Should catch share management be indicted in the Carlos Seafood case? – David Goethel
According to accusations from Federal investigators, the seafood business run by Carlos Rafael “laundered” fish to evade quotas, sold fish for cash to evade taxes, and cheated captains and crews by paying them for lower-valued fish than what they landed. These are serious criminal accusations, but they also raise a disturbing question: Is the system known as “catch shares” at least in part responsible for what occurred? Catch shares are a system of managing fish where fishermen are given fixed quota for each species, which they can either catch or lease. Read the rest here 07:25
Dave, count me in, along with most of the hard working fishermen who have not sold out their fellow fishermen. We need honest discussion to work toward some serious management changes.
For the past 8 years, the small scale fishermen who fought for Fleet Diversity and common sense management warned the fisheries Council that Catch Share policy would cause the symptoms you mentioned above. We were belittled and ignored by the majority of the New England Fisheries Council. The industry leaders, the elephants, and the ENGO cottage industry worked to silence our voices. Well, how is that working out now?
For fishermen who worked for years to rebuild the fish stocks, we now see them either gone or we see access now controlled by just a few players. Since the beginning of Catch Shares I have laid off seven employees and now fish by myself. There are no federally permitted groundfish boats left in Plymouth, MA. In the last two years I have fished a total of 26 days in federal waters, and that’s now considered active!
I respect any fisherman that goes to sea and the fishermen who no longer fish but still send their boats out fishing. I do not want to take anything away from these people. However, that seems to be the fear of a lot of fishermen. We need to have management measures that do not eliminate access but allow sustainable fishing on the inshore and offshore fishing grounds.
David, as you say we must direct our attention to the cause. Simply addressing the symptoms will not help in the long run. Catch Shares in New England has been an epic failure and we must talk openly and honestly about alternative strategies.
Sector X, 100% wiped out by catch shares. And another slap in the face was the way the 3rd pool of disaster relief was crafted, so the biggest victims got exactly zero.
What we see here is the result you get when you have bad leadership and policies enacted illegally. Any so called catch share plan was a scam from the get go, side stepped by clever legaleze crafted by government lawyers at the behest of the ENGO crowd that now runs NOAA?NMFS.
Any plan of this sort was supposed to go to a referendum vote of licence holders, who all knew very well what the outcome of this fool’s errand would deliver. We spoke on the record at meetings and when our disingenuous so called leaders saw it would never survive the vote, in stepped the word smiths to smooth it all out so they could arrive at their pre determined outcome.
Just like our President does, this is nothing more than an illegal executive order shoved down the throats of an all too willing citizenry that has fallen for the hype of the enviro rants. And sadly many in this citizenry worry more about government hand outs than what is best for the nation as a whole. Our young are being indoctrinated by an education system that no longer teaches true history and we are being chastised about our religious beliefs, unless you happen to be a muslim. Our second amendment rights are under attack daily and the rule of law is now up for total re-interpretation. Our young people can’t tell you who our political leaders are, but they can tell you every cast member of TV shows like the fools in Jersey Shore. OUR SOCIETY IN AMERICA IS FAILING!!
We are losing our rights as Americans at an alarming rate every day to tyrannical government agencies whose leaders have been appointed through a corrupt political system that is destroying this nation and turning us into a quasi European State. And maybe finally the people are waking up to this scam that has been perpetrated upon them by our elected “leaders” for so long.
We now have someone of the likes of Donald Trump who quite possibly may be one of the nominees to be our next president and the party elites are going nuts over it. Heres some news for the so called elites. FU, Your reign is coming to an end and this nation will claw its way back to it’s feet and once again we will become “One Nation Under God With Liberty And Justice for All”.
Pray for the Republic.