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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 3
November 2007
Alliance seeks industry support; wants Congress to grill NMFS
NEW BEDFORD, MA – In mid-October, the Port of New Bedford Business Alliance was trying to build fishing industry support for a petition asking Congress to conduct a formal oversight hearing on the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) stewardship of marine resources.
According to Gene Soccolich, strategic adviser for the grassroots group, the plan was to gather signatures and then submit the petition to the area’s local congressional delegation, including US Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and John Kerry (D-MA) and US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).
However, it didn’t take long for word of the petition to spread and it was reportedly being widely circulated not only in Massachusetts but also in Maine, and Soccolich was beginning to think that fishermen from other parts of the country might take up the effort as well.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but my target is, after one month of obtaining signatures … (to submit) the signatures and final letter … to the local congressional delegation,” he said. “It is up to other areas to consider the same action at their own discretion.”
“Grossly deficient”
The petition starts off with a statement of industry support for achieving “a more sustainable fishery and fishing industry” and then characterizes NMFS’s handling of fishery management to be “grossly deficient” and “causing severe economic harm,” leading to a complete lack of confidence in the agency on the part of the industry.
The document further praises the diligent work conducted by marine scientists but adds that resource assessments are only part of the equation that should be used to “establish credible optimum yield estimates and develop true ecosystem-based management.”
And it criticizes NMFS for failing to develop and use “comprehensive methodology for assessing the impacts of … environmental variability on reproductive patterns, migration routes, and ecosystem relationships.”
Instead, the petition states, “NMFS … has placed the entire onus of resource depletion on commercial fishermen with constraints (that are) recklessly causing severe harm and suffering to the fishing community. Fishermen who have obeyed NMFS regulations now find themselves and their fishing communities on the brink of economic disaster.”
End discards
The petition further calls for an end to: destructive discards of inadvertent bycatch; expedited rebuilding timeframes that render fishermen “inhumanely into the ultimate bycatch;” and quota reductions based on less than comprehensive information.
States the petition:
“No industry could reasonably operate in a business manner under such a constant barrage of abrupt emergency actions and regulatory changes by NMFS for over a decade. … We trust our congressional representatives to have both the will and the wisdom to take rightful action and stop this bleeding.”
For more information, call the alliance at (508) 996-9700 or e-mail Soccolich at <gene@portnewbedford.org>.
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