As per insider information Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, promised flexibility and accountability, but officials left the session, arranged by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., concerned that the agency was staying the course to impose extremely limited catch shares along with a cooperative system called sector management.
The fishing industry is under constant fear that the changes will cause a wave of job losses and idle boats by midyear because the allocations are too small for small boats to make enough money. New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang wrote in a letter fired off to Lubchenco after the meeting, that if they proceed along the lines contemplated, they will lose 50 percent of their fleet.
Bridgid O’Rourke, spokesman for Kerry, D-Mass, described yesterday’s meeting as “a private stakeholders’ meeting” put together at the request of Massachusetts fishing industry representatives. But for Peter Shelley, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation, the meeting which included no representatives from the environmental community, is another way.
Over the past three months, environmental organizations like CLF, Pew and the Marine Fish Conservation Network have been uncharacteristically silent in the face of a concerted effort by some groups of fishermen and some Massachusetts members of Congress to roll back key provisions of current fishery management. Environmentalists are concerned they are seeing a tried-and-true formula in the New England fishery experience, where disaffected fishermen engage the support of politicians who then question the science that is the basis of restrictive management measures.
Ken Stump, policy director for the Washington-based Marine Fish Conservation Network, admits that this is some big political muscle being flexed by the industry. He told that the environmentalists in New England are a little intimidated. But Tom Dempsey, fisheries policy coordinator for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, pointed out that there was a middle ground, small changes that could alleviate the short-term concerns of fishermen and take some of the heat off NOAA.
