When community leaders, residents and visiting fishermen and their families gather tonight for a vigil and rally in support of the industry, their primary focus will no doubt be on the heavy-handed tactics used by enforcement personnel with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Marine Fisheries Service.
It is those tactics, after all, that are the subject of a federal Department of Commerce Inspector General's probe being carried out in at least two Massachusetts sites this week. And it's the NOAA enforcement treatment of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction that has now rightfully spawned a federal judge's demand for an explanation of NOAA's media push to suggest that the auction was facing a imminent shutdown, when the NOAA action merely amounted to new allegations, and that no shutdown is immediately pending.
Yet it's also clear that another arm of the Department of Commerce may also want to look into an equally threatening issue for New England's fishermen, especially, in the coming months. That's the market impact of the conversion to a regulatory format based on "catch shares," pushed hard by new NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco and approved two weeks ago by the New England Fishery Management Council.
On the surface, the "catch shares" format would seem to make sense. It is based on putting caps on the amount of fish that can be caught within various species, with the fishing industry itself allocating allowable shares of that catch for fishermen who would mostly be divided into sectors.
Beneath the surface, however, there are growing questions as to what the change means for the fishery, the small-business fishermen, and now, it seems, big-market investors and hedge-fund managers. And one of the first questions that needs to be answered is how Environmental Defense Fund Vice President David Festa, speaking to big-time investors at the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles, knew enough in April to project a 400 percent or higher return for those willing to buy up fishery catch shares, two full months before the New England Council approved the new format.
It's not surprising to learn, as the Times reported last week, that fishermen are also receiving calls from eager investors; it may also not be a bad thing to see new investment in the fishing industry. The catch, so to speak, is that the new system can, as Gloucester's own Vito Giacalone says, turn fishermen into "sharecroppers" for mega-corporate financial interests, or drive more fishermen out of the industry at prices held artificially low if NOAA and NMFS devalue the catch shares by setting the overall limit too low.
Remember that NOAA's catch-share conversion efforts are being supported — at Lubchenco's urging — by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. That's a foundation that, while created by Congress, reels in millions from the likes of Dupont and Bank of America — plus Big Oil family members BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and Marathon Oil. Lest we forget, Lubchenco has an extensive background with the Pew Environmental Trust, the $4 billion philanthropic behemoth developed with funding from Sun Oil Co., or Sunoco.
Conservation Law Foundation Vice President Peter Shelley, in a Saturday letter to the Times praising the catch-share program, urges us to set aside so-called "conspiracy theories." But this entire scenario smacks of the same road that drove America's farms into today's world of corporate "agri-business." And that's a route that should not be allowed to steer a fishing industry that is truly America's "agriculture of the seas."
Federal investigators — and the New England Council — should indeed take a look into Festa's comments and these agencies operations to ensure that fishermen and fishery managers haven't been — and won't be — sold a bogus, corporate-driven bill of goods.
Support fishing industry
What: Vigil and march in support of the fishing industry.
Who: Led by state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, state Sen. Bruce Tarr, Mayor Carolyn Kirk. Entire community welcome to participate.
When: Tonight, 7.
Where: Vigil at City Hall, followed by march to and brief speaking program at the Man at the Wheel statue, Stacy Boulevard.
If it rains: The vigil and program will be held in City Hall's Kyrouz Auditorium.
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