Tag Archives: Fishing organizations
Oregon: Fishing group reacts to BOEM news on offshore wind
Despite overwhelming opposition from tribes, fishing organizations and coastal communities, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the release of the final wind energy areas (WEAs) off Oregon’s south coast today. The WEAs remain unchanged from the draft areas released earlier this year. State agencies, fishermen, environmentalists, state legislators and others raised significant concerns about the draft WEAs, apparently to no avail. “This is a slap in the face to the many stakeholders who have been trying to engage with BOEM for the last few years,” said Heather Mann, Director of the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative. “BOEM is a rogue federal agency pushing a dangerous agenda largely unchecked. BOEM will stop at nothing until our oceans are littered with wind turbines and all just to meet an arbitrary political deadline.” more, >>click to read<< 10:24
Fisheries across nation seeking monitor waivers
What began in the fisheries of New England has spread across the country. Fishing stakeholders from as far away as the West Coast and Alaska have joined Northeast commercial fishermen in pressuring NOAA Fisheries to extend — and uniformly apply — waivers from having to carry at-sea monitors and other observers on vessels while the COVID-19 pandemic still rages. The Seafood Harvesters of America, an umbrella organization that represents 18 separate fishing groups from Maine to Alaska, wrote to NOAA Fisheries and Department of Commerce officials this week to advance many of the same safety arguments against reinstating observers aboard commercial fishing vessels in the midst of the pandemic. >click to read< 16:30
