[semper_libertas]

for info and discussion...

I see no debate here, merely assertions and demands for policy.

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"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."
The more corrupt the state is, the more numerous are the laws.
-- Tacitus , Annales

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[backhoe]

This sounds like another "urban sprawl"-type alarum, leading to more laws, taxes, and restrictions. I understand there are groups trying to outlaw all fishing, even sport fishing....

[ruxtontowers]

Do you think this means that Mickey D's will discontinue the Fish Filet? God help me, I love it so. With fries and a coke. Also a double cheeseburger from the dollar menu, if the funds are available.

[boston_liberty]

Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Canada Disappointed With Outcome of NAFO Meeting

Story Filed: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 10:06 AM EST

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, FEBRUARY 5, 2002 (CCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- The Honourable Robert G. Thibault, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today indicated that he was pleased with the efforts of the Canadian delegation, but deeply disappointed with the outcome of the special meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) last week. The meeting was held in Helsingor, Denmark, from January 29 to February 1, 2002.

"Canada's objective at these meetings has been to ensure that conservation measures are in place to protect and rebuild fish stocks in the NAFO Regulatory Area, and to ensure that there is compliance with these measures by the vessels of NAFO member countries," said Minister Thibault. "It is very disappointing that, even when presented with strong evidence, NAFO would reject some of our proposals, particularly those which would have helped address the increasing trend towards non-compliance by some foreign fishing vessels."

"However, as a result of the Canadian disclosure of non-compliance, NAFO did agree to establish a process to review and assess compliance performance on an annual basis. This is a serious issue for us and, over the next year, we will increase our monitoring of foreign activity to assess compliance and to provide input into that process. We will continue to press member countries, both bilaterally and in multilateral forums such as NAFO, to take action in response to evidence of violations by their fleets."

Canada's aim at the NAFO meeting in Denmark was to introduce new conservation measures to protect and rebuild stocks, particularly those subject to moratoria. To support the need for these new measures, Canada presented information showing an increasing trend in non-compliance by vessels of some foreign countries party to NAFO. This information is the result of Canada's continuous monitoring of the activity of foreign vessels in the NAFO Regulatory Area.

The specific proposals advanced by Canada were aimed at addressing excessive by-catch of moratoria species, mis-reporting and exceeding quotas. While NAFO accepted some of Canada's proposals, including significantly increasing mesh size in the directed skate fishery and implementing daily reporting of catches in the 3L shrimp fishery, it did reject Canada's proposal to restrict the depth in which the Greenland halibut fishery would be conducted.

Restricting depth in the Greenland halibut fishery would have helped ensure that those participating in this fishery would be legitimately fishing just for that species, and not using this fishery as an opportunity to target some of the species that are currently subject to moratoria. NAFO not only rejected the proposal to restrict Greenland halibut fishing to deeper water, but voted to increase the Greenland halibut Total Allowable Catch (TAC) from 40,000t to 44,000t. This decision ignored advice from the NAFO Scientific Council, which had recommended maintaining the TAC of 40,000t.

With the exception of Greenland halibut, all other harvest levels recommended by the Scientific Council for NAFO stocks were adopted by NAFO. Moratoria will be maintained on 3NO cod, 3NO witch flounder, 3LN redfish and 3LNO American plaice stocks.

The TAC for the yellowtail flounder fishery will continue to be set at 13,000t. The Canadian fleet which has the predominant share of the NAFO quota of yellowtail flounder will continue to be managed with a set of strict controls similar to those applied in recent years. Conservation measures include minimum mesh size, 100% observer coverage and a dockside-monitoring program to monitor all landings.

Current management measures for 3L shrimp will continue in 2002 with a TAC of 6,000t, of which Canada receives 5,000t. The remaining 1,000t is fished outside Canada's fisheries waters in the NAFO Regulatory Area and is shared by other NAFO members. The moratorium on shrimp fishing in Divisions 3NO will continue.

Measures adopted at the Special Fisheries Commission meeting will be put in place during the 2002 season.

"I want to thank members of the Canadian delegation for their commitment to the conservation of fish stocks and for their contribution in addressing complex issues associated with the work of the Commission" added Minister Thibault.

NAFO was founded in 1978 to provide for the conservation and management of fish stocks that are found in the NAFO Regulatory Area, which is beyond Canada's 200-mile limit. Its members are Canada, Bulgaria, Cuba, Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Estonia, the European Union, France (on behalf of St. Pierre and Miquelon), Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the United States of America.

