New England fisherman are being shut down by Obama's appointee: Lubchenco
Like small farms, the fisherman will be displaced by large AquaCorps. Nice. Thanks.
They need us to fight with them in this war between the little guys and the big guys.
So I will broadcast their story here.
In New England, no natural disaster is threatening them. Obama Et Al is by not reigning in Lubchenco. This makes my blood boil. The fisherman have and can continue to protect their resource. It's the BIG GUYS that are the threat.
So what does Lubhenko hope to do? Remove the small fisherman from the equation and hand the industry to the BIG GUYS.
The New England fisherman aren't getting many spots on the news. Their flotilla protest yesterday? Crickets.
I grew up in New England. Fisherman are the heart and soul of the coasts. They don't ask for much. Just the freedom to make a living, a couple of brewskies, and a middle class life for their families. They love what they do. I love the fish they risk their lives to bring to our tables, although their fish doesn't seem to make it to my grocers here in Utah, darn.
Here is the full page add they paid for and put in the Martha's Vineyard paper this week:
Northeast Seafood Coalition takes out full page ad in Vineyard Gazette
EDGARTOWN, Massachusetts – Aug 24, 2010 –
The Northeast Seafood Coalition has taken out a full page ad in today’s Vineyard Gazette. The ad is an open letter to President Obama from Russell Sherman, captain of the Fishing Vessel Lade Jane of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The text follows:
“MR. PRESIDENT, WE NEED YOUR HELP”
Dear President Obama,
My name is Russell Sherman, and I am a life-long fisherman. Like New England fisherman before me have done for 387 years, I take my vessel, the 72-foot F/V Lady Jane from the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, into North Atlantic waters to bring back cod, haddock, flounder, and other groundfish for America’s table. I hope that while you’re in New England, you and your family are enjoying a few meals of our fresh catch – there’s none better tasting or healthier in the world.
Mr. President, my fellow fishermen and I need your leadership. We are small businessmen and women who want to continue the profession we love. We have worked hard over the past 16 years to rebuild groundfish stocks. Today, some stocks are fully rebuilt, and most others are expected to rebuild in three years, by 2014. According to federal forecasts, a fully rebuilt fishery will yield a sustainable catch nearly five times current landings.
At a time when we should be hopeful about the future of our businesses, we are desperate instead. We are being driven from our work and the fishery we have helped to rebuild. Ironically, what’s putting us out of work are the rules to rebuild the fishery. The most recent version of these rules – effective on May 1, 2010 – impose very low annual catch limits on stocks for the next three years, and at the same time institute a
“catch share” system.
Take my case. Under the 2010 rules, my permit allows an annual catch of only 60,000 lbs of groundfish. At an average price of $1.50 a pound, that’s an annual gross of $90,000, or about one-quarter of my business’ gross income last year. I simply cannot run my business and support my crew of four – each with a family – on only $90,000 a year.
My business is only one of hundreds facing extinction. While there will be a small handful of “winners” under these new rules, the vast majority of us will be losers. And when we “losers” are forced out, jobs will be lost, coastal communities gutted, and crucial commercial fishing infrastructure gone forever. Is this the way to rebuild our storied, centuries-old groundfish fishery?
I belong to an organization called the Northeast Seafood Coalition, a New England-wide organization of 255 small, entrepreneurial fishing businesses and allied support businesses that participates in the public process. The Coalition has tried to bring this matter to the attention of your Department of Commerce. We have tried to offer constructive solutions to the challenge of rebuilding fisheries without at the same time destroying them. But our efforts have fallen on deaf ears.
Mr. President, we desperately need your leadership. We ask that you please direct your Department of Commerce to listen to us and work with us. We know that we can meet this challenge by working together.
Sincerely yours,
Russell Sherman, Captain, F/V Lady Jane Port of Gloucester, Massachusetts
Why, why, why would Obama appoint someone who wants to dismantle the fishing fleets of New England? Or maybe Obama is unaware. Well, he isn't after this weekend.
This Boston Globe article provides the background. Here are some highlights:
In a statement to the Times soon after her confirmation by the Senate, Lubchenco’s office said her goal was to see a "significant fraction of the vessels ... removed."
