Tag Archives: court decision
Court decision offers new hope for Maine lobstermen fighting new regulations
A small sign of hope for Maine Lobstermen as a federal judge in D.C. District Court has ruled that new lobster fishing restrictions designed to protect North Atlantic Right Whales will be delayed until 2024 to give the government time to draft more effective regulations. “We need to have time to get this done right,” said Maine Lobstering Union Executive Director Virginia Olsen. Judge Boasberg had previously ruled that fishing restrictions issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA didn’t go far enough to protect the whales. His new ruling sends the current biological opinion, which is the document containing the rules and the science behind them, back to NOAA. >click to read< 10:43
Midwater trawler critics intend to appeal court decision
Fishermen in the Gulf of Maine are seeking to appeal a federal judge’s reversal of an exclusion zone that keeps herring trawlers 12 miles offshore. The March 4 ruling by US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston could reopen some Northeast waters to midwater herring trawlers, reversing the 2019 rule change that excluded them from a wide swath. from the Atlantic coast from Long Island to the Canadian border. In his opinion, Judge Sorokin wrote that the concept of “localized depletion” put forward by opponents of midwater trawlers has not been adequately defined by NMFS, leading him to rule that the exclusion zone decision violated Magnuson-Steven National Standard 4. Fishing Management and Conservation Law. >click to read< 14:28
FISH-NL says FFAW no longer entitled to represent inshore harvesters; urges Labour Board to order immediate vote
The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) says the province’s Labour Relations Board should proceed immediately to a vote of inshore harvesters to decide which union would best represent them. While FISH-NL’s application for certification remains before the Board, other factors necessitate a vote as soon as possible: the Supreme Court of NL, Court of Appeal, recently upheld an earlier court decision that the FFAW deceived its members; and the FFAW’s failure to reveal how much money oil companies pump into the union. “The FFAW is beyond salvation,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. “The FFAW no longer deserves the right to represent inshore harvesters, who have lost all faith and respect for their union. The only recourse is to allow them to vote on their future.” click here to read the press release 13:49
Must-read court decision for anyone with an interest in the fishery
It’s a different coast and a different ocean – and the case was heard in Vancouver – but a judge in the Federal Court, originally from Newfoundland, has put together some required reading for anyone whose province has a fishery. Judge Elizabeth Heneghan has written a fascinating fisheries primer in her 16,500-word March 11 decision in Calwell Fishing Ltd., Melvin Glen Calwell, Dale Vidulich, Gerald Warren, Aquamarine Transportation Ltd. and George Manson, plaintiffs, and Her Majesty the Queen, defendant. (You can see it here – (You can see it here – http://bit.ly/1MVXZer) There is, by the way, one other reference to the Atlantic coast, but it’s almost certainly an error. There is, by the way, one other reference to the Atlantic coast, but it’s almost certainly an error. The case has a simple theme: what rights do you have to take action against the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans if it changes fisheries rules and costs you your livelihood? Read the article, Click here 08:47
