Jes Hathaway is the editor in chief of National Fisherman magazine and NationalFisherman.com.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
As New England's groundfish fleets wait for bad news this week about their quotas for the coming fishing year, I am also wondering if a federal fishery disaster declaration will result in any aid from the federal government.
The best chance of it was lost when all non-Sandy-related funding was stripped from the House relief bill, including funding for three fishery disasters.
As Drew E. Minkiewicz and Shaun M. Gehan illustrate in their Washington Lookout column in our March issue, the prospects for representation of fishermen on Capitol Hill look fairly grim as we usher in the 113th Congress.
Fishermen have lost Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and the late Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and are likely to lose John Kerry (D-Mass.) to the president's cabinet.
On the House side, we said goodbye to representatives from a wide swath of the country, including Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Allen West (R-Fla.) .
Tomorrow I will join some fishing industry representatives from Alaska and Washington state in meetings with Maine's Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Chellie Pingree to discuss Pebble Mine and what the implications of such a project could have on local and national fishing communities.
My hope is to spread the word that wild fisheries need to be protected across this country, whether that's keeping a mine out of the headwaters of the world's largest wild sockeye run or offering fishermen and small fishing towns a leg up in bridging the gap between disaster and recovery.
The problems we face as an industry now have very little to do with effort vs. abundance because we are managing our stocks with great care in this country. Our next hurdle is to overcome the dearth of data, so we can approach the looming problems of climate, access and gear modification.
If we hope to have an industry even 20 years from now, we have to start protecting it now, from habitat to infrastructure.
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
The Northeast Regional Planning Body, a group of state, tribal and federal representatives from New England who are working to implement the National Ocean Policy and address critical New England ocean issues, is holding a series of public meetings in May and June.
The meetings are being held to discuss draft regional ocean planning goals and associated potential actions. The planning body seeks input on these goals and actions. Additional information on the group's progress can be found here.
The meetings will also provide an opportunity to review draft maps and products from initial efforts to gather information on the natural resources and diverse uses of the ocean, including fishing, transportation, energy and infrastructure, aquaculture, and recreation.
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