[MakoMike]

Part 2

Summer flounder the first, but there are more to come


While the situation with summer flounder in the mid-Atlantic is among the most immediate and most visible of the results of the inflexibility that was injected into the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1996, it certainly isn't unique. Fishery after fishery is going to be in the same place, in spite of the best efforts of the fisheries scientists, the fisheries managers, and the fishermen, because thanks to the Sustainable Fisheries Act, the best isn't necessarily good enough.



Recognizing the inevitable results of the Sustainable Fisheries Act, commercial and recreational fishing organizations have been lobbying in Washington to amend Magnuson-Stevens to once again allow for the careful application of subjective judgment in management decisions when its application can serve both the fish and the fishermen. Some of the same anti-fishing groups and individuals, bankrolled by the same organizations, that were so intent on removing what they professed to consider loopholes in Magnuson-Stevens via the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1976, have mounted a campaign to counter this drive.





Two organizations that have been most active in opposing any attempts to bring a modicum of reasonableness back to federal fisheries management are the Marine Fish Conservation Network and the National Environmental Trust. Together they ran an ad in the Washington Times last month stating that H.R. 5018, a bill introduced by Congressmen Pombo, Franks and Young that amends the Magnuson-Stevens Act and is supported by many commercial and recreational fishing groups, "contains loopholes that will increase overfishing." The rhetoric is familiar, in line with that regularly used by a handful of so-called conservation organizations.



Not grass, but astroturf


It would be easy to assume that these "conservation" organizations are, as such organizations tend to be, "grass roots;" membership supported and membership driven. However, this doesn't appear to be the case. The National Environmental Trust and the Marine Fish Conservation Network have both received millions of dollars from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Good for them, you might say, but what's that have to do with legislative loopholes that need to be plugged? According to the blurb from the Washington Times ad, the Marine Fish Conservation Network is "made up of over 190 organizations representing commercial and recreational fishermen, environmental groups, and aquariums from across the country." That sounds like it's "grass roots," doesn't it? Particularly considering that commercial fishermen are at the front of the list, we decided to delve a little more deeply into just which commercial fishermen, and other folks, this "network" represents.



Of the dozen or so organizations that the MFCN lists as members that obviously represent commercial fishing interests, at least half have what appear to be substantial ties with Pew. Pat White, past Executive Director of the Maine Lobstermen's Association, and Pietro Parravano, President of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) were both members of the Pew Oceans Commission. The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association has been funded by Pew. The Institute For Fisheries Research (IFR) is a spin-off of the PCFFA. Salmon For All is a member of the PCFFA and Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, which has received upwards of $5 million from Pew. David Hallowell of the Humboldt Fishermen's Marketing Association, is listed as a Board member of the IFR.



Ecofish is considered a commercial member of the MFCN. It's a company involved in selling, according to its website, "only the most sustainable, highest quality, healthiest, all natural, most delicious seafood to our customers." Ecofish has a six member advisory board that includes Carl Safina (Pew scholar and SeaWeb spokesperson), Matthew Elliot (consultant to Pew Seaweb and the Pew Commission), Rebecca Goldburg (Environmental Defense - recipient of over 3.8 million Pew dollars - staffer and author of the Pew Commission's report on aquaculture), and Heather Tausig (Conservation Director of the New England Aquarium - recipient of 10 million Pew dollars). The other two members, Michael Sutton and George Leonard, work for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has a Pew SeaWeb office on site.



Though we aren't certain, some fairly extensive web searching indicated that several of the remaining "commercial" MFCN member organizations (the Abalone and Marine Resources Council and the Florida Fishermen's Federation) might be moribund - or at least have had a negligible web presence for the last couple of years. Two others (Signature Salmon and King and Sons Fishing Company) appear to be businesses that might be involved with commercial fisheries, but these both lack any discoverable web presence as well. So it appears as if the commercial fishermen that the MFCN lists so prominently could be represented only by organizations that are a part of the Pew "family," or by those whose members' activities are confined to very limited areas/fisheries.



Of the remaining 170+ MFCN member organizations, a listing of those that are significant (i.e. have a national presence and significant political clout) reads like a "who's who" listing of Pew grantees.



Pew largesse to selected Marine Fish Conservation Network members


The National Environmental Trust has received over 37 million Pew dollars

Oceana has received at least 22 million Pew dollars

Earthjustice Legal Defense has received over 20 million Pew dollars

The Public Interest Research Group has received at least 14 million Pew dollars

The New England Aquarium has received over 10 million Pew dollars

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership has received at least 8 million Pew dollars

The American Littoral Society has received over 6 million Pew dollars

Audubon has received over 4.6 million Pew dollars

Seaweb has received over 4 million Pew dollars

The Natural Resources Defense Council has received at least 4 million Pew dollars

Restore America's Estuaries has received at least 1.6 million Pew dollars

Conservation Law Foundation has received over 1 million Pew dollars

Sierra Club has received at least 800,000 Pew dollars

Reefkeeper International has received almost ½ million Pew dollars

The Marine Conservation Biology Institute has received over 400,000 Pew dollars

The Wildlife Conservation Society has received over 400,000 Pew dollars

Friends of the Earth has received 300,000 Pew dollars

The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association has received 250 thousand Pew dollars

