September 24, 2018 — Most SouthCoast residents are well aware that relationships between local commercial fishermen and government regulators are frequently tense.
This newspaper alone regularly documents disagreements between them on issues as diverse as how endangered specific fish species are, how effective groundfish catch-share systems are, and who is financially responsible for at-sea monitoring.
Whatever the concern, it’s not surprising when the two groups approach an issue from opposing points of view.
So the city’s proposal to improve dialogue between fishermen and government scientists by bringing them together to coexist on the New Bedford waterfront is a welcome one and one that has the potential to build trust where very little has existed in recent years.
The idea to relocate NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford was first proposed two years ago, when NOAA announced it would review its aging and increasingly out-of-date Woods Hole facilities and consider new sites. In response, Mayor Jon Mitchell, the Economic Development Council, harbor officials and others sent a detailed letter to then NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan to consider the many benefits of moving its research center to the nation’s highest grossing commercial fishing port.
The city’s argument was that by placing both groups in close proximity, NOAA “could at last begin to break down barriers to communication, and repair the distrust that has plagued the relationship between the National Marine Fisheries Service and the fishing industry in the Northeast for decades,” according to the city’s proposal.
Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times