The board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will meet Wednesday in Virginia to decide whether to move ahead on its working group’s recommendations or incorporate details not included in the most recent management plan. At stake is a fishery that’s worth tens of millions of dollars a year in Maine alone, with baby eels often selling for $2,000 a pound or more. @kennebecjournal
NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?
While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here
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