The Obama administration is launching a significant new effort to reach out to marine recreational fishermen, an economically and politically powerful group that has previously felt shut out by the new administration.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the main federal agency overseeing ocean and fisheries policy, has rolled out a series of new initiatives in the past month aimed at raising the profile of recreational fishing within the agency and calming some of the hostile waters between fishermen and the administration. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco created a new post for a high-level national policy adviser for recreational fishing, reorganized regional offices to put greater emphasis on sportfishing and created a new advisory panel on the issue.
And in its most visible move, the administration is hosting hundreds of fishermen this weekend in Alexandria, Va., for a national summit on recreational saltwater fishing.
The efforts are an attempt to reach out to a vast group of more than 15 million saltwater recreational fishermen who pump more than $31 billion into the economy each year and who could pose significant challenges as NOAA attempts to rebuild depleted fish stocks.
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