N.E. Fishing Areas - Boston Globe Article

[fshsltwtr]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/art...rine_reserves/


in case the link didn't work, www.boston.com or

Groups seek to create Atlantic marine reserves
Plan could curb N.E. fishing areas
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | November 20, 2006

An influential environmental group in New England has teamed up with a group in Canada in a campaign to declare large chunks of the northwest Atlantic Ocean off-limits to fishing and other human activities to protect a wide diversity of marine life and habitat .

Today, the Conservation Law Foundation and World Wildlife Fund-Canada will release a report recommending that marine reserves be created in about 20 percent of the ocean from Cape Cod to Eastern Canada's Scotian Shelf, and extending 10 to 200 miles from shore. The protected areas would probably include some of New England's most productive fishing areas .

The groups have spent six years mapping the region -- 2 1/2 times the size of New England -- to highlight unique ocean habitats and a broad range of marine life, from microscopic phytoplankton to right whales, that are the most important to preserve.

"Our goal is to protect biodiversity for the future," said John D. Crawford, senior scientist at Conservation Law Foundation and director of the group's Initiative on Marine Ecosystem Conservation. The report, he said, is "a beginning conversation -- this needs to be figured out in the public arena, in a public process."

Congressional or presidential authorization would probably be needed to set aside a network of marine protected areas in the federally managed waters. Until now, Boston-based CLF has focused on developing the scientific tools to decide what to save, but foundation officials are planning a public and legislative effort to get marine protected areas designated.

Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrats, said that they have not seen the report but welcomed efforts to protect ocean life.

The proposal is being announced as marine protected areas -- similar to conservation tracts on land -- gain a foothold across the nation, with several dozen existing in state and federal waters. In June, President Bush declared 140,000 square miles off Hawaii a national monument, prohibiting fishing and requiring permits for snorkelers and divers. California recently promised to ban or severely restrict fishing in a 200-square-mile swath, about 18 percent of state waters, off its central coast and officials there now promise to extend the network northward. If protected areas are developed off New England to the extent proposed, they would be one of the largest marine reserve networks off the nation's coast.

Many scientists and state marine officials say such marine reserves are long overdue in New England, which was once celebrated the world over for its rich cod and other groundfish stocks. Some fish populations today are a small fraction of their historic levels and it is unclear whether they ever will make a full recovery. One recent study said 90 percent of the world's edible seafood could be gone by 2048 if fishing isn't more strictly restricted. Pollution and increasing ship traffic are threatening the endangered North Atlantic right whale, while scientists worry that unique seascapes such as cold water coral beds may be lost forever if they are not outright protectedIn their report, the environmental groups give an example of what one 24,000-square-mile network of preserves could look like, with 30 parcels ranging in size from 100 square miles, on the eastern edge of Georges Bank off Cape Cod, to 4,741 square miles, a swath that extends from the northeastern tip of Georges Bank to the Scotian Shelf's southern tip. CLF's Crawford stressed that other configurations that take into account fishermen's livelihoods or shipping patterns could also work.

The groups say protected areas would prohibit most types of commercial fishing, sand and gravel mining, and oil and gas drilling, and would possibly impose speed restrictions on ships in whale-feeding areas. While each area may be protected differently, CLF's goal is to have as little human disturbance as possible in each.

Marine protected areas usually include a network of areas that allow some uses and prohibit others. Some, for example, ban any access by any person or boat while others will allow some kinds of fishing. While a series of smaller federal and state sanctuaries have been designated off New England's coast, most, such as the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, largely exist in name only with few, if any, restrictions.

To highlight key areas to possibly protect, CLF and WWF-Canada scientists gathered all the government data they could find on the life cycles, habitats, and populations of phytoplankton, fish, whales, and other marine organisms. The group also examined seawater temperature, salinity, depth, and seafloor composition. Then, they used a software program to identify the areas that protected the most species and habitats, in the most efficient way so the least amount of ocean needed to be restricted.

CLF officials say they used a 20 percent set-aside goal because it was recommended as a good target for marine protected areas in a scientific report by the National Research Council.

Fishermen, many who are withholding judg ment until they see the report, said 20 percent seemed arbitrary. Most said they weren't against protected areas -- large regions of the sea are closed now to rebuild fishing stocks -- but they worry that so much will be closed permanently they will not be able to earn a living.

"They have to be very careful not to close an area that is producing a lot of net benefit to the nation," said Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, a fishing industry group.

If history is any indication, CLF's announcement is the start of a long and guaranteed controversial process. Protesters hanged the manager of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in effigy when he began drawing lines telling them where they could and couldn't go in the 1990s. In California, the new restrictions on fishing in state waters took seven years to complete. In New England, with its large fishing fleet and vast fishing grounds, there may be even more to argue about.

"Ecologically, this is a logical discussion," said George LaPointe, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources and a member of an advisory panel for federal marine protected areas. "But if the discussion is going to be productive, we need to include everyone in the process. How do you manage it? What are your goals? How do you police it? I don't mind a discussion of no-fish areas, but is fishing survivable [ elsewhere ]? That is going to be the big question."

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.

