MRAG Americas, a major contractor for NOAA and a provider of on-board monitoring services for the rollout of catch shares in New England's groundfishery, is hosting an invitation-only workshop next Monday as part of a project to create methods for evaluating the success of the new fishery management system.
MRAG — a for-profit company whose president is Andrew Rosenberg, a former high official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service — was contracted for the catch share study by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which has steered millions of dollars in grants to groups promoting the catch share system, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, the MRAG website notes.
Together, grants to the Hook group and EDF related to New England catch shares have totaled more than $4 million.
Read the complete story in the Gloucester Times