The Pacific Marine Conservation Council has received over 200,000 Pew dollars

Alaska Marine Conservation Council has received at least $150,000 Pew dollars

Save the Sound has received over 100,000 Pew dollars

The Gulf Restoration Network has received over 100,000 Pew dollars

Tampa Baywatch has received over 100,000 Pew dollars



The list goes on and on. The organizations that serve as conduits for Pew dollars that are also members of the MFCN goes on as well. For example, the American Littoral Society has channeled over 6 million Pew dollars to various organizations and programs, including Reefkeepers International, Restore America's Estuaries and the MFCN itself.



The MFCN has about twenty recreational fishing members. It won't surprise anyone to read that there are organizations involved in recreational fishing who actually believe that 1) a fish killed for fun isn't as dead as one killed for profit, 2) that all the fish in the oceans should belong to them because they spend so much to catch them, and 3) that any organization that's out to stick it in the eye of commercial fishermen is worthy of their support. Based on our long observation of and participation of fisheries management, we can safely say that some of the recreational organizations in the MFMC are among them. The recreational fishing members of the MFCN range from local clubs (Newport County Saltwater Fishing Club), through state organizations (Jersey Coast Anglers Association) to national trade organizations (American Sportfishing Association). Also included are a number of recreational fishing publications (Salt Water Sportsman).



If we consider just one of the recreational fishing groups, how many of the claimed 600,000 recreational fishermen that Jersey Coast Anglers Association is supposed to represent would willingly oppose changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Act if they knew it was going to shut down the summer flounder fishery - their state's most popular - for no fault of any recreational or commercial fishermen? Yet it appears as if that's what the Jersey Coast Anglers Association is doing. How many bait and tackle store owners in the mid-Atlantic would go along with the unnecessary closure of the fishery that accounts for a very large part of their total revenue each year? Yet the American Sportfishing Association, which claims to be representing their interests, is doing just that.



The MFCN's Board of Advisors consists of representatives from the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, Conservation Law Foundation, Gulf Restoration Network, Hawaii Audubon Society, the International Gamefish Association, Jersey Coast Anglers Association, National Audubon Society, National Coalition for Marine Conservation, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Pacific Marine Conservation Council, Prairie Rivers Network, SeaWeb, Sierra Club, Ocean Conservancy, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Eleven of the nineteen organizations represented have collectively received well over $75 million from Pew. Of the four organizations that aren't tied directly to Pew by funding or other connections, three are supported by recreational fishing, and two of those three have a demonstrated anti-commercial fishing bias.



The MFCN's Executive Committee has seven members. The organizations that five of them represent have collectively received over $60 million from Pew.



The other sponsor of the "overfishing" ad, and an outspoken critic of recreational/commercial fishing organization drive to inject some human judgment back into fisheries management, the National Environmental Trust, is the recipient of $37 million from Pew.



While it's obvious that we're supposed to believe that all of this "we need more stringency and less flexibility in fisheries management" hyperbole is the message of masses of people from a wide spectrum of organizations, could it be that the Pew Trusts are making all of the waves? Were that the case, it evidently wouldn't be the first instance where Pew was thought to be behind a supposedly "grass roots" initiative (see The Oil Slick following for another example). We can't help but wonder if the reaction of Congress to a focused lobbying effort that was the result of strategic grant-giving by a mega-foundation would be different from one that was truly reflective of grass roots interests.



At the same time, we wonder how many recreational and commercial fishing organizations with an honest commitment to the fish and to the future of fishing that aren't part of an agenda-driven foundation "family" are actually opposed to extending mandated rebuilding periods in particular fisheries to maintain the viability of the businesses that depend on those fisheries.



Recreational and commercial fishermen realize that healthy fish stocks benefit everyone who fishes and fully support the application of practical conservation measures. They also realize that fisheries science tends to be more imprecise than not, and know that tying those conservation measures too rigidly to imprecise data is a recipe for disaster - whether that disaster is as minor as a lost fishing opportunity or as major as a bankrupt business. The earlier data regarding summer flounder was retrospectively "corrected," and because the allowable quota is rigidly locked to an inviolate rebuilding schedule, we are now facing a disaster in that fishery that many of the involved businesses won't survive (and we are compelled to repeat here that, because of development pressures, a closed fishing-related business on the coast won't be replaced by anything similar). To have a management system that is incapable of recognizing and allowing for such situations - which are going to occur in fishery after fishery - does nothing for conservation and punishes the fishermen for unavoidable scientific imprecision.



Whether the population is rebuilt in ten years or in more than ten years is of no long term consequence to the summer flounder stock, but it's of overriding importance to the fishing businesses that depend on the fishery - and on the communities that depend on those businesses. In spite of what a handful of fishing and other Pew-funded organizations claim, granting fisheries managers the flexibility to equitably deal with such situations will have no negative impacts on the long-term viability of our fisheries.