Saltwater Angler
05-30-2007, 09:30 AM
I scanned this article. Have you seen this?
------------------------------------
Oceans 21 is a death sentence
Posted by the Asbury ark Press on 05/11/07
BY KAREN E. WALL
STAFF WRITER
Have you ever had deja vu, that sense that you've done the exact actions you're going through once before?
If you're a recreational fisherman or any kind of fisherman, really then you ought to have that sense right now. And it ought to be accompanied by a distinct sense of dread, because what's going on in Congress right now should make every fisherman those of us who fish for sport very, very afraid.
I'm not the kind of person who looks at every cloud expecting it to hold a tornado, but after reading two-thirds of the oceans 21 bill that is currently under discussion in the House of Representatives, I see more than a tornado; I see a tsunami, and it's bearing down on our fishermen.
The bill, H.R. 21, is 125 pages long. On the title page, it says, "To establish a national policy for our oceans, to strengthen the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to establish a national and regional ocean governance structure, and for other purposes."
Hmm. A national policy for our oceans. Excuse me, Reps. Farr, Allen, Gilchrest and our own Mr. Saxton, but isn't that why the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that we spent so much time debating last year exists?
To strengthen NOAA. NOAA needs to be strengthened? In what way? They don't have enough power to ruin people's lives and livelihoods now?
To establish a national and regional ocean governance structure. I thought that's what the fishery management councils that operate now are - regional governance, under the thumb of the nation structure of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Do we really need another layer of government, another layer of bureaucrats? Because page after page of the bill gives job titles with descriptions of what the roles are and how much they will be paid. (I haven't had the nerve to look for a copy of the federal government's executive pay scale guidelines; based on the descriptions, it would seem these jobs will have to pay well to attract quality people.)
And for other purposes. Ah, never was there a more vague and more telling statement. Because if you read the bill - and I did until I got to page 81, when I had to put it down to drive home from the doctor's office -those "other purposes" ring through loud and clear.
This is an extremist environmentalist's dream, and it hangs on two not-so-little words: precautionary approach.
Precautionary approach, as defined on page 14 of the bill, starting at line 16, means "the approach used to ensure the health and sustainability of marine ecosystems for the benefit of current and future generations, in which lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a justification for postponing action to prevent environmental degradation.
In plain English, fisheries managers would not be permitted to take a wait-and-see approach to anything. What, you have no stock assessment on porgies to say with any certainty that the stock is in trouble? Too bad. You have to take action now.
Remember the Warner Bros. cartoon where Wile E. Coyote is trying to launch a rock from a catapult onto the Road Runner? That phrase, "precautionary approach," will be that catapult, continually
collapsing on to Wile E. Coyote in this case fisheries managers and the fishing community at large and crushing any hope of being able to fish for many favored species ever again.
There's a second part of that double-edged sword, one that John Geiser has addressed but bears repeating: the section that declares an action can proceed only if it "(i) is not likely to significantly harm the health of any marine ecosystems; and (ii) is not likely to significantly impede the restoration of the health of any marine ecosystem."
Wait, you say. They're talking about managing an ecosystem, not a fishery.
And that's just what the extreme environmentalists and the proponents of this bill want us to think. But read it again: "is not likely to significantly impede the restoration ..."
How will they decide what is a "significant" impediment? Under the precautionary approach, anything that removes fish from the stock any stock could be viewed as endangering that goal, of restoring the ecosystem.
Oceans 21 is a death sentence for fishermen everywhere, particularly recreational anglers. Start writing to your local representative and tell them this is a mistake. I'd suggest writing to Rep. Saxton, but it's becoming clear he no longer listens to his fishing constituents.
Form letters about the fluke action last fall say it all. What would 5th-graders do?
Two weeks ago I spent about 90 minutes in the fifth-grade classroom of lrene Foret at St. Stanislaus Kostka School in Sayreville, talking with the students about what they've learned through their participation in the program Trout in the Classroom.
Some of their answers were what I expected. But there was one topic that gave me pause: Cannibalism.
The class had a problem at one point with one fish eating quite a few of the others in the tank, so many that it was putting the population - and the class' participation in the program at risk of extinction.
"Every time you looked at him, he had a tail hanging out of his mouth," student Nicole Kides said.
So they did what anyone would do if faced with a problem predator in their fish tank: They got rid of him. No more predation problem.
Makes sense, don't you think?
So why can't our fisheries managers apply the same logic to our ocean fisheries? it's a fact that spiny dogfish prey on every other species that's popular along our coasts - weakfish, winter flounder, summer flounder, striped bass, just to name a few.
Yet time and again they refuse to acknowledge the possibility that spiny dogfish predation is contributing - perhaps significantly - to the problems we're having restoring fish populations.
Instead, they keep pointing to striped bass and saying, "Look at our success with striped bass, look at how we brought them back by strangling anglers with regulations."
I wonder if they would've had such success with stripers if the spiny dogfish numbers had been as high back then.
