While some fishing could continue, the council, the New England Fishery Management Council, directed its staff to come up with measures that would reduce the catch of cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder, the principal species sought on the Georges Bank, to as close to zero as practical. Read more here 08:06
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
Great blasts from the past. Peter Shelley is the “Father Time ” of environmental lawyers!
I remember in tbe early 90’s working on a fishing vessel owned by lawyers. They were complaining about the lack of legal work in the United States. Apparently law schools were graduating too many new lawyers and people weren’t filing lawsuits against each other as often as they used to.
Luckily the non-profits were born from this necessity. Any unemployed person with a law degree could find a cause, start a group, and sue the tax payers for some government agency failing to meet it’s own self-imposed goals. Charitable donations were welcome but not needed as the poor tax payer was on the hook for legal fees win or lose.
The out of work lawyers were saved!!
To the detriment of hard working tax payers in the U.S. I think it would be less expensive to close the tax loopholes on non-profit policy campaigns and re-train all of the lawyers to do something usefull.