With all the work we do heading up the front lines of environmental advocacy, it’s pretty common to see CLF in the news. But to see us in a book that made it onto lists of 2010′s best nonfiction books was (for me, at least) pretty exciting. This book is Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, by Paul Greenberg, and it details the evolution of four species of fish and the people who love (and catch and eat) them: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna. Working in the field of ocean conservation, I was naturally pretty jazzed about the opportunity to read and review a book about, well, four fish. But even if you’re not naturally drawn to the ocean and its inhabitants, this book may still be for you!

That’s because more than being just an inventory of changes in global fish stocks or a history of fisheries, Four Fish is an exploration of the relationship between man and the wild and between man and his food. Greenberg’s premise is that we are at a “crucial point” in our relationship with the ocean. For so many fisheries, including the ones about which Greenberg writes here, long gone are days of effortless plenty. At the same time, technology is allowing us to catch the fish that are left with ever-increasing precision, and advances in aquaculture are allowing us to actually farm fish. But does this alter the fundamental wildness of the resource? For example, does state-of-the-art gear that lets fishermen see and target schools of fish beneath the surface turn fishing from a fair fight into one where the fish are inevitably the losers? And are farmed salmon, genetically different from wild salmon and raised away from natural systems, still really salmon? Of course, it’s impossible to deny aquaculture’s potential for improving human welfare by providing a relatively inexpensive source of protein to those whose access to fish would otherwise be limited. But (and this is my question as much as it is Greenberg’s) does this mean we are obliged to rely on aquaculture not just to fight real hunger but to satisfy consumer preferences for fresh fish, year-round, nation-wide? Is there some measure of restraint that we as consumers can reasonably be expected to have?

Philosophical questions aside, where does CLF come into all of this? As the catalysts for change, of course. We pop up in the chapter on cod, where Greenberg notes that despite depleted New England fish stocks, no action was taken until CLF sued the federal government for failing to protect the ailing stocks, leading to a management plan for groundfish fishing. Greenberg notes this case as the turning point after which the federal government jumped in and tried to meet its responsibilities to protect stocks, calling consequent fishing closures “something completely new in the history of man and fish.” Perhaps my favorite scene in the book is when Greenberg goes meta and meets up with Mark Kurlansky (the author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, another great read and a fan favorite over here at the Ocean program) for a cod taste test. The wild cod wins, although Kurlansky finds it a bit flavorless, but he concludes that that’s how a cod should be – and the texture of the farmed fish is all wrong, probably because it hasn’t developed the muscles that a wild cod gets from living “a cod’s life.”

Above all, Greenberg is pragmatic, ending his book with both priorities for sustaining wild fish as well as principles to guide us as we go forward with domesticating “the last wild food.” In my opinion, it’s this ability to understand the world from dueling perspectives, and to accept each as valid, that makes this book a truly great read. Whether fishing for wild salmon or discovering the secrets of breeding farmed fish, whether proclaiming his love for fishing or promoting conservation and restraint, Greenberg is thought-provoking in an informative but modest way, and I know I for one will be thinking about the issues he raises for a long time to come.

Editor’s Note: The Conservation Law Foundation was misidentified in the book as the Conservation Wildlife Fund.

In New England the issue of fisheries management is a serious topic as it involves serious questions of science, economics, healthy ecosystems, an iconic part of New England’s culture and the very real issue of many people’s livelihoods. Still, the public debate around fishing and fisheries management in New England can often be a lot like arguing baseball – the home team is usually deemed more virtuous than the rest of the league and many facts, figures, data and theories are promoted to defend that assertion. These debates can happen between any combination of folks with an opinion or a perceived stake in the issue – trawlers and gillnetters, one port versus another, one state versus another, commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen, fishermen and regulators, and fishermen and conservationists, among others. While baseball rivalries can be pretty heated, the overwhelmingly vast majority of fans are able to understand that, after all, it’s just a baseball game. Most times.

The thing is, fishermen, regulators or conservationists involved in fisheries issues in regions outside of here often consider the debate and behavior in New England to be much more contentious. For some reason we seem to treat each other more rudely and with such a lack of civility that it is noted across the country. The public debate and political hyperbole over the implementation of the most recent groundfish management plan is a clear example. Despite years of hard work and robust debate by the New England Fishery Management Council and a near unanimous vote to approve the “sectors” plan (final vote 16-1) for managing species like cod, haddock and flounder, the current public debate resembles a fist fight over the results of last year’s World Series. Working the refs, rallying the crowd and harassing the other team’s fans has become a larger part of the story than the game, as it were.

So, when federal Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued a plain, legal, factual and well reasoned response to deny Gov. Patrick’s request to raise the catch limits through “emergency action” we felt the Secretary deserved an honest “thank you.” CLF and nine other conservation groups sent him a  letter saying so. Thank you Secretary Locke. We think you made an important, rational and sober decision that will help move New England forward.

CLF Senior Counsel Peter Shelley spoke to Boston’s ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in response to Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s decision on Friday to reject Governor Patrick’s request to increase catch limits, citing the lack of scientific and economic evidence indicating that such an increase was necessary. Shelley stated that the industry has actually benefited economically by the new catch limits since they went into effect in May 2010, while fish stocks have been steadily increasing.

“There is a win-win that can be seen by restoring the fish populations. You can’t have a healthy industry that’s based on a resource base that’s disappearing,” Shelley said during the segment.

