Daily Archives: May 27, 2024
Fisheries commission wants to take ‘broad’ look at fishing impacts on SAV
The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission voted unanimously last week to request that the state fisheries division work with the commission’s Habitat and Water Quality Advisory Committee and the Department of Environmental Quality to develop more comprehensive options for protecting Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV). The direction is to consider all activities under the commission’s authority, rather than just shrimp trawl area closures. The commission, policy-making arm of the division, acted during its quarterly business meeting Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the Beaufort Hotel. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 20:16
Inuit inshore harvesters of northern Labrador have scheduled a protest for Tuesday morning, May 28th, at 8 a.m.
Inuit inshore harvesters of northern Labrador have scheduled a protest for Tuesday morning, May 28th, at 8 a.m. (8:30 a.m. in Newfoundland) outside all Nunatsiavut Government buildings in the province. “We encourage all Inuit harvesters, their families, and non-harvesters alike to support us against this grave injustice,” says organizer and Inuit harvester Lisa Blandford. In past years the Nunatsiavut government has distributed its annual federal allocation of shrimp off northern Labrador to more than 20 inshore harvesters or designates. This year, however, seven Inuit harvesters say the Nunatsiavut government has denied them a 2024 share of northern shrimp quota in favour of an Inuit designate with a factory-freezer trawler, displacing as many as 40 inshore harvesters along the north Labrador coast. The inshore harvesters have also raised questions of conflict of interest involving current and past members of the Nunatsiavut government and have DFO documentation from 2003 that dictates shrimp quota to be assigned specifically to the inshore. DFO is expected to open the shrimp fishery off northern Labrador in fishing zones 4 and 5 any day. Contact Lisa Blandford: 709 897 7531 – 13:20
FFAW President Greg Pretty not seeking re-election, will retire
Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW) union president Greg Pretty is retiring after more than 40 years with Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest private sector union. Pretty presided over the fisheries’ union during a tumultuous term that included two contentious tie-ups in back-to-back snow crab seasons. When asked on Friday if he would do anything differently, Pretty said no. “We had to have tie-ups to move this agenda. It was contrary to regulations and legislation, but it had to be done and it paid off,” he said. “We’re in a much better situation right now in 12 short months. So no, I don’t have any regrets.” Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:38
Andrew Montford: Politicians must drop their ‘Comical Ali’ approach to offshore wind costs
According to officials at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), offshore wind power is around half the cost of electricity from gas turbines. But in Parliament recently, David Frost exposed the problem with this claim. If what DESNZ says is true, he observed, it is hard to understand why we still have to subsidise windfarms. And harder still to understand why we have just had to give them a 70 per cent increase in the guaranteed price they receive. It was striking that the energy minister Martin Callanan, responding for the Government, failed to answer the question, merely reiterating the claim that wind is cheaper than gas. His evasion tells a story and highlights the great deception at the heart of the Net Zero policy. For years, governments have told us of a revolution in windfarms costs. Developers may even have believed it themselves, submitting extraordinarily low bids into the renewables auctions. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:18
Old Glory convoy headed to Alaska’s Denali National Park in wake of flag ban on construction trucks
Despite a decision by Denali National Park officials to bar construction workers in the park from displaying American flags from their trucks, Old Glory will be on full display on May 26. In the wake of park officials’ decision to ban U.S. flags from construction vehicles, Alaskans are planning a patriotic convoy to the park’s main entrance. News of the flag ban on construction vehicles has spread across the nation ever since the Alaska Watchman first broke the story on May 23, when a construction worker blew the whistle. He said the workers were barred from flying flags atop their trucks and equipment because the sight of Old Glory was deemed to detract from the visitors’ experience. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:52
David Cameron vetoes Rockall fishing agreement between Scotland and Ireland
Foreign Secretary David Cameron has vetoed an agreement between Scotland and Ireland to allow Irish fishermen access to the rich fishing grounds around Rockall. Ownership of the tiny granite islet 230 miles off the coast of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic is disputed by the UK and the Republic of Ireland 263 miles to the south. Irish vessels, which traditionally fished the waters around the remote rock for haddock and squid, were barred from a 12-mile territorial zone around it after Brexit, when the UK left the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:39
