Just that he was a educated person and I will have to disagree with you on the El Cid thing without getting into a irrelevant debate. However, the personal/business attacks may make you feel better about venting but serve little to no purpose. Chris is a good guy and on your side and still think its ludicrous we are debating that point.
Instead, I think it would be much more constructive to get in your car or on your phone and speak to Chris. He is open to listening to both sides and believe if he will do what is in the best interest of the majority. Honestly and just speaking for myself, I unfortunately don’t anyone that has been on the Council has not been driving the bus for quite a while but simply riding on it. There are two choices thus presented, you can play nice and try and get some of what you would like while striking a compromise or you can play not nice, thus getting nothing done.
Things have changed and continue to change. The sad reality is that this represents a small constitute of people affected thus not big on the political realm. I still believe the only way to really get something done is a unified front that has the foresight to see that things are not ever going back to the way they “used to be”.
</font id=“size3”>If anyone in this discussion really thinks that the Environmental Defense Fund or the Pew Foundation are advocates of the recreational fisherman then you are a true dreamer. Hell, Lubchenco the last director of NOAA wants to have the gov’t control all navigable waterways.
What is so (**() special about being an El Cid grad?
Just that he was a educated person and I will have to disagree with you on the El Cid thing without getting into a irrelevant debate. However, the personal/business attacks may make you feel better about venting but serve little to no purpose. Chris is a good guy and on your side and still think its ludicrous we are debating that point.
Instead, I think it would be much more constructive to get in your car or on your phone and speak to Chris. He is open to listening to both sides and believe if he will do what is in the best interest of the majority. Honestly and just speaking for myself, I unfortunately don’t anyone that has been on the Council has not been driving the bus for quite a while but simply riding on it. There are two choices thus presented, you can play nice and try and get some of what you would like while striking a compromise or you can play not nice, thus getting nothing done.
Things have changed and continue to change. The sad reality is that this represents a small constitute of people affected thus not big on the political realm. I still believe the only way to really get something done is a unified front that has the foresight to see that things are not ever going back to the way they “used to be”.
I will tell you unequivocally that it is ludicrous to state that anyone who is advocating catch shares is on my side or the side of the overwhelming majority of S/A grouper/Snapper permit holders!
You are right about a unified front - the Majority of S/A Grouper/Snapper permit holders are adamantly against catch shares - so why is Chris Conklin taking money from EDF to advance an agenda detrimental to and at odds with the permit holders?
Perhaps you can explain Chris’s post from June 23rd:
I am writing to express my deep disappointment in the appointments of Jack Cox and Chris Conklin to ?represent? commercial fishermen on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. It is not the quality of their character I have a problem with as they are both good men. It is the fact that they have both publicly pushed for things like Catch Shares that the vast majority of fishermen oppose. I also object to their appointments because they helped start an organization called the South Atlantic Fishermen?s Association with Environmental Defense Fund money to advance Catch Share schemes. The SAFA even hired a former SAFMC staff member to help them lobby the council, congress, and other influential public servants. I could understand and accept one of these guys being appointed, but it is highly suspicious that two permit holders from the same small EDF funded association with the same controversial agenda would be appointed at the same time.
These appointments are especially troubling since the council appears to be trying to restore the confidence of stakeholders by listening to our public comments that overwhelmingly opposed unconstitutional Vessel Monitoring Systems and beginning a Visioning Project to bring us into the management process. The appointments make many permit holders including myself feel as if the council deck is being stacked against us in favor of the SAFA/EDF and their well-connected corporate donors that spend millions of dollars to advance Catch Share schemes which will allow them to OWN shares of our PUBLIC resources. Catch Shares are not a management tool as much as they are an allocation tool that have consolidated almost every fishery they ?helped? into the control of a few corporate interests while pushing out most of the small-scale independent fishermen.
I respectfully ask the council and congress to give commercial fishermen the ability to pick who represents us on the SAFMC with a 2/3 majority vote of participating permit holders. I would also like
capehorn, over 300 fishermen including myself went to the NC Legislature to peacefully protest a gamefish bill and stopped it despite the millions of dollars eco-charity/sportfishing groups were spending to take our freedom to eat three delicious fish with healthy stocks. I already said I will be going to the September SAFMC meeting in Charleston. Will you and three hundred other fishermen take advantage of this opportunity to peacefully defend our freedom to fish and eat them?
capehorn, over 300 fishermen including myself went to the NC Legislature to peacefully protest a gamefish bill and stopped it despite the millions of dollars eco-charity/sportfishing groups were spending to take our freedom to eat three delicious fish with healthy stocks. I already said I will be going to the September SAFMC meeting in Charleston. Will you and three hundred other fishermen take advantage of this opportunity to peacefully defend our freedom to fish and eat them?
Big difference between the NC legislature and a hotel on a frontage road but sure I will bring the pirates I fish with.
capehorn, I should have started by saying I?d be proud to stand with a fellow fisherman at the SC legislature. We should meet at the legislative building the morning of public comments for the September SAFMC meeting and have a caravan going to Charleston in time to give our comments.