The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet
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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The captain and the crew should have severe consequences for their blatant disregard for maritime law and be banned indefinitely from the high seas or any seas for that matter. The world is to small for the apocalyptic fishing practices of the drift net and these people should be held accountable for actions. Hopefully they will become examples of what happens when you when operating completely illegally. punish them to the max!
Most importantly is…Who owns this vessel? This certainly isn’t a Mom and Pop operation. Pacific Andes owned China Fishery, notorious for this kind of fishing in the past, comes to mind. But this market capitalized vertically integrated factory ship company, China Fishery, has now been greenwashed by a few ENGOs (for a hefty “consultation fee” no doubt).
Greenwashing the image of this China Fishery, one of the worst fisheries decimating eco-culprits on the planet, EDF along with the World Wildlife Fund and the Marine Stewardship Council formed a “sustainability committee” of “outside experts with a background in sustainability” to advise this conglomerate fish company (with a sordid reputation as one of the worst violators of fishery conservation standards)—ocean drift nets etc.) on how to be “sustainable”.
This committee will greenwash the image of the dirty China Fishery so the Carlyle Group ($90bn– one of the world’s largest hedge funds) won’t look so bad when they sink $190m into China Fishery. An investment facilitating the acquisition of more fish quota: Russian Pollock, Peruvian anchovetta and jack mackerel—and eventually perhaps some nice New England groundfish to round out their portfolio.
The Hong Kong Senior Director of the Carlyle Group, Patrick
Siewert , speaks of the China Fishery in terms of the “…company’s South Pacific high seas operation which used to be labeled as pirate fishing” but (Carlyle) is now supportive of the company’s operations in the South Pacific.
This new eco-feasibility for China Fishery appears to be due to a South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization and, of course, the expert sustainability advice of a “committee” comprised of EDF, WWF, and the MSC…who else but our intrepid ENGOs would be sanctioning a sordid operation such as this global fish grab?.
Patrick Siewert says of China Fishery’s newly found eco-religion, “We fully support the company’s work with the relevant government organisations to develop quotas and we think that they [quotas] are our friend, long term”. He’s referring here to quotas as requiring catch limits and so therefore friendly to sustainability; but the quotas are also owned by the conglomerate fish company and that (acquisition) promises to be very much “…our friend, long term”—no doubt, controlling a good portion of the world’s protein supply should be very “friendly” to Carlyle investors.
So this is the “partnering with industry” that our friends the ENGO eco-champions are doing to make a few bucks around the world in faraway places, while they build their “expertise in sustainability” by denigrating our small boat independent fishermen here at home. Wonder what the partnering fee was for EDF’s “outside expert advice in sustainability”?
This info on the China Fishery, Carlyle, and EDF collusion
can be found in the Sept. 2010 issue of Fishing News International, pg. 18 (www.intrafish.com). Or read up on China Fishery’s “vertical integration” plans on their web page. http://www.pacificandes.com/html/index.php
I do not know if this vessel has anything to do with Pacific Andes’ China Fishery; but, it would be very interesting to trace the ownership of this vessel (probably through a labyrinth of subsidiaries) to see who actually was collecting the revenues in this operation. Follow the money!