Yesterday, Mr. Shelley told the Gloucester Times' Richard Gaines that the lawsuits CLF filed last week against NOAA actions to provide relief to fishermen are "not hypocritical at all."
WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) June 6, 2013 — Peter Shelley, senior counsel with the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), last week criticized Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley for filing suit against NOAA after the agency, among other things, rejected the recommendations of the New England Fishery Management Council to extend for a second year, provisions that would have lessened the severity of cod quota cuts.
In a press release, Mr. Shelley stated: "Going to court or getting up on a political soapbox will not magically create more fish", and "Political interference like this action by Attorney General Coakley has been a leading cause of the destruction of these fisheries over the past twenty years, harassing fishery managers to ignore the best science available."
Yesterday, Mr. Shelley told the Gloucester Times' Richard Gaines that the lawsuits CLF filed last week against NOAA actions to provide relief to fishermen are "not hypocritical at all."
(Gloucester Daily Times) June 6, 2013 –"It's not hypocritical at all," said Shelley, who criticized Coakley for interfering with the federal regulatory process.
"The distinction for me is that I have seen time and time again when politicians – in this case the attorney general – hasn't participated in the (fisheries management) process, and then comes in to try to influence the process in litigation," Shelley said. "They're not taking a legal position, there's not much there except politics.
"Our suits are not political," he said. "They're strictly based on the facts, and we do it as a last resort."
Coakley's office begged to differ Wednesday.
"Rather than resorting to false and personal accusations, our office chooses to argue on the facts," Chris Loh, spokesman for Coakley's office, said in a prepared statement. "The indisputable facts are that NOAA has a history of overzealous enforcement and their new regulations will be a death sentence to the fishing industry. Our motive is simple – to make sure the federal government does its job right instead of devastating our fishing industry."
Shelley discounted as irrelevant that the attorney general's suit was supported by Gov. Deval Patrick, whose designee sits on the New England Fishery Management Council, the policy advisory arm of NOAA which voted 16-1 against radical reductions in catch limits for groundfish in 2013. The sole dissenting vote was taken by NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard.
In the face of the otherwise unanimous appeal by the council, made up of ocean state representatives and at large appointees chosen from lists of gubernatorial candidates by the NOAA administrator through the Secretary of Commerce, Bullard refused to ease limits on landings.
Underpinning both the attorney general's suit and CLF suits filed last Friday is the same fact – that the Northeast groundfishery was declared by the acting commerce secretary to have collapsed into a "disaster" eight months ago despite industry's adherence to the government's resource management.
"Confirming this dismal outlook, fishermen have been unable to find enough cod to even come close to filling their small quotas," Shelley wrote on the CLF blog. "The fish just aren't there any more."
This line is also favored by the Pew Environment Group, but fishermen took more than 60 percent of their inshore cod quota last year, despite market and regulatory limitations inherent in the unique mix of stock allocations on each permit. Low allocations in any one stock will halt fishing in all stocks.
In the face of the crisis, the attorney general sued to challenge the legality of the extreme measures imposed in response, while Shelley's CLF were moving to provide additional protection to the resources – opposing the decision of the council and NOAA to allow uncaught carryover and fishing in longtime closed areas. Shelley has not been shy in arguing that all fishing for cod should be stopped, a step that would threaten the survival of the industry.
Bullard described his decision to reduce landings by 78 percent as a sign of the arrival of a "day of reckoning"; Coakley and many within the industry argue that such a radical reduction is "a death penalty."
Bullard has agreed to consider allowing fishermen into three closed areas so long as habitat and spawning are not degraded and use 10 percent of unused quota from last year, which is an existing policy in part to discourage fishermen from taking risky trips in bad weather at the end of the fishing year rather than leave part of their allocation in the sea.
Shelley, however, argues that the closed areas were essential to the rebuilding of the distressed stocks.
Many of the closures were established to reduce fishing mortality, and are "artifacts of the old effort control system," the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition argued in an email to the Times. The system now operates on hard catch limits "making other mortality or effort controls – like certain closed areas – redundant.
"Many of the existing closures greatly hinder fishermen's ability to access and harvest their available allocation," the coalition said.
"Contrary to the Conservation Law Foundation's imprudent lawsuit, areas fishermen could gain access to … are conservative and would be limited to areas not defined as habitat closed areas and/or potential new habitat management areas being considered under the larger Habitat Omnibus Amendment."
The fierce clash between CLF and the fishing industry which has come to typify an increasingly contentious relationship reflects a divorce of one-time long ago harmonious allies.
More than 30 years ago, CLF partnered with Gloucester fishing interests to sue the federal government successfully to bar oil drilling on Georges Bank.
Read the original story at the Gloucester Daily Times
For more information on CLF and New England's closed areas
Saving Seafood has conducted extensive analysis on the debate surrounding areas closed to fishing in New England. For more information see:
CLF Incorrectly Accuses NOAA of "Risky" Fisheries Management
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ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation's Claims on Right Whales Don't Add Up
RON SMOLOWITZ: Modifying Closed Areas Will Be Better for Stocks
Conservation Law Foundation's "Top Ten" List misleads once again on closure revisions and marine mammal protections in Framework 48
Response to the Conservation Law Foundation's "For Cod's Sake"
ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation Misleads Public on Habitat Closed Area Changes