Pew warchest upending public process in New England herring debate (opinion)
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Opinion] by Peter Moore - Oct 5, 2010 - The recent 'Opinion' from Mr. Kane/CHOIR Coalition on the depredations of mid-water trawling for herring (reprinted in Seafood.com News on Sept. 22nd), is part of the Pew Environment Group's multi-year and multi-million dollar 'Atlantic Herring Campaign'.
This 'campaign' has been funded and directed by Pew since early 2000 (first with a grant to Cape Cod Hook), extending to CHOIR. funded through Pew Herring Alliance, the Pt Clyde Fishermen's Association, funded through Pew pass throughs via Island Institute, EarthJustice and other Pew-funded entities, and now to include the Martha's Vineyard Fishermen's Association where Pew offers them travel expenses to public meetings, along with legal 'assistance'. This money trail is easily traced through source documents on the internet by anyone concerned about the lopsided influence of Pew which spent $390 million in 2009 on the public process in general, part of which was on the commercial fishing industry. (source:
www.philanthropy.com)
The Pew Herring Alliance strategy, repeated prior to NEFMC and ASMFC meetings, is to provide media outlets with 'testimonials' from various members that generally blame the midwater trawl fishery and the Captains of these vessels for the demise of many aspects of the region's marine ecosystem. In typical fashion, they offer no basis for their accusations and are designed to whip up a frenzy as in the case of Mr. Kane's 'Opinion' reprinted from the Cape Cod Times.
Relative to other media outlets, I would expect you at Seafood.com would require verification of claims made by authors, which are unfounded and distorted.
Your readers might appreciate some FACTUAL references about the midwater trawl herring fishery. For starters, it is not overfished and overfishing not occurring.
The midwater trawl fishery participants have worked cooperatively with the NEFSC for many years. They have sought Congressional funding for increased federal fishery observers, and for herring and mackerel stock research; have focused on bycatch reduction including of river herring and shad; and recently were awarded competitive grant funds for more formally developing a near 'real time' river herring and shad bycatch reduction program.
In fact, the industry would accept 100% observer coverage if it would help define the fishery more precisely, but we don't feel we should have to pay for the additional coverage unless the Council agrees to allow us some cost saving measures, such as the ability to form co-ops or move towards ITQ's.
In terms of factual information about river herring discards, the NEFSC published a paper in late 2009: River Herring Discard Estimation, Precision and Sample Size Analysis.
The conclusion: 'This analysis indicates that during the July 2007 through June 2008 time period, river herring were primarily discarded in the NE small mesh otter trawl fleet, and to a lesser extent in the NE shrimp trawl, NE large mesh trawl and MA small mesh otter trawl fleets.'
This analysis, together with the Mass. Department of Marine Fisheries port sample program which samples the midwater fishery landings, paints a very different picture than what Pew wants the public to think.
How can the Pew 'campaign' conclusion -- that midwater trawlers are the reason for river herring declines -- be so different, and what is the basis for their claims?
They have no evidence, that is the disturbing fact.
Since 2007 the midwater trawl industry has invited the leadership of CHOIR and PEW and their associated organization leaders, to come fishing and see for themseleves what happens on a midwater trawl fishing trip. Not one of these critics has taken up the offer.
In cooperation with scientists at SMAST and MA DMF, our fishery participants applied for and were fully funded by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to conduct a project aimed at further minimizing river herring bycatch in the Mid water trawl herring and mackerel fisheries. Part of the funding will allow MA DMF to significantly expand its existing port sample program (with a goal of sampling 50% of all midwater trawl landings in MA). Coupled with the existing 30-35% federal at-sea midwater trawl fishery observer coverage, our industry-driven project will allow for more meaningful comparison between at-sea and port sample bycatch observations.
The real story here is how lopsided the east coast fisheries management has become with Pew's warchest. If they do not get what they want through the science and management 'process', they fund groups like EarthJustice to sue in the name of one of their fishermen at CCHFA, CHOIR, Pt. Clyde, and now Martha's Vineyard.
Our Industry does not have the resources to go to court, even to file Amicus briefs with the US Government, so NMFS will often choose to 'settle' rather than expend scarce resources on these lawsuits. EarthJustice then collects its court fees (tax free) and the virtuous circle continues. This scenario has been identified as a serious drain on federal resource management agency budgets, and is the subject of an important effort in Congress to eliminate this provision for paying outlandish lawyers' fees to NGOs like EarthJustice.
One more point: does Pew pay taxes? Do all the NGOs on its payroll pay taxes? The scenario for our region and our country is upside down: tax paying, job creating, productive fishing industry being put out of business by non-taxpaying, non-productive NGO's.
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... he is one of the head lobbyists for the midwater boats and does not like the fact that fishermen do not like his boats, so he tries to lump everyone together with the enviro groups. Do not be fooled, he is full of it. He was responding to a letter from a fishermen on the Cape, not CHOIR, either. These are the guys who do not believe herring is important as forage and would rather ship it to the Europeans to use as feed in their tuna pens or for cheap protein in Africa.