Tag Archives: savingseafood.org

savingseafood.org: Inaccuracies Abound in Joint Press Release from the Conservation Law Foundation & Earthjustice

vladimir_non-profit-1-copyThe press release misstates important facts about groundfish, starting with a quote from CLF’s Senior Counsel, Peter Shelley: “cod are in the worst condition ever in the history of New England fishing and probably getting worse.” But, while both Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks are certainly in the middle of a rebuilding process, neither faces historic low’s.     continued@savingseafood

MENHADEN DEFENDERS: Mini (the dolphin) Needs Menhaden – savingseafood.orgs excellent analysis rebutts. (Mini won’t be going hungry!)

Our grassroots group, “Menhaden Defenders” has been working with fellow anglers to increase awareness and get fisherman involved in the fight because they are on the front lines and have watched this vital

forage fish vanish right before their eyes. After sitting before the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) last week, it frustrated me to listen to our publicly appointed commissioners openly debate

whether or n……

Analysis: Menhaden Defenders’ Paul Eidman, in his article, “Mini Needs Menhaden,” writes of “an ecological disaster in the making” unless new limits are imposed on the Atlantic menhaden fishery.

This is just one of several exaggerated claims about the current state of menhaden management in the article, which fails to present several key facts in its account……Read More.

http://www.savingseafood.org/conservation-environment/menhaden-defenders-mini-needs-menhaden-2.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SavingSeafoodRss+%28Saving+Seafood%29

savingseafood.org ISSUE BRIEF: Failure to Address Habitat Closures Could Cost the Scallop Fishery more than $75-80 million

September 25, 2012 — On September 13, The New England Fishery Management Council’s (NEFMC) Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) approved  projections made by the

 Council’s Scallop Plan Development Team to set the annual catch limit (ACL) for scallops in fishing year 2013 at 21,000 metric tons.

 While this value is less than the previous year’s 27,000 metric ton ACL, the basis for this reduction is founded in a series of scientific survey data including that conducted via cooperative research with industry “research set aside” funds. This array of information sources distinguishes the scallop fishery from many other Atlantic fisheries.

NOAA lawyer’s claims don’t match record

BOSTON — The attorney for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration argued to the US. First Circuit Court of Appeals that there was no need to put the catch share management program under the authority of a federal judge to limit rampant consolidation of the fleet because the regional arm of the agency was already doing that.

“The problem is being taken seriously; it is being addressed,” Joan Pepin, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, told the three-judge panel Wednesday. “The process has been under way since the end of last year. It’s called Amendment 18.”

The comment was made in discussion with Chief Justice Sandra L. Lynch, near the end of the hour long oral argument over the suit by New Bedford, Gloucester and widespread fishing interests against NOAA for introducing a radical re-engineering of the groundfishery without considering the socio-economic implications or giving fishermen the chance to vote on whether to create this new world which made fishing more efficient but also powered consolidation.

Moments later, then in discussion with the plaintiffs’ lead attorney James F. Cavanaugh Jr., Judge Lynch adopted Pepin’s description of Amendment 18.

“You asked for an order that in effect (NOAA) would have to do a study and consider consolidation and consider whether they have to modify this program,” the judge said, distilling and rephrasing the redress sought by the plaintiffs. “As I understand it, they’re doing that, so what’s the difference?”

Cavanaugh said he was not aware from the record that NOAA was addressing consolidation.

“No?” said the judge. “Amendment 18.”

“Amendment 18?” a non-plussed Cavanaugh said.

The fact that Amendment 18, as Pepin and Judge Lynch described it, didn’t ring a bell with Cavanaugh should not have been surprising. Pepin’s characterization of a directed effort, known as Amendment 18, that was addressing a clearly defined problem — consolidation of the groundfishery — was inaccurate, a check of records shows. Amendment 18 — the genesis of which traces to 2010 but has not yet made it on the agenda of the New England Fishery Management Council for official consideration as a possible action — is an idea whose time has yet to come…………..Read more

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/topstories/x1709874696/NOAA-lawyers-claims-dont-match-record

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From savingseafood.org

New Bedford / Gloucester Fishing Litigation Documents

http://newbedford-ma.gov/fishinglitigation.html

September 6, 2012 — The Office of New Bedford Mayor Jon MItchell has created a reference website with all documents pertaining to the appeal of CITY OF NEW BEDFORD, et al., vs HON. GARY LOCKE, et al.http://newbedford-ma.gov/fishinglitigation.htmlAUDIO: New Bedford, Gloucester and Industry Appeal Against NOAA Heard in Federal Court

Oral arguments in the appeal of the lawsuit filed by the Cities of New Bedford and Gloucester, and a number of East Coast fishing industry interests against Amendment 16 were heard today. 

BOSTON – September 5, 2012 – Oral arguments in the appeal of the lawsuit filed by the Cities of New Bedford and Gloucester, and a number of East Coast fishing industry interests against Amendment 16, the framework for the federal government’s fisheries catch share system, were heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston today.  The plaintiffs allege that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ignored important procedural and substantive provisions of law enacted by Congress to protect traditional fishing communities and to shield small businesses from arbitrary acts by the agency.

http://www.savingseafood.org/law/new-bedford-gloucester-fishing-litigation-documents-3.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SavingSeafoodRss+%28Saving+Seafood%29

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Editorial: Judges shouldn’t be swayed by false NOAA claims

Gloucester Daily TimesThe Gloucester Daily TimesFri Sep 07, 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

Amid a series of probing questions during Wednesday’s First U.S. Appeals Court Hearing on New England’s fisheries, Chief Justice Sandra L. Lynch posed the most intriguing.

If the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its New England Fishery Management Council , she wondered, was already addressing the perceived “problems” brought on by rampant consolidation in the fishing industry — as NOAA attorney Joan Pepin shamelessly argued — why was Wednesday’s panel facing so may plaintiffs still actively challenging the system?

The answer is simple. It’s because the claims argued in the federal Appeals Court by Pepin that, essentially, NOAA is actively working to supposedly correct the issues brought about when NOAA and the council basically forced Gloucester’s and New England’s fishermen into a new catch share management system were misleading at best — and blatantly false at worst. And the same goes for Conservation Law Foundation attorney Peter Shelley’s absurd claim that Amendent 16 and its catch share system now driving more and more independent fishermen and boats out of the industry is actually popular with fishermen.

The truth is, neither of those arguments — perpetuated since even before NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco made her job-killing catch share program the Obama administration’s national fisheries policy —has ever held water. And the fact that officials, corporately-backed catch share activists and attorneys like Pepin and Shelley mouth them over and over again doesn’t make them true.

And we can only hope that the three judges hearing and deciding this case will indeed put resources into their own investigation of the issues – not be blindly led by claims that, as today’s Page 1 news story notes, just do not match the documented path the government has taken toward policies that are wrongly forcing independent fishermen to cast aside their way of life while larger fishing operations and corporations acquire more “shares” and fishing quota and gain more and more control of the industry…….. Read more

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/opinion/x550068270/Editorial-Judges-shouldnt-be-swayed-by-false-NOAA-claims