With the stocks rebuilding strongly, fishermen wonder at the need to reduce the size of the work force.
Mayors Carolyn Kirk of Gloucester and Scott Lang of New Bedford have condemned federal fisheries policies for bringing unnecessary social and economic hardship as a certain price for the uncertain resource management benefits of catch share regulations.
Lubchenco has argued that consolidation, which has consistently followed catch shares, produces fewer but better jobs while giving the government a stronger hand in conservation.
The industry sees catch shares as an invitation for market speculation that will condemn the fishing culture to the same fate that conglomeration brought to the family farm.
http://www.bostonherald.com/...
For further context, this letter to the editor by Jim Nunn really captures the heart of this issue. It's a war:
August 24, 2010
My View, Jim Munn: The feds' war on fishermen
My View
Jim Munn
The government in Washington is like the moon: It has two sides, the one facing Earth, and the one that remains hidden from view — or the dark side, as some prefer calling it.
That comparison has been especially easy to see in the ongoing, ever-worsening conflict involving America's commercial fishermen and a handful of top-level branches, agencies, and representatives of the federal government.
The White House, Commerce Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Fisheries and Minerals Management Service, all seem happy backers of a campaign spearheaded by NOAA fisheries commandant Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA chief whose goal is to forcefully drive a "significant fraction" of the domestic commercial fishing fleet off the nation's coastal waters forever.
If successful, Dr. Lubchenco's thinly-veiled declaration of war against New England fishermen may well reduce what's left of Gloucester's current fleet — some 80 boats — to a few dozen, and even those would be in danger of being swallowed up by the powerful forces of consolidation that Lubchenco and her Inner-Beltway Axis partners are so intent on making happen these days.
What chance, one might ask, do fishermen have against so powerful an adversary as the government? Little to none, but for one factor — not everyone in Washington has swallowed the "Save the Fish, Eliminate the Fishermen" lure that Field Marshall Lubchenco has been using to net support in her rapidly escalating war against America's commercial fishermen.
Though it would be premature to refer to congressional heavyweights John Kerry, Scott Brown, Barney Frank and John Tierney as "champions" of New England fishermen and their numerous related industries, all must be credited for having chosen to wade at least knee-deep into a bitter and divisive battle that now has nearly every fisherman from the northern tip of Maine to the southernmost part of Connecticut, and far beyond, fighting for their very existence.
Make no mistake, use here of the word "war" to describe the current fisheries conflict is not only intentional, it's also entirely justifiable. After all, a torpedo is not the only device capable of sinking a boat, or even an entire fleet. Laws, rules, and regulations can also be written and enforced that produce the same result.
For those of us who earn our livelihoods on dry land, the pounding America's fishermen have been taking at the hands of an out-of-control federal bureaucracy might as well be taking place on the dark side of the moon.
But that's only because we, the public, have chosen not to get engaged, not to know, not to get involved in this unconscionably bitter dispute.
Avoiding involvement by staying home and reading a book or watching television may seem the safe thing to do. But turning away from the conflict that is presently going on directly outside our living room windows here in Gloucester and other fishing communities only allows the dark forces in society to gain ever-greater influence and control over our everyday lives.
America's fishermen are the victims of a ruthless government conspiracy, the objective of which isn't conservation or protection of the nation's fisheries, as publicly stated, but rather the consolidation and redistribution of the ocean's richly varied natural resources among a small but select number of the world's wealthiest and most powerful corporate bidders.
It's fishermen who are the latest victims of this heartless aggression. What remains to be seen, is who and what small businesses and industries will be targeted next?
Even though no blood has yet been shed, it's still a war, and a brutal one at that. So, where's the greater resistance?
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/...
Without having been privy to all the back office discussions, we can't conclude that BIG GUYS are calling the shots; however, if they are not then they still will end up the winners of a policy that will end the careers of the fisherman of New England and all the businesses that they feed.
SHAME ON THIS GOVERNMENT. THIS IS BUSINESS AS USUAL, NOT THE CHANGE I VOTED FOR.
If you have a moment, please call and write to your Congress representatives.
The fisherman need support from the rest of us to help them win this battle against a Fed takeover of their industry. Please write and help this story spread farther.