March 11, 2014 — But the far more troubling numbers in the Urban Harbors Institute report — those that show a loss of at least 12-15 boats within Gloucester’s Designated Port Area between last spring and the end of February — cast one more dire cloud over Gloucester's fishing economy. Time is not on the fishermen’s side. A life line in the form of eased 2015 catch limits is more than appropriate.
For while it documents the changes seen over the last year — when the Northeast groundfishery, already a declared economic disaster, confronted even tighter new cod cuts of up to 78 percent — it may foreshadow an even weaker 2015 fishing year, which is set to being May 1.
Amid all the talk of promised federal fishing aid, and Saltonstall-Kennedy Act tariff money — still tied up in NOAA’s grant evaluation process (see news story, Page 1) — let’s not forget that the same commercial fishing limits that have sent Gloucester’s fleet into a downward spiral are due to remain in place for the 2015 fishing year as well. And that’s a frightening prospect while fishermen and fishing communities like Gloucester play a tense waiting game for money that, for many, is already too late.
That’s why it remains essential for federal lawmakers to continue pressing for the kind of federal reforms that will address these programs over the long term.
Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times