BOSTON — This morning in the Massachusetts State House, Senator John Kerry will convene a field hearing on the state of fisheries management and regulation. Several opinion pieces and articles were published in advance of the hearing, expressing various perspectives.
Dr Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of NOAA
In an interview with Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press , Dr. Lubchenco said "I have a long-standing great relationship with fishermen as well as environmental groups, and I know they are not at polar opposite ends" She was optomoistic about the new system, saying. "There's light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a long tunnel."
However, she said that NOAA has realized the new system, which she championed and implemented a national policy to support, lacks "checks and balances" to stop a few entities from controlling most of the fishery. "I do not know what the size of the fishery should be," she said. "It is not our goal to have anything other than a diverse fleet that is sustainable." She said she favors putting caps, so-called accumulation limits, on how much any single fishing interest can control. Both the initial catch share policy and now the notion of accumulation caps to correct its flaws were first championed by environmental groups.
She also said it's important to find a way to help fishermen pay the millions in costs for at-sea monitors, which are required under the new system to track the catch and ensure fishermen are staying within the set limits. These are essentially on-board police, but unlike most law enforcement, the regulations put the burden of paying for them on the industry not the government, creating something akin to an unfunded mandate.
The costs were covered by the federal government in the first two years of the new system, but fishermen look to be on their own in 2012.
"It's a very real concern that we share with fishermen," she said. "I don't know what the answer is. I just know we need to figure that out."
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts
Writing in the Gloucester Times , Senator John Kerry observes "It's becoming harder and harder for smaller fishing families and smaller fishing boats to survive. The latest reports show that 20 percent of the vessels account for 80 percent of the revenues in the industry. As the fleet consolidates among the biggest fishing entities, smaller fishermen are seeing their livelihoods endangered. They need help to survive."
"One of my most important and most satisfying responsibilities as Massachusetts' senior senator is, as Sen. Kennedy taught me 26 years ago, to leverage my experience and relationships to bring all the stakeholders – on any issue – together to talk face to face, break an impasse, create understanding, and find innovative ways to move forward."
Richard Canastra of the New Bedford and Boston Seafood Auctions
Writing in the Standard-Times, Richard Canastra stepped into the public debate between Rip Cunningham, chairman of the New England Fisheries Management Council and Dr. Brian Rothschild of the University of Massachusetts, observing "While the acting chairman of the NEFMC and his staff participate in endless reviews of 9-month old reports describing how badly their operation is run, commercial fishermen, destroyed by the regulations they implemented, are unable to pay their bank loans and are forced to sell their boats and businesses."
He argues that Mr. Cunningham's attempted defense of the Council actually proves Dr. Rothschild's point. "Dr. Rothschild makes the important point that the 'dysfunctional' fishing management system has 'no master plan to improve communications, revise data collection, conduct cooperative research and achieve optimum yield.'"
"In his attempt at refutation, Cunningham focuses on dubious claims of positive impacts from job-killing catch shares regulations. … his cold and analytical description of fishermen 'adjusting to the new program that most certainly promotes accountability, allows much greater harvesting and marketing flexibility, and gets the government out of the day-to-day micromanaging of each individual operator,' with almost no regard for the pain and suffering inflicted upon those who are now unemployed as a result of his organization's actions, is a heartless understatement that is sadly indicative of the attitude regulators have toward this vital American industry."
Emily Litsinger of the Environmental Defense Fund
Emily Litsinger, of EDF which has championed catch shares, wrote in the Standard-Times "The New England fishing industry has been struggling for decades. Although the new sector system hasn't provided an instant solution to the decline in fishing vessels and jobs, the program has led to other improvements on the water and at the dock, bringing hope of stability. With a year of experience in how the system is working, it is now time to focus on some commonsense solutions to ensure the system works effectively for as many fishermen as possible."
Michael Conathan of the Center for American Progress
Michael Conathan observed that "Today, fishermen on docks from Maine to Rhode Island have come to hate the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan even more than the New York Yankees." but expressed optomism noting "We will have another opportunity to change the tone of the groundfish dialogue in Boston on Monday morning. Yet as long as we deal in stereotypes rather than the reality that every story has multiple sides, we're not going to make any progress. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may "reject the word" compromise, but to put things in terms even he can support, the time has come for the various components of the New England groundfishery to lay down their slings and arrows and start looking for "common ground."