October 18, 2013 — The following letter was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:
I’m writing in response to the Gloucester Daily Times’ Oct. 15 editorial “Time to put brakes on bogus ocean ‘habitat’ measure.”
For over the past five years, the Northeast Seafood Coalition has actively participated in the New England Fishery Management Council process surrounding the Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2 (commonly referred to as the Habitat Omnibus Amendment) to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.
On behalf of our fishing members, we have and continue to engage in every step of this process to help ensure this management action is successful in achieving its intended purpose while not creating adverse and largely unnecessary impacts on an already fragile groundfish fleet.
The initial direction of the Habitat Amendment was to develop focused habitat areas and protect habitat on a finer scale than the broad closures commercial groundfish fishermen face today.
The closures currently in place are the result of a 15-year-old management approach, which essentially closed fishing grounds where the most fish were caught in order to achieve the necessary reductions in what is referred to as fishing mortality.
Read the Northeast Seafood Coalition's full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times