business” report released last June by a bipartisan committee co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson and Tom Steyer. I was involved as a member of this project’s “Risk Committee,” which found that the American economy faces significant and diverse economic threats from the effects of climate change— rising seas, increased damage from storm surge, and more frequent bouts of extreme heat—all of which will have measurable impacts on our nation.

Read the full opinion piece at Newsweek

February 3, 2015 — The latest step in NOAA’s dismissal of any accountability regarding its regulations — or questions regarding its science models and stock assessment tactics, which are really at the crux of the matter —is particularly galling (ah, there’s another appropriate word) given that industry stakeholders had gone to the council meeting with a plan in hand.

Maggie Raymond of the Associated Fisheries of Maine said she was “flabbergasted” last week when NOAA regional Administrator John Bullard essentially dismissed any requests to scale back or otherwise revise the emergency interim measures that have brought new area closures and further tightened the noose around the commercial fishing industry.

She also said it’s “shocking” that NOAA Fisheries is apparently not willing to work with the industry in resolving the critical issues at hand.

It shouldn’t be.

There are many words to describe the NOAA stand that Bullard articulated last week at a meeting of the New England Fisheries Management Council; “Angry,” “disgusted” and “frustrated” are among those that immediately come to mind.

But “flabbergasted” and “shocked” are not. That’s because, in standing firm on NOAA’s emergency steps that have driven another stake into the Gloucester fleet, particularly, Bullard has sadly followed the same path as former NOAA chief administrator Jane Lubchenco, who failed to act accountably toward the industry or to lawmakers who challenged her policies. And those are the policies that first drove the industry into a state of “economic disaster” in 2012.

Read the full editorial from the Gloucester Daily Times

 

February 2, 2015 — The facts support a ban on offshore drilling not only in the wilds of Alaska — as the administration has announced — but also along our densely populated, economically vibrant and environmentally diverse Eastern Seaboard.

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster should remind us that the benefits of drilling do not outweigh the threat to local economies, public health and the environment when an inevitable spill occurs. The spill, occurring off the Louisiana coast less than five years ago, devastated the Gulf of Mexico region — most likely costing over $100 billion in lost economic activity and restoration expenses, disrupting or destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and causing long-term damage to 3,000 miles of fragile wetlands and beaches. Experts estimate that only 5 percent of the 4.2 million barrels of oil spilled in the gulf was removed during the cleanup; even today, oil from the spill is still appearing on the white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle.

To allow drilling off the Atlantic Coast is to willfully forget Deepwater’s awful lesson even as the economic, environmental and public health consequences continue to reverberate in communities along the gulf. If a disaster of Deepwater’s scale occurred off the Chesapeake Bay, it would stretch from Richmond to Atlantic City, with states and communities with no say in drilling decisions bearing the consequences. The 50-mile buffer the administration has proposed would be irrelevant. And unlike the gulf, the Chesapeake is a tidal estuary, meaning that oil would remain in the environment for decades.

Furthermore, we shouldn’t be so quick to embrace offshore exploration at a time when climate change is likely to cause increasingly powerful hurricanes, like Sandy in 2012. If a single hurricane has the power to damage or destroy more than 650,000 homes in its path, we should consider what might become of an oil rig.

Even in normal conditions, claims that safety has improved significantly in recent years should not be taken seriously. As recently as last fall, two people were killed in separate explosions off the Louisiana coast while working on offshore oil and natural gas facilities.

Read the full opinion piece at the New York Times