Editor's Log: The other plague
A California fisherman works Dungeness crab pots. California Department of Fish and Wildlife photo.
The state of Alaska, known for its commitment to sustainable fisheries management, has a policy that fisheries allocations cannot be decided at the ballot box — meaning, they endeavor to let the experts decide.Legislating fisheries by lawsuit is not that different. Surely, a federal judge should be an expert on the law. But they are not marine biologists; they are not community-based policy makers; they are not coastal economists. These are all the hats required of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s National Standards. This is why federal fisheries policy is formed by councils and commissions after public input and approved by a federal agency — it requires a holistic perspective on the biomass, the working waterfront, the safety and efficiency of fishing gear and practices, and the best approaches to allocating access among all user groups.Try to explain in a few sentences how federal fisheries are managed to someone who knows nothing about it. Anyone who has studied fishery science and policy will attest to its complexities. And those complexities change fishery by fishery and region by region — often within the same state.I’m not necessarily advocating for a streamline of fisheries policy. It would be a lovely dream, but I fear the outcome would not work in any fleet’s favor. What I would like to see is any lawsuit attempting to change fishery policy through the backdoor of a federal bench be required to check off its adherence to every single National Standard under the Magnuson-Stevens Act — Optimum Yield, Scientific Information, Management Units, Allocations, Efficiency, Variations and Contingencies, Costs and Benefits, Communities, Bycatch, and Safety of Life at Sea. If you can show that your suit accounts for its effects on all of these factors (not just one or a handful) that federal managers are required to account for and does not sacrifice one for another, then carry on with your case.Otherwise, anyone with enough money for a good lawyer can effectively cherry-pick the things they don’t like about a single policy. The result is that the fishermen who can muster the cash for their own lawyers must redirect funds and time to defending lawsuits instead of implementing innovations in gear, processing and products; and fishery managers are forced to twist and contort into impossible positions in order to try to please everyone (which I believe we all recognize is impossible).As you can read in our news coverage of the Status of the Stocks, our federal management is superb and improving every year. The biggest deciding factor in whether or not a fishery is managed well should not be social pressure; it should be based in science. Money spent to halt a fishery would better serve the American public as an investment in better data, cooperative research and product innovation.Without good data, we have no way of knowing what is happening in the ocean. Without good policy, we have no way of safely executing any fishery.
Original post: https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/editor-s-log-the-other-plague
Top 10 for ’20 | National Fisherman
The fishing industry responded to the presidential roundtable with gratitude for the spotlight and a push for help with other issues. Here’s our Top 10 as compiled from feedback around the country. Pandemic AssistanceAs of mid-June, fishermen had not seen funds filter down from the CARES Act through Commerce to their state agencies and their businesses. Though the act was passed in March, with guidelines for disbursement issued by Commerce in May, NMFS predicted a mid-July date for approval of state funding plans, which would predate any payments. Controversial allocations trough the Paycheck Protection Program and low caps on the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans also hampered relief to the industry, which is primarily comprised of small business owners, independent operators and contract workers.Wind Power“Offshore wind development has been fast-tracked at the peril of commercial fishermen,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has established a task force to facilitate and plan offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine. Although this will directly impact the livelihoods of commercial fishermen, they are not represented on the task force."Fishermen can only make their living from the ocean, and the proposed development of floating turbines will result in the closure of fishing areas. In addition, the impacts of offshore wind development on ocean ecology and commercial fishing are poorly understood. Fishermen must be fairly represented in this fragmented process. Data must be improved to understand how these future developments will impact commercial fishing as well as the marine ecosystem.”
