The history books are pretty clear: no cod, no Boston.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the fishing industry to New England as a whole. The industry’s well-documented decline in recent decades due to overfishing and mismanagement has taken its toll, but 80,000 people in Massachusetts still work in the commercial fishing business.
A lot of those 80,000 people will be biting their nails next week as the New England Fishery Management Council votes whether to adopt a new system that could revolutionize the way groundfishing is regulated in the region.
Basically, the idea is to move from a framework in which fishermen have their days at sea capped by the feds, to one in which their annual catch is capped based on standards set by community-based co-ops.
The advocates say this could save both New England’s fishing industry and the fisheries on which they rely.
This week on Radio Boston, we’re using this regulatory impasse as an opportunity to ask some big questions: can New England’s most beleaguered fish stocks rebound with better management, or is it too late? Is there even such a thing as sustainable New England seafood? As consumers, what should we look for at the grocery store? Is local necessarily better, like it seems to be with meat and produce?
As always, we hope you’ll be with us, Friday @ 1.
Is the Community Supported Fishery (such as the one featured in the article below) a good model for improving sustainability?
http://blogs.menupages.com/boston/2008/05/community_supported_fisheries.html
When your’re talking about community supported fisheries and managing fishing boats, you shouldn’t leave out an important action that New England cities and towns are taking: restoration of the estuaries and rivers where most ocean fish start out in life. Without protection for these habitats, the ocean fisheries cannot be sustained.
… the CSF is a model for improving sustainability for all the same reasons that buying local makes sense in any industry. Who catches the fish you consume is as important a consideration as what they catch. The CSF supports local fishermen who rely on the future health of local waters.
Your story missed the main points and served a PR for fisherpeople as a romantized group. first, because of their absolute unwillingness to have concern for either the future of the ocean or for the future of the fising industry, they constantly demand the right to haul in as much fish as they can catch. They claim that quotas will destroy their albility to survive, yet they refuse to offer any rationale solutions. Instead, they demand the right to continue as they have always done despite the fact that their greed has resulted in the near death of the oceans and the virtual end of fish in the oceans. And in addition to the above the equipment that they have used to destroy the fish stocks has been subsidized and/or paid for by the American government. Meanwhile they are romantized by the media as the salt of the earth (or should it be the ocean?).
Contrast this to the attitude of the media, politicians and the public to auto workers. They are demonized as overpaid workers who are responsible for the decisions of the auto companies that resulted in the demise of the auto industry. Of course, a large percentage of auto workers are persons of color whilr hte fishing industry remains rsolutely europian/american
Thank you for the very informative program. I only wish you went one step further and provided listeners with some guidelines on how to eat seafood sustainably. A good place where to start would be for everybody to get the handy seafood pocket guide available at http://www.seafoodwatch.org, an initiative of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And if one wants to go one step further, Taras Grescoe’s book “Bottomfeeder” is a delightful must read.
I have fished from the small South Shore port of Scituate, Mass. for 47 years. Presently I operate a 55 foot dragger with my son. Groundfish comprise the majority of my catches. Our port is now diminished to about 12 boats all of which are struggling to survive.
The days at sea system has reduced our efficiency to the point where our businesses are not profitable, our boats are old and not well maintained and we are compelled to fish with too few crew mwmbers for safe operation. The days at sea system has also forced the discarding of up to 50% of our catches in order to comply with daily landing limits. This system has failed to protect the fish and is putting our fishing communities in harms way.
I strongly support the concept of catch shares and the development of fishing sectors for New England. The difficulty many fishermen are having with the sector program stems from a lack of good information on the important choices which they must soon make. We may well be asked to sign a contract with serious legal and financial consequences without knowing the amounts of fish or the membership costs beforehand. This is at a minimum unfair and counterproductive.
Once the New England Fishery Management Council votes at the June 23- 25 meeting it is important that responsible agencies provide detailed information on the costs, risks and benefits of whatever program the Council selects.
Catch shares have the potential to restore the New England groundfish fishery to its former productivity. It is important that all parties work cooperatively to insure that this actually occurs.
jj is correct. Fisherman are portrayed as these hardworking victims of a system that doesn’t understand. The fact is they could not care less about the future of their industry. They only see as far as the next catch. Take Frank Mirarchi on this thread. Here is a man who is suffering under the current restrictions. Would he ever leave the industry? No. Fisherman feel it is their right to fish regardless of market conditions. If 12 boats are struggling to survive that means there are too many boats.
Thanks to everyone who wrote on this blog–it was fascinating to be on the program and to read your responses.
This week’s vote to change the way New England groundfish fishermen are managed will enable conservation-minded fishermen like Frank to effectively act to restore our oceans to their former abundance.
Frank Mirarchi is a very good man. There are many other very smart, thoughtful fishermen like him who remember when there used to be a lot more fish in the ocean and want it to be that way once again. Please don’t blame individual fishermen when in fact the power lies in the regulatory system to prevent and reverse overfishing.
Why not aquaculture? We made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmers thousands of years ago on land. It’s time we made the transition on the water. The waters and the sea bottom belong to everyone in this country, not just the fishing industry. If we want reasonable priced fish for all of the citizens in the US we need to grow it. All of the folks who disregard aquaculture are short sighted. The US imports more than 80% of our seafood, half of that is grown on foreign farms. Are we too good to grow it in US waters, under strict environmental guidelines? Instead we outsource our fish production to the third world. Is this right? Is it right we ignore aquaculture to prop up one industry instead of focusing on the maximum benefit for all Americans?