[Bite Me]

If John Kerry and Ted Kennedy think it's a good idea then I'm all for it............. Start throwing all of your microscopic phytoplankton back, problem solved.
Maybe we need to use circle hooks on em.

[flatbottom]

just think about it. John and Ted will have the biggest dogfish aquarium in the world. Right in their back yards. Every scientist in the world will gobble the funding. They do not know what to do that is why they need research money. Look for more to jump on the funding train ride. When you let air out of your tires. Do it on odd days to save global warming. Tip from flat

[Deep C]

This boys an girls is a clasic reason we need more than just me on the NMFS councils. The bad guys are organized and lined up to knock us right off the water and will unless we get off our dead asses. I took the lead now lets recruit some others to fix this shit!

They have similar proposals down here. Hell one proposal suggests that the waters of the Florida keys be closed to all boating traffic????????? Then of course the divers and lobster guys are all for iit if exempted. This is crap!

[flatbottom]

this is how organized they are






U.S. sued over bluefin tuna catch in Gulf
Species in peril, groups believe
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS - Bluefin tuna fishing should be shut down in the Gulf of Mexico to keep one of the world's largest and most valuable fish from dying out, environmentalists say.
Earthjustice and the Blue Ocean Institute sued the federal government this week, after the government's rejection of a petition by Earthjustice to close 125,000 square miles of the Gulf when bluefin are spawning.
Coincidentally, a study in the current issue of Nature warns that fish populations worldwide are on the brink of collapse. Researchers from Dalhousie University in Canada say long-term trends based on fish landings indicate decades of overfishing have driven most commercial species to unprecedented low numbers. If the trend is not reversed, the researchers claim, most fish stocks will crash by 2048.
Federal fisheries managers say bluefin already are highly protected in domestic waters, and the species' decline is an international problem, since European nations catch more than 10 times as much bluefin tuna as North American nations.
Bluefin, which can reach 10 feet long and up to 1,500 pounds, travel thousands of miles every year to reach the spring spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico. Direct fishing for bluefin was banned in U.S. waters in 1999, said Sam Rauch, deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Yet many of the fish end up getting caught and sold regardless, hooked by longline fishing vessels targeting mahi-mahi, albacore and yellowfin tuna. That "incidental catch" is not illegal. Between 1995 and 2004, the most recent data available, more than 22 million pounds of bluefin tuna worth $150 million were landed in U.S. ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
According to NMFS data, there has never been any bluefin tuna landed and sold in Mississippi. Louisiana fishermen landed over 136,000 pounds of the fish last year and sold their catch for $538,000.
The lawsuit contends federal conservation laws compel Rauch's agency to stop that trade.
"The population of bluefin has been declining steadily for 20 years," said plaintiffs' attorney Steve Roady. "Unless the fisheries service takes prompt action to halt the killing of these bluefin as they spawn, that population decline will continue and lead to a situation where... it will never recover."
But David Maginnis, a tuna buyer in Dulac for Jensen Seafood, said fishing vessels in the Gulf catch only the occasional bluefin. The problem, he said, comes when the fish migrate to the other side of the Atlantic.
"The pressure for these fish in the Mediterranean is huge," Maginnis said.
"After the hurricane (Katrina) we only have about 23, 24 active boats in Louisiana. We had 150 boats working out of Venice at one time. Are 23, 24 boats hurting the bluefin stock?"
Quotas set by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas allowed the landing of 35,000 metric tons of tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean last year.
That equals more than 77 million pounds - roughly 70 times total U.S. landings in 2004.
"We think there's massive amounts of overfishing taking place in other nations," Rauch said.
An area of the Gulf known as the DeSoto Canyons already is closed to longline fishing every year, he said. Closing additional areas could simply push fishermen into waters where they might have a negative impact on other species, including endangered sea turtles, Rauch said.
"You would not want to take an action that would preserve tuna but have a devastating impact on sea turtles," he said.

[Deep C]

Thats one of those areas I'm sensitve about. Though we kicked the long lines out of our east coast nursery we still have a big problem with not only our own but foreign long liners in the Gulf. I believe the swords there can take quite a bit of pressure but that is the breeding grounds for the Bluefins and also billfish.
I have watched over the last few years a big drop in our blue marlin population here and more noticably at Bimini. Last year was by far the worst I have seen there. That body of blues comes around the corner from the gull before heading north. Its also where the monster schools of bluefins that made Bimini famous originated from. After a long time of seeing none. I started seeing a few maybe three years ago then last year they were gone again except one lone fish I saw.
I've said it before that I can only see one fix for BFT. All out moratorium on their taking world wide for a few years then carefully controlled taking after that. Its not the 136,000 lbs that has my nuts in a knot. Its that they are all breeders there. Lets call it 270 fish from an already dangerously short stock. Yes that isn't much compared to the europeans but it still dents a damged supply.
I'm not sure what is meant by the turtles being in danger in that last piece. I am assuming that they refer to the impact if the boats retrofitted to shrimper configurations??? Shrimping has dark consequences also with byproduct running at way high levels, mostly of juvenile snapper, trout, redfish...
At the risk of sounding wishy washy... I'm opposed to closing areas to all fishing for mature stocks in their day to day habitat. I am however for closing areas to certain fishing during known mating and migratory runs...