Council for Sustainable Fishing – Catch share fishery management in the South Atlantic is dead
March 9, 2017 South Atlantic
Press Release – Thanks to you and many others, catch share fishery management in the South Atlantic is dead – at least for now. Yesterday at the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council public hearing in Jekyll Island, GA it was announced that the pilot snapper-grouper catch share Exempted Fishing Permit application had been withdrawn. This back-door attempt to begin the privatization of our fishery resources by insiders, sitting SAFMC members Charlie Phillips and Chris Conklin and former SAFMC member Jack Cox, all commercial snapper-grouper fleet owners and dealers, met overwhelming opposition from fishermen all across the region. By the time of the well-attended public hearing, there were a total of 616 comments on the catch share EFP through the SAFMC’s online comment form: 600 comments or 97 percent against and just 16 comments or 3 percent for. The 97 percent stakeholder opposition to the catch share EFP should be no surprise. It’s the exact same percentage of opposition expressed to any form of catch shares by snapper-grouper stakeholders to the SAFMC during input on it’s long-range snapper-grouper Vision management plan – a plan the SAFMC promised would be “stakeholder-driven.”
But incredibly, one thing was made clear during the announcement of the withdrawal – these insiders plan on regrouping, with the help of the radical Environmental Defense Fund, and returning one day with another plan to capture ownership of our fishery through catch shares.
We’ll have to remain vigilant.
With your help we’ve been able to stop catch shares for now, but it’s taken a toll on our financial resources. We’ve spent thousands in unbudgeted money on action-alert mailings to all commercial and for-hire fishery permit holders in the four state region, and on communications and research.
We’ve taken on a well-funded EDF backed catch share effort and won.
Good news for now.
Does anyone know how this council works as far as bringing up old business?
I know some committees/councils within government can “withdraw” a proposal or motion and bring it right back up when no one is paying attention. However, if the subject proposal or motion was voted on and defeated it can’t be reintroduced for a specific period of time.
Just curious…I don’t trust this particular council any farther than I could throw one of these guys.
Sad!!!
Good news for now.
Does anyone know how this council works as far as bringing up old business?
I know some committees/councils within government can “withdraw” a proposal or motion and bring it right back up when no one is paying attention. However, if the subject proposal or motion was voted on and defeated it can’t be reintroduced for a specific period of time.
Just curious…I don’t trust this particular council any farther than I could throw one of these guys.
Sad!!!
218WA Sailfish
200 Verado
The "Penn"sion Plan
This is true. Conklin and his buddies did not want this to go to a vote. Roy Crabtree helped them out by accepting the withdrawal. He should have allowed the vote because they will be back soon. Too much money on the line The game is dirty.
The next thing to look for is limited entry in “for hire” sector. It is being pushed by Zack Bowen in Savannah GA - This one stinks too! Zack wants less competition. We need to push the council to eliminate conflict of interest voting.
Good news for now.
Does anyone know how this council works as far as bringing up old business?
I know some committees/councils within government can “withdraw” a proposal or motion and bring it right back up when no one is paying attention. However, if the subject proposal or motion was voted on and defeated it can’t be reintroduced for a specific period of time.
Just curious…I don’t trust this particular council any farther than I could throw one of these guys.
Sad!!!
218WA Sailfish
200 Verado
The "Penn"sion Plan
This is true. Conklin and his buddies did not want this to go to a vote. Roy Crabtree helped them out by accepting the withdrawal. He should have allowed the vote because they will be back soon. Too much money on the line The game is dirty.
The next thing to look for is limited entry in “for hire” sector. It is being pushed by Zack Bowen in Savannah GA - This one stinks too! Zack wants less competition. We need to push the council to eliminate conflict of interest voting.
Make no mistake …this is far from over…as Natureboy eluded to it is coming back with more vigor…in fact with 15 minutes left in the council meeting, after the public had left, the same council members that submitted the catch share application made a motion for a catch share presentation at the next meeting.
the motion failed …for now…i encourage all to stay involved in the process…
