February 23, 2015 — Now we only hope that this overture leads Bullard and his colleagues to accept the alternative proposal that was largely crafted by Vito Giacalone, executive director of the Gloucester Fishing Community Fishing Partnership and those within Northeast Sector 4, one of several cooperative groups of fishermen working under NOAA’s catch share system.
The reconsideration of the preservation fund and sector-based proposal gives new life to a plan that should throw a lifeline to Gloucester-based and other small-boat fishermen, while addressing Bullard’s cod preservation concerns alike.
It also closes the door on what one of the most downright frustrating NOAA-fishing clashes yet. That came in January, when Bullard essentially dismissed the alternative proposal on the basis that he and other NOAA officials simply didn’t have time to fully review it ad consider its implications.
With that, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition and other fishing industry groups understandably cried foul, noting that NOAA never even reached out for clarification or showed any other signs of working with the industry. And that was despite repeated calls from fishermen and lawmakers alike to allow more cooperative research and other industry input when considering regulatory policy and catch limits. So when Moulton and other members of the state’s House delegation backed the industry proposal, there was scant outward hope that the agency might even respond, let alone agree to reconsideration.
In a nutshell, the fishing partnership and sector proposal — backed by other sectors and stakeholders across the groundfishing industry — calls for the fishermen’s sectors to surrender up to 60 metric tons of their annual cod catch entitlement if NOAA either drops or scales back some of the emergency cod measures it instituted last November. Those new area closures and other steps came after an unscheduled stock assessment — again, carried out without either the industry’s knowledge or input— showed the Gulf of Maine cod stock in worst straits then believed, even when NOAA cut fishermen’s landing limits by 78 percent in 2013.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times