Are we smarter than a fifth-grader? It sure seems like our fisheries management system isn't.
------------------------------------
Oceans 21 is a death sentence
Posted by the Asbury ark Press on 05/11/07
BY KAREN E. WALL
STAFF WRITER
Have you ever had deja vu, that sense that you've done the exact actions you're going through once before?
If you're a recreational fisherman or any kind of fisherman, really then you ought to have that sense right now. And it ought to be accompanied by a distinct sense of dread, because what's going on in Congress right now should make every fisherman those of us who fish for sport very, very afraid.
I'm not the kind of person who looks at every cloud expecting it to hold a tornado, but after reading two-thirds of the oceans 21 bill that is currently under discussion in the House of Representatives, I see more than a tornado; I see a tsunami, and it's bearing down on our fishermen.
The bill, H.R. 21, is 125 pages long. On the title page, it says, "To establish a national policy for our oceans, to strengthen the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to establish a national and regional ocean governance structure, and for other purposes."
Hmm. A national policy for our oceans. Excuse me, Reps. Farr, Allen, Gilchrest and our own Mr. Saxton, but isn't that why the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that we spent so much time debating last year exists?
To strengthen NOAA. NOAA needs to be strengthened? In what way? They don't have enough power to ruin people's lives and livelihoods now?
To establish a national and regional ocean governance structure. I thought that's what the fishery management councils that operate now are - regional governance, under the thumb of the nation structure of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Do we really need another layer of government, another layer of bureaucrats? Because page after page of the bill gives job titles with descriptions of what the roles are and how much they will be paid. (I haven't had the nerve to look for a copy of the federal government's executive pay scale guidelines; based on the descriptions, it would seem these jobs will have to pay well to attract quality people.)
And for other purposes. Ah, never was there a more vague and more telling statement. Because if you read the bill - and I did until I got to page 81, when I had to put it down to drive home from the doctor's office -those "other purposes" ring through loud and clear.
This is an extremist environmentalist's dream, and it hangs on two not-so-little words: precautionary approach.
Precautionary approach, as defined on page 14 of the bill, starting at line 16, means "the approach used to ensure the health and sustainability of marine ecosystems for the benefit of current and future generations, in which lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a justification for postponing action to prevent environmental degradation.
In plain English, fisheries managers would not be permitted to take a wait-and-see approach to anything. What, you have no stock assessment on porgies to say with any certainty that the stock is in trouble? Too bad. You have to take action now.
Remember the Warner Bros. cartoon where Wile E. Coyote is trying to launch a rock from a catapult onto the Road Runner? That phrase, "precautionary approach," will be that catapult, continually
collapsing on to Wile E. Coyote in this case fisheries managers and the fishing community at large and crushing any hope of being able to fish for many favored species ever again.
There's a second part of that double-edged sword, one that John Geiser has addressed but bears repeating: the section that declares an action can proceed only if it "(i) is not likely to significantly harm the health of any marine ecosystems; and (ii) is not likely to significantly impede the restoration of the health of any marine ecosystem."
Wait, you say. They're talking about managing an ecosystem, not a fishery.
And that's just what the extreme environmentalists and the proponents of this bill want us to think. But read it again: "is not likely to significantly impede the restoration ..."
How will they decide what is a "significant" impediment? Under the precautionary approach, anything that removes fish from the stock any stock could be viewed as endangering that goal, of restoring the ecosystem.
Oceans 21 is a death sentence for fishermen everywhere, particularly recreational anglers. Start writing to your local representative and tell them this is a mistake. I'd suggest writing to Rep. Saxton, but it's becoming clear he no longer listens to his fishing constituents.
Form letters about the fluke action last fall say it all. What would 5th-graders do?
Two weeks ago I spent about 90 minutes in the fifth-grade classroom of lrene Foret at St. Stanislaus Kostka School in Sayreville, talking with the students about what they've learned through their participation in the program Trout in the Classroom.
Some of their answers were what I expected. But there was one topic that gave me pause: Cannibalism.
The class had a problem at one point with one fish eating quite a few of the others in the tank, so many that it was putting the population - and the class' participation in the program at risk of extinction.
"Every time you looked at him, he had a tail hanging out of his mouth," student Nicole Kides said.
So they did what anyone would do if faced with a problem predator in their fish tank: They got rid of him. No more predation problem.
Makes sense, don't you think?
So why can't our fisheries managers apply the same logic to our ocean fisheries? it's a fact that spiny dogfish prey on every other species that's popular along our coasts - weakfish, winter flounder, summer flounder, striped bass, just to name a few.
Yet time and again they refuse to acknowledge the possibility that spiny dogfish predation is contributing - perhaps significantly - to the problems we're having restoring fish populations.
Instead, they keep pointing to striped bass and saying, "Look at our success with striped bass, look at how we brought them back by strangling anglers with regulations."
I wonder if they would've had such success with stripers if the spiny dogfish numbers had been as high back then.
Are we smarter than a fifth-grader? It sure seems like our fisheries management system isn't.