For those of you who missed Friday’s broadcast, click here to watch the clip online:

Today,  Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke made the decision to reject Governor Patrick’s request for emergency action to increase catch limits for Massachusetts fishermen, in violation of the groundfish management plan that CLF helped to pass, which has been in effect since May 2010 and was helping to create positive, sustainable change in the state’s fisheries. Several weeks ago, the Governor petitioned Secretary Locke to declare a state of economic emergency in Massachusetts fisheries and was supporting a lawsuit that challenged the plan, putting fish and fishermen at risk.

“With his decision to reject Governor Patrick’s request to increase catch limits, Secretary Locke has rightly rejected the notion that the new fisheries management plan is contributing to an economic crisis in the Massachusetts fishery,” said CLF Senior Counsel Peter Shelley. “On the contrary, fishing industry revenues in Massachusetts are up 21.9 percent over 2009 in just the first seven months under the new “catch shares” management system.  The Governor’s demand for emergency action was more politics than economics.” Read more >

The following op-ed was written by CLF Maine Director Sean Mahoney and published on Saturday, December 18 in the Portsmouth Herald.

On Monday, Dec. 20, a committee of the New England Fishery Management Council will meet in Portsmouth to continue the effort to develop a new management plan for Atlantic herring.

Atlantic herring are not only valuable as bait for lobstermen, but are a key forage fish for bigger fish and marine mammals such as striped bass, cod, tuna, dolphins and whales. The work of the council’s Herring Committee is critically important not just for the sustainability of Atlantic herring but for the continued viability of these other fisheries and tourism-related industries such as whale watching.

The Atlantic herring fishery is currently dominated by midwater trawling vessels. These vessels are large (up to 150 feet) and often fish in pairs, where their small-mesh nets the size of a football field, can be stretched between two boats. These small-mesh nets are efficient killing machines. The problem is they are also indiscriminate killing machines — any fish or marine mammal that is ensnared by the small-mesh nets is unlikely to survive, even if they are thrown back into the water after the nets are hauled on deck. These dead fish — referred to as bycatch or discards — include not just the fish that prey on Atlantic herring, such as stripers or haddock, but also the Atlantic herring’s cousins — alewives and blueback herring.

Alewives and blueback herring (collectively referred to as river herring) are anadramous fish — they are born in freshwater, spend most of their lives in the ocean, and then return to freshwater to spawn. The rivers of New England were teeming with river herring up to the 1980s. But in the last 20 years, their numbers have dropped precipitously. For example, until 1986 the number of river herring returning to spawn in the Taylor River averaged between 100,000 to 400,000 a year. But by 2000, that number had declined to 10,000 to 40,000 a year, and in 2006, only 147 river herring returned to the Taylor River. This is a tragedy for New Hampshire’s wildlife conservation.

The causes of the dramatic decline in the numbers of river herring include the fishing practices of the midwater trawl vessels. While at sea, river herring can often be found in the same waters as Atlantic herring and fall victim to the indiscriminate fishing practices of the midwater trawlers. In 2007, bycatch documentation showed that three times the amount of river herring was taken in one tow of one of these industrial vessels as returned that year to the Lamprey River, which boasts New Hampshire’s largest remaining population of river herring.

The meeting of the council’s Herring Committee will focus on management steps to curb this wasteful practice. Central to the success of any management effort must be a robust monitoring program, catch caps on river herring to serve as a strong incentive to avoid areas where river herring are known to aggregate and strong accountability measures to be applied when those catch caps are exceeded.

If river herring are to avoid the fate of Atlantic salmon — another anadramous species all but extirpated from New England’s rivers where they once teemed — a critical step is putting an end to the indiscriminate fishing practices of the midwater trawl boats pursuing Atlantic herring. All other efforts to improve the access to and water quality of the waters river herring spawn in are of little value if they are killed before they get there.

> Read more about CLF’s regional ocean conservation work

If you love Massachusetts’ oceans and care about our legendary fishing industry, then CLF is asking you to take action right now to ask Governor Patrick to stand behind the science-based plan he approved to protect that fishing legacy for generations to come.

For the first time in decades, Massachusetts’ fish populations and fishing industry are showing signs of health. Earlier this year, after a four-year public process, New England implemented an innovative new approach to fishing for cod, haddock, flounder and other groundfish. Today, overall gross revenues for the groundfish fleet are up, fishermen are not overharvesting fish and fishing boats are being operated more efficiently.

Governor Patrick voted to put the new plan in place and has said that he agrees with the approach. However, now Governor Patrick is taking action that threatens to undermine the new plan, endangering the sustainability of fish stocks and the livelihoods of the fishermen who depend on them.

Under pressure from entrenched fishing interests who do not like the new system, the Governor petitioned the federal Secretary of Commerce to declare a state of economic emergency in Massachusetts fisheries and is supporting a lawsuit that challenges the groundfish management plan. These special interests are leading the Governor astray from his stated commitment to finding a balance between conservation and economic viability in the regulation of groundfishing in Massachusetts. The Governor’s actions are emboldening others, including some in Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, to propose even more radical steps that would dismantle the progress that has been made over the last decade. You can ask the Governor to stand by the plan that he approved by sending him a letter right now.

Tell Governor Patrick that instead of spending scarce state resources trying to undo groundfish protection, both in Massachusetts and in Washington, you want him to focus on defining and fixing the problems with the new plan without undermining the plan itself, or changing the scientifically-set catch limits.

Click here to send a letter to the Governor asking him not to undermine the new fisheries management plan, but instead to build a bridge between fishermen, regulators and the environmental community to make the new plan work for Massachusetts.