September 17 – Booming New England Seal Population Creates a Management Challenge – Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in 1972, forty years ago. Intended to slow the precipitous decline of marine mammal populations due to human activities, the act prohibited the killing, harassment, or excessive disturbance of marine mammals in United States waters. For seals in New England—mainly harbor seals and gray seals—the MMPA’s protections effected a massive boom in population.

September 21 – Illegal and Wrong – Wednesday’s New England Fishery Management Council’s Groundfish Committee meeting was … depressing. As the expression goes, just when I think I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel I realize that it is the headlights of the on-coming bus. Once again, current events—bad as they are—seem about to be exploited to produce an even more dismal future. The topic was throwing open the decades-long fishery closed areas to exploitation again.

September 21 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, September 21 – In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, the NEFMC Groundfish Committee proposes opening closed areas; blanket shark fin bans may hurt the sustainable dogfish industry; Gloucester fishing personalities comment on warm waters this summer; a NOAA report ranks New Bedford first in the country in fishing revenues; cod stocks move north in response to record-setting warm water temperatures; the scallop quota could take a heavy cut over the next two years due to poor recruitment.

CLF's Winston Vaughan and Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association's Angela Sanfilippo speak to the crowd. (Photo credit: Sean Cosgrove, CLF)

On Saturday, June 25, 45 people braved what was forecast to be a cloudy, rainy day to gather on a quiet Pavilion Beach in Gloucester, MA. As the sun emerged, they joined hands and looked out on the open ocean.

This seemingly quiet moment sent a loud, clear message. A message that New England’s ocean has shaped our past and will shape our future, and that future should be based on sustainable industries like fishing and tourism – not oil drilling. And we weren’t alone in calling for a healthy ocean and healthy coastal communities. In Gloucester, Cape Town, South Africa, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and even Wilson, Wyoming, thousands joined hands with strangers and spoke with one voice to call for an end to destructive offshore drilling, healthy oceans and clean, renewable energy.

I was honored to be joined on Pavilion Beach by Angela Sanfilippo. Angela is the leader of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, and an ally of CLF’s going back to the first days we worked together to oppose, litigate and eventually stop oil drilling on Georges Bank in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many in the crowd, myself included, weren’t even born then.

Looking out over that beautiful ocean, and over my shoulder at the community of Gloucester which was ready for their annual Fiesta of Saint Peter, I realized how great a debt we owe to people like Angela and my colleagues at CLF who fought so hard and so long to protect our ocean and all that it gives us. A great debt indeed, and one that can only be repaid by joining their fight.

That fight is more important than ever today. This year, Congress came very close to passing legislation that would have required a massive expansion of offshore drilling, including wells off of New England’s coast in the rich fishing grounds of Georges Bank. While that legislation has been defeated for now, it is likely to come up again. We owe it to Angela, and to future generations, to protect our coasts and invest in energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

“Hands Across the Sand” may be a small gesture. To some people it seems a little quaint, maybe even odd. To me, it’s an indication of the strong ties between the people of Gloucester and their ocean, of a life spent working to protect the people and places that we care about, and a down payment on the debt we owe to those who have spent their lives defending our ocean. A life well spent indeed.

This Saturday, June 25, thousands of people from all across the world will take part in an event known as “Hands Across the Sand” by taking a trip to their local beach and joining hands with friends, neighbors and total strangers to send a message to our leaders—no to expanded offshore oil drilling and yes to clean energy. Last year more than 100,000 people took part in this event in all 50 states and in 43 countries around the world.

This year’s Hands Across the Sand could not come at a more important time and that is why CLF has joined as a sponsor of the event. With memories of the BP Horizon disaster fading from the public memory, and gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon, the oil industry and their allies in Congress are mounting a major effort to dramatically expand oil drilling in US waters. They are even bringing back a proposal that seemed unthinkable a year ago—oil drilling on New England’s Georges Bank, one of the richest fisheries on earth. The truly scary part is that Big Oil is making progress. In Washington DC the House of Representatives recently passed 3 bills that would have required a massive expansion of offshore drilling, and a recent poll shows that public support for drilling is on the rise as gas prices tick up.

The drilling bill was rejected in the US Senate (no thanks to Senator Scott Brown) but the threat of oil rigs in New England’s waters remain a very real possibility, threatening New England’s critical fishing, tourism and outdoor recreation industries which employ tens of thousands and sustainably generate far more revenue than oil drilling ever could.

There is an old saying that if you give a man a fish he will eat for a day but if you teach a man to fish he will eat for the rest of his life. Drilling in New England might create a few jobs years down the road for as long as the oil lasts, but we would be risking far more jobs in other ocean industries such as fishing. However by improving the health of our oceans and fisheries, and promoting the responsible development of renewable energy, we will create jobs that last for generations to come.

That is why this Saturday CLF is joining with the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association to sponsor a Hands Across the Sand event at noon this Saturday, June 25^th on Pavilion Beach in Gloucester. Environmentalists, fishermen and beachgoers will all be there to join hands and say no to offshore drilling and yes to a clean, renewable energy future and yes to healthy oceans and the jobs they support. I hope you can join us in Gloucester but if you can’t make it, click here to find an event near you.

P.S. If you need another reason to come, the Gloucester Hands Across the Sand event will coincide with the annual Saint Peter’s Fiesta so you can speak out for our ocean and have a great time in Gloucester too!

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.

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.