Deepwater Wind foundations at the Block Island wind farm site off Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind photo.Habitat ProtectionThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was nearing completion of its environmental review for the proposed Pebble Mine at the headwaters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay as we went to press on this issue in mid-June. At the same time, Bristol Bay’s commercial fishermen, seafood processors, and residents were preparing for the return of a forecasted 49 million sockeye salmon. A final permitting decision is expected to drop as soon as 30 days after the review, around the peak of the fishing season, when Bristol Bay’s fishermen and residents will be occupied with fishing and preoccupied by an added layer of covid-19 prevention practices.“It is unconscionable that, despite overwhelming comments and outcry requesting an extension and revision to the Pebble Mine permitting process, the Army Corps has continued to rush its environmental review and aims to release a final permitting decision while Bristol Bay grapples with the challenges of harvesting, processing and supplying half the world’s wild sockeye salmon during a global pandemic,” said Katherine Carscallen, Bristol Bay resident and executive director for Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay. “We look to Alaska’s senators for their leadership and implore the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to veto Pebble’s permit. The EPA’s own science and comment letters to the Army Corps show that this project poses an unacceptable risk to our country’s greatest remaining wild salmon runs.”Marketing“If the U.S. government is going to support and fund a large, planned increase in domestic aquaculture production, there must be some sort of specific support for domestic wild seafood products that will come under increased competition from this new and expanded domestic aquaculture production,” said Bruce Schactler, a commercial fisherman, industry advocate and NF Highliner, based in Kodiak, Alaska, referring to the president’s executive order in May that promotes the production of offshore aquaculture.“The Farm Bill,” Schactler added, “provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the exclusive use of the U.S. Agriculture industry to subsidize technology, marketing, infrastructure, research, education, training, price supports of various kinds, and generous support for the young farmers and ranchers that will carry on this critical industry. The U.S. seafood industry has no such support program, although it is not for lack of trying.”
Offloading salmon in Petersburg, Alaska. Jessica Hathaway photo.Trade AidThough the promise of a Seafood Trade Task Force and the implementation of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program offer some promise of relief for U.S. fisheries and dealers competing with cheap foreign imports in our own markets and looking for new opportunities overseas, the need for federal assistance with global trade restrictions through specific agreements is still paramount for many U.S. fisheries.“Tariffs do not come and go overnight,” said Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. “Many of us in the industry have been advocating for fair access to foreign markets for a long time. In order for tariffs to be reduced or eliminated, there is a process of negotiation and diplomacy, and each negotiating partner needs to be a willing and fair participant in that process.”Marine MammalsNew England fishermen aren’t the only ones worried about whales and working to improve gear, fishing methods and management to avoid them. The West Coast Dungeness fleet has worked with other stakeholders for several years in a gear working group.But on the flipside, the Marine Mammal Protection Act establishes permanent protocol for species, like sea lions, that have rebounded to the point of creating a nuisance and preying excessively on critical species, like Pacific salmon.“Marine mammal stocks (California sea lions, in particular) should lose protections when their populations reach a certain level, whether that is carrying capacity or the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s Optimal Sustainable Population,” said Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “They throw off ecosystem balance and are in direct competition with other ESA-listed species (Southern Resident killer whales, for example) for limited amounts of food.”
The Louisiana shrimp boat Miss Nan. Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife.Recovery ResponseThis includes everything from disaster funds to increased flexibility, which would provide means for the industry to manage disaster recovery. Most fishermen will tell you: They don’t want handouts, they just want to work. Federal aid can be helpful, but it takes so long to reach the fleets that many businesses go bust waiting for relief.The state of Mississippi, for example, was awarded $11 million for a 2011 disaster declaration, but fishermen have seen very little of those funds so far.“It was probably about 2015-16 before we started seeing money from that disaster declaration. And they’re still spending that money, almost 10 years later,” said Ryan Bradley, executive director of Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United and a 2018 NF Highliner. “Oystermen and crab fishermen and seafood dealers have received about 15 percent” of that $11 million, so far.Better Data“Whether that means more funding for science center activities or closer coordination with fishermen or just listening to what they are reporting,” said Conroy. “Fishermen have knowledge, are on the water far more often than the science folks, observe changes related to ocean conditions and fish populations, assist in understanding fish movement by collaborating with different organizations (e.g., tagging programs).“One example out here is the stock assessments for Pacific sardine. They are based on surveys taken on large NOAA ships which can’t access the nearshore waters (typically those less than 25 fathoms). Coincidentally, that is prime habitat for sardine. So the stock assessments keep showing a decline in sardine biomass, while fishermen are reporting (with documentation) increasing numbers of sardine in the nearshore. Because the fishermen’s observations are anecdotal, they carry no weight.”
