Cape Ann Fresh Catch, or, what is NAMA?

I signed up for my Cape Ann Fresh Catch share in the spring, vaguely thinking this was a nice thing to do; some fisherman would be sure of a market, and my family would be sure of weekly seafood.

Typical me, it wasn't until the second or third pick-up, after two or three dinners of fish even fresher and more delicious than my usual Gloucester market choice, that I began to ask, "Who exactly are these fishermen?"

I loosely knew the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association were running this new share system for fish, but former Pigeon Cove wholesaler Steve Parkes, not someone's wife, was handing me my catch each week and checking off my name. I knew he was distributing fish as far as Millis and Bolton. When I asked Steve puckishly, 'so who are you,' he always pointed respectfully to a young, statuesque woman usually standing somewhere near the Fresh Catch tent at the Farmer's Market.

"Talk to Niaz," Steve always said.

Niaz Dorry wore a name card that didn't identify her with the Wives, but named her as the director of NAMA.

What was NAMA, I wondered? I began to see Niaz all the time — at the Fresh Catch Farmers Market tent, but also circling the Cape Ann Farmers Market seafood throwdowns. I saw her at the Boston Local Food Festival, again with that NAMA name card.

So my question went from what is Cape Ann Fresh Catch, to who is Niaz and what is NAMA? Why and how are they connecting fishing with the local food movement?

NAMA stands for Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance; "northwest" because it is siting itself from the ocean's perspective; it's the northwest side of the Atlantic Ocean.

It sounds a lot like NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the federal government's agency that basically polices the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Marine Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act. As it website says, "the mission of NOAA Fisheries is to ensure healthy fisheries and habitat for the benefit of all Americans." Oh, it's a division of the Department of Commerce — such a sensible government.

(I'm getting ahead of myself, but when I finally met with Niaz, she asked the question, why isn't the fishing industry being run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture? Is this why a discussion of fish has traditionally been separate from "food?" Is this why the fishing industry is villainized separately from, and a little more vocally than, agri-business, which has over-fertilized and polluted thousands of acres of soil and inland water resources?)

Back to NAMA. NAMA is a nonprofit organization, a 501-C3 funded by individual foundations, and founded by a group of fishermen in the 1990s who believed that, when discussing fishing regulations, when policing the Magnuson-Steven Act, there was a perspective missing: theirs.

For those of you not down with fishing, the Magnuson-Stevens Act was the federal government's 1970s response to foreign fleets, freshly decommissioned World War II European frigates turned into the first factory fishing vessels, hauling nets three miles off Gloucester, for example.

When the federal government paid attention to foreign over-fishing, they had the chance to address sustainability. But instead, the 1970s' answer to ridding our waters of the European fleets was simply to replace the foreign vessels with our own, to try to catch as much as the Europeans had been catching.

In 1996, the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, got involved and added the Sustainable Fisheries Act, making it the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and the issues became more entangled.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act divided the nation into eight regional fisheries. NAMA, representing the region from Long Island to Canada and "passively" as far as North Carolina, was those fishermen's response to the Magnuson-Stevens Act. NAMA wanted a community-based fisherman's perspective included in the government's policy decisions. To the fishermen, the federal government making sweeping decisions about the fishing industry was like the federal government running a neighborhood elementary school. Things were being managed too broadly.

I sat down with Niaz Dorry and Sean Sullivan, NAMA's assistant director of marketing, outreach and development, and we talked about the concerns NAMA has, and what it's trying to achieve.

One of the biggest mistakes that NOAA is making, according to Niaz, is trying to save the single species, as in cod. What is the sense, Niaz says, of allowing the huge ships that pull into Gloucester, what Niaz calls "seafood extracting devices," to net thousands of pounds of herring, while putting tight limits on shore boats catching cod.

Cod eat herring. How can we ask the shore fishermen to save the cod while we're allowing the large fleets to eliminate their dinner?

The single species approach to preserving ocean resources, which is decided by measuring landings, is one-dimensional, and the other dimension is the size of an ocean; this is a plan, according to Niaz, that's ignoring the ecosystem.

A few problems with the giant herring fleets: They're big. They have political clout and financial flexibility. They'll probably survive troubles that the little boats can't; herring is a global commodity, a player on the global market.

Someone in Japan is counting its shares when that ship is at dock in Gloucester — not much connection to what someone's eating for dinner in Lanesville or to Our Lady of Good Voyage. When local fishermen a few years ago called for closure of inshore herring fishing, the tuna started coming back. Fishermen began to see growing numbers of cod again in the western Gulf of Maine.

What NAMA wants, according to Niaz and Sean, is a shore-based fleet that has a connection to the community — as in, its fishermen live in and fish out of the port, and the people in the port eat their fish.

Niaz says that we must change from supporting a single species that feeds into the global market to ecosystem-based fishing that feeds into the local food system.

NAMA broadly represents the Northwest Atlantic; it runs the share programs through local organizations such as the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives. Getting fish directly into the community, getting it into markets with local corn and potatoes, showing people hands-on — as in the Seafood Throwdowns — diverse, simple, flavorful ways to manage that fish when you bring it home at night; that's all changing the way the market operates at a level as grassy and rooted as our farmers markets.

When Steve Parkes smiles at you, checks off your name and hands you a cold plastic bag filled with your weekly share of cod, the man who caught the fish that morning seems like another farmer, certainly not a pillager.

Food for Thought runs weekly in the Times' Taste of the Times section and is written by Heather Atwood, an author and mother from Rockport. Questions and comments can be sent to Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. And follow her blog at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought.

Fish Soup with Ginger

As contributed by Leslie Bistrowitz to the Cape Ann Fresh Catch website

2 lbs firm-fleshed fish

1/2 tsp salt

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bunch scallions, sliced

2 Tbsp ginger root, minced

2 Tbsp peanut oil

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp crushed red pepper

2 cups water

2 bottles clam broth (or fish stock)

2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped

1 can (16 oz) peeled ground tomatoes

rind of 1 orange

Toss the fish with salt, garlic, scallions, ginger, oils and red pepper. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes or as long as several hours.

In a flameproof casserole heat the water, broth, cilantro, tomatoes and orange zest. Bring to a boil and simmer gently 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat until ready to use.

When ready to serve, bring tomato broth to a boil, add fish and return to a boil. Lower the heat, cover the pan and let fish cook gently for 5 minutes. Stir to break up fish a bit and adjust seasonings.

Serve over white rice or on its own.

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