The backgrounder related to this announcement is available on the automated Fax-On-Demand service of Fisheries and Oceans. It is immediately retrievable -- to users with a touchtone phone and a fax machine -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

[TomB]

Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted

Again?

Seems this same claim is made every few years.

[justrepublican]

The first paragraph says it all. The rest of the article is like a tuna fish sandwich with out the tuna, or bread.

[LS]

Obviously fish prices have not gone up nearly enough. When they do, that will be the end of the "overfishing" problem.

[Tribune7]

This very well might be true. On the other hand, I don't believe it. Chicken Little and The Boy who Cried Wolf should be made mandatory reading in the science departments of all our universities.

[Rebelbase]

bump, back in a few.

[freebilly]

Chicken, The Tuna O' The Land.

[Capt.YankeeMike]

Nothing will be accomplished by penalizing US fishermen until you get the JAPS with their "factory" boats to comply. When Loran came out, it made the guess work of finding fish a repetitive motion, once found, you could go back to a piece of bottom over and over again, until you killed the spot. The japs have always been great fisherman, and now with GPS and the sensitve sonars available, its not a matter of "if" the oceans will be depleted, but "when". From one who, unfortunately, did a small part to deplete the gulf of mexico snapper and grouper populations during the 1980's. The Captain.

[The Turbanator]

"In the Gulf of Maine people were catching cod a few decades ago. Now they're catching sea cucumber. By earlier standards, these things are repulsive," he says.
Lobster were repulsive years ago. They were so plentiful they were used by the ton for fertilizing farms.It was also possible to catch them with a spear on rocky beaches.Now try and catch one, even the commercial guys have a though go at it.

Stop fishing for one species and target another for a decade.The rebound is amazing.
We do this on the Great South Bay,everyone goes clamming they dry up, switch to crabbing, now thier gone, gill net weakfish, no more weakfish, its back to the clams because they had a break for a few years. And so it goes.
NO SUBSIDIES JUST SUPPLY AND DEMAND AND GOOD HONEST HARD WORK. THE AMERICAN WAY.

[bvw]

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."
The more corrupt the state is, the more numerous are the laws.
-- Tacitus , Annales

An early statement of Conservation of Entropy!

[Dog Gone]

I don't think I'd believe anything that comes from the socialist University of British Columbia without confirmation from about a dozen other less biased sources.

[Snuffington]

Normally, falling catches would drive some fishers out of business. But government subsidies actually encourage overfishing...

I knew something didn't add up here. The economics of the article didn't make any sense until this line appeared.

Basically, it's saying subsidies have removed the free market's inherent protection of resources. Governments are keeping prices low when demand is high. Of course that's going to lead to overfishing.

This article's recommendations are basically just more socialism. That may be necessary due to Europe's increasing addiction to subsidies. But the most obvious and quick solution would be to remove the stupid subsidies.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Government subsidies, there is the problem.

[bwteim]

PING

[bloodmeridian]

No fish ever had an original thought. That's the problem: They're too dumb to go where the fishing boats don't go.

[metesky]

In 1978, Gerry Studds, the homosexual former congressman from Cape Cod, was in charge of the Fisheries Committee. He passed some massive subsidies to get more boats on the water.

In 1996, just before he retired because "it wasn't fun anymore" (The Pubbies had gained control of the House in '94 and he was no longer committee chair), he managed to ram through subsidies to buy boats back and retrain fishermen.

Socialists always screw the pooch.

[doc30]

The problem, from what I remember, are the Europeans. A long time ago, the waters around western Euope were overfished to the point where there wee no viable fish stocks left. Then the Eurpean fleets moved off the African coast, overfished and removed all the viable stock there, too. Now they've migrated to off the North American coast and are doing the same thing. Several years ago, the Canadian navy seized one of these European ships (Spanish I believe) and found they were keeping two sets of logs. One for information to government agencies, and another, truthful set for themselves. THey were taking much more than their quata, taking species that aren't supposed to be fished and they completely ignored the size limits, too. It is quite conceivable that when they are done raping the fisheries off the north Atlantic coast, they will move to the waters off Florida and do the same thing there.

[cynicom]

Raise chickens that taste like fish. Problem solved.