Homarus americanus. Doug Stewart photo.Infrastructure and Access“Feeding fish to the community requires a new commitment and approach to the food supply chain,” said Pete Halmay, commercial fisherman and president of the San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group. “Without improved infrastructure and better access to resources, the promise of fresh, sustainable , local fish cannot be fulfilled.”“This includes dredging, NOAA weather buoys that actually work, shoreside off-loading equipment and product storage, dockside land space for gear storage and/or office space, etc.,” said Conroy. “Ensure protections can be put in place to protect the future access to private unloading stations.”All of these (and more) add up to the culminating priority for the industry.Recognition of the Value of U.S. Commercial Fisheries
Original post: https://www.nationalfisherman.com/
California Wetfish Producers Association Files to Intervene in Oceana Anchovy Lawsuit
August 8, 2019 -- The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:The California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) has filed to intervene in a lawsuit filed by environmental group Oceana over California’s northern anchovy fishery. The filing will allow CWPA to participate in the lawsuit to protect the interests of California fishermen and processors who would face significant economic harm if the lawsuit were successful.The lawsuit alleges that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must set stricter limits on the northern anchovy catch. As the result of a recent Oceana lawsuit, where the Court required NMFS to revise its catch rule, the catch limit is currently set at 23,573 metric tons, which, according to NMFS estimates, is only 25 percent of the stock’s overfishing level.Not only are additional restrictions on the anchovy harvest unnecessary, but greater cuts would result in significant job loss and economic hardship for California’s wetfish industry and coastal communities.“If [Oceana] prevails in this case, there could be a drastic reduction from current harvest levels,” said CWPA in its filing. “Such a reduction in harvest opportunity will seriously and irreparably harm CWPA members and the wetfish industry.”
Anchovy fishing off the California coastThis would affect not just California wetfish fishermen, who rely on anchovy when other species, like squid or mackerel, are unavailable, but also the processors, distributors, and seaside businesses who rely on a consistent catch. If lower catch limits are approved, the jobs of at least 400 CWPA members alone will be at risk, as well as many thousands more in related industries.“Fishermen up and down the California coast are facing threats to their livelihoods from this frivolous and unnecessary lawsuit,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of CWPA. “We are asking to be involved in this lawsuit to ensure that the Court also considers the needs and concerns of our members and California’s coastal communities. Our fishery management policy mandates balance between protecting the ocean and sustaining fishing communities ”The sharply reduced catch limits that Oceana seeks are not scientifically justified. The basis for Oceana’s case is a single, flawed study that significantly underestimated the size of the anchovy population, in 2015, leading to the first Court decision, That study excluded the abundance of anchovy in inshore areas, for example. Cooperative surveys that CWPA has conducted with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have documented tens of thousands of tons of anchovies in these areas that have simply not been counted in stock assessments. . This finding contradicts the argument that the anchovy population was dangerously low, and that the already precautionary catch levels must be reduced further.“The best available science does not support Oceana’s position,” said Ms. Pleschner-Steele. “ The Court needs to allow NMFS to set appropriate catch limits based on sound science.”
These Days, It’s Not About the Polar Bears
Polar bears feeding on garbage in Belushya Guba, on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia. Shrinking habitats has forced more bears to wander into town for food. Alexander Grir/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Benjamin Ryan May 12, 2019Climate science has struggled mightily with a messaging problem.The well-worn tactic of hitting people over the head with scary climate change facts has proved inadequate at changing behavior or policies in ways big enough to alter the course of global warming.While Europe has made some headway, the largest obstacles to change remain in the United States, which has historically been responsible for more emissions than any other country. And perhaps most important, climate change denial has secured a perch in the Trump administration and across the Republican Party.Enter the fast-growing academic field of climate change communication. Across a swath of mostly Western nations, social scientists in fields like psychology, political science, sociology and communications studies have produced an expansive volume of peer-reviewed papers — more than 1,000 annually since 2014 — in an effort to cultivate more effective methods for getting the global warming message across and inspiring action.While recent polls have shown an increase in the percentage of people who describe themselves as worried about climate change, experts say not enough people have been motivated to act. “The main reason people reject the science of climate change is because they reject what they perceive to be the solutions: total government control, loss of personal liberties, destruction of the economy,” said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “But ironically, what motivates people to care and to act is an awareness of the genuine solutions: a new clean-energy future, improving our standard of living, and building local jobs and the local economy.”
Schoolchildren taking part in a student climate protest in London in March. Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Social-science investigators have found that the most effective tools for engaging the public in the subject of climate change are those that appeal to core human tendencies. For example, people tend to focus on personal and local problems happening now, which means talk of the last remaining polar bears stranded on shrinking icebergs, far from most people, is out.The best climate-related appeals are not a collection of statistics, but those that target people’s affinity for compelling stories. They also work best if they avoid fear-based messaging (which can cause a head-in-the-sand effect) and provide a sense that individuals can affect the environment in a personal and positive way — by updating to energy-efficient appliances, for example, or eating less meat, given meat production’s heavy carbon footprint.But these efforts at persuasion are up against a well-financed opposition. In the United States from 2000 to 2016, major carbon-emitting industries spent more than $1.35 billion lobbying members of Congress on climate change legislation. They outspent environmental groups and renewable energy companies by 10 to 1, according to a paper last year in the journal Climate Change by Robert J. Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia.A 2015 paper by Bruce Tranter, a sociologist at the University of Tasmania, analyzed 14 Western nations and identified an association between a country’s per capita carbon footprint and the prevalence of climate science skepticism among its citizens. And in a recent study published in Nature Climate Change, Matthew J. Hornsey, a social psychologist at the University of Queensland, found that nations that had the strongest relationship between political conservatism and climate science skepticism tended to be those with economies more highly dependent on the fossil fuel industry, including the United States, Australia, Canada and Brazil.At the vanguard of the social-science-based response to such doubt is a pair of centers for climate change communications research at George Mason University and Yale University.
An iceberg stranded near the village of Innaarsuit, in northwestern Greenland, in July. Karl Petersen/EPA, via Shutterstock
These research hubs just released new polling data indicating that 96 percent of liberal Democrats and 32 percent of conservative Republicans support the Green New Deal — a public-opinion gap that widened by 28 percentage points between December and April as awareness about the proposed legislation grew.In 2009, the two climate labs produced the highly regarded “Six Americas” report, which identified six different groups of Americans who represented the range of public opinion on climate change.On one end of the spectrum are the “alarmed,” who are the most certain, and most concerned, about human-driven global warming. They’re also the most motivated to act to protect the climate. On the other end of the spectrum are the “dismissives,” who, as their name suggests, are least likely to accept or care about climate change. Between the two polarities are “concerned,” “cautious,” “disengaged” and “doubtful.” The report has been updated repeatedly since its release and is often used by climate communication researchers to tailor their efforts to each demographic.One such operation is the nonprofit Climate Outreach, based in Oxford, England. It recently issued a handbook that uses social science research to help climate scientists become better public champions of their own work. Climate Outreach has also tapped into research that has identified especially effective visual techniques for communicating about climate change.
The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this January. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
For example, authentic photos of people actively engaged in global-warming mitigation — such as community members installing solar panels on a roof — are far more resonant than, say, images of politicians at the lectern of a climate conference. So Climate Outreach started Climate Visuals, an open library of research-tested, impactful images.Major environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are also looking to social science to inform how they communicate about climate change, including their choice of imagery, as are federal agencies such as the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA), according to the agencies’ representatives.Edward W. Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, has recruited an ever-expanding army to speak about climate science to the masses. His research revealed that the public puts particularly high trust in local TV weathercasters and health care providers as sources about climate science. So over the past decade, Dr. Maibach’s team enlisted 625 on-air meteorologists to give newscasts that help viewers connect the dots between climate change and hometown weather.Another member of the George Mason team, John Cook, is one of various global academics working with a teaching method known as “inoculation,” which is a preventive strategy grounded in the finding that it can be very difficult to extract misinformation once it has lodged in the brain.Dr. Cook has designed a high school curriculum as well as a popular online course that presents students first with facts and then a myth about climate change; the students are then asked to resolve the conflict. In Europe, Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge, codesigned an inoculation-based online game with doctoral researcher Jon Roozenbeek.The game was designed to help its hundreds of thousands of players become better consumers of climate-related information. “We’re trying,” Dr. van der Linden said, “to help people help themselves and navigate this post-truth environment.”
A version of this article appears in print on May 12, 2019, on Page A11 in The International New York Times. Order ReprintsOriginal post:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/climate/climate-solutions-polar-bears.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Climate%20and%20Environment
Environmental Impact Displacement in Fisheries & Food
Examples of environmental impact displacement
Environmental displacement in fisheries & food
Solutions to environmental displacement
- Think large-scale to consider all economic/biological/social relationships
- Enact both demand-side and supply-side policies
- International trade agreements and cooperation as a holistic approach to global conservation
Original post: https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/environmental-impact-displacement/
Oceana’s Anchovy Lawsuit Backfires, as Judge Asks NMFS to Update Science in Ruling Likely to Increase Catches
— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —
Copyright © 2019 Seafoodnews.com
Photo: Lolly Knit, Flickr, Creative Commons
Oceana, an organization that is a frequent plaintiff against NMFS, thought they had a good case in 2016 when they filed suit against NMFS arguing that a 25,000 ton Central California anchovy allocation exceeded the entire stock, and should be overturned.Their objective was to shut down the fishery based on an argument of flawed science.Last week, federal district court Judge Lucy Koh reaffirmed her 2018 decision that NMFS indeed did not use the best available science, and would need to do a reassessment on this stock.With the government shutdown, it is not clear when NMFS might be able to respond to the ruling, but since then, the science on which Oceana argued its case has been drastically revised.Oceana tried to argue that the anchovy stock had fallen to 15,000 to 32,000 ton, and that therefore a 25,000 ton allocation was excessive.However, one of the scientists who authored that report submitted an updated estimate for the 2015 biomass of 92,000 tons, and using the same method would predict a 1.1 million metric ton biomass in 2017.In short, the science was flawed, new data show the anchovy populations at record levels, and if NMFS uses the judge’s ruling to follow the best science, a much larger commercial fishery is in the offing.Currently an anchovy working group from the Pacific Council is meeting without NMFS, and it may take some time to know how the ruling will be applied.But, the lesson for Oceana is that suing for best available science is something the industry supports as well, and in the case of a dynamic stock like anchovy, it is very hard to get an accurate reading from a single year’s population study.For that reason, some suggest the council move to a multi-year allocation which would better reflect the actual state of data collection, and avoid wild fluctuations based on possibly limited survey data.
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Judge: NMFS must rewrite anchovy catch rule
Important to note, the “collapsed” anchovy assessment on which this court ruling was based was updated in November and submitted to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which has been deliberating the anchovy issue. The original 15,000 mt estimated in 2015 was increased to 92,000 mt, and the 2017 population estimate came in at 1.1 million mt. The SWFSC also presented results of their latest Daily Egg Production study to the Council, noting that anchovy had returned to historic abundance. The judge did not receive this information before making her ruling.It’s unclear how NMFS will respond now, in light of the ongoing government shutdown. The CPS management team met yesterday (without NMFS members present) to discuss how they might recommend a new OFL, ABC and ACL to the Council for the April Council meeting. The judge’s deadline for new reference points is April 18. NMFS/Department of Justice could request a stay, but an Oceana rep. at the management team meeting said they will oppose a stay because the Council and NMFS have had a year since the original ruling— and this shouldn’t be hard now, with the population at a million tons or more.The April Council meeting should be lively!!Diane Pleschner-Steele
Federal fishing regulators have until April 16 to rewrite a rule that sets annual catch limits (ACL) for commercial fishing of anchovy in federal waters off the northern coast of California, a judge has ruled.The Jan. 18 order from federal judge Lucy Koh enforces a judgment in a lawsuit brought in 2016 by the environmental activist group Oceana against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).Oceana's lawsuit questioned the science that NMFS relied on in reaching a 2016 decision to set the ACL for northern California anchovy at 25,000 metric tons. The agency set that limit -- even though landings typically only total less than a third of that, 7,300t -- judging the stock's maximum sustainable yield to be 123,000t, and calculating an acceptable biological catch of 100,000t. The ACL was set, conservatively, the agency said, at a fourth of that level.However, after the 2016 rule was adopted, Oceana sued NMFS in federal court arguing that the rule violated principles established in the Magnuson-Stevens Act and another law, the Administrative Practices Act, because the agency failed "to articