The New England Fisheries Management Council Amendment 5 Public Comment Document is 83 Pages and the full Amendment 5 Draft Environmental Impact Statement is 530 pages. Both of these documents can be found on the Atlantic Herring pages of the NEFMC web site:
NEFMC
Honest By Catch humbly suggests that you consider the following information as you choose your words and formulate your own comments, both for the public hearings & in your very important written comment letters & emails.
Critical Alternatives That Must Be Approved in Amendment 5:
NEFMC must approve a comprehensive monitoring and management reform program that brings greater accountability and oversight to the industrial trawl fleet. At minimum, the following actions must be approved:
• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.2.1.2 Alternative 2
100 percent at-sea monitoring on all midwater trawl fishing trips (i.e., Category A& B vessels) in order to provide reliable estimates of all catch, including bycatch of depleted river herring and other marine life
• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.2.3.4 Alternative 4D
An accountability system to discourage the wasteful dumping of catch, including a fleet-wide allowance of five slippage events for each herring management area, after which any slippage event would require a return to port
• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.4.4 Alternative 5
No herring mid water trawling in areas established to promote rebuilding of ground fish populations
• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.3.5, if modified to require immediate implementation of a river herring catch cap
An immediate catch limit, or cap, on the total amount of river herring caught in the Atlantic herring fishery
• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.1.5 Option 2
A requirement to accurately weigh and report all catch is essential to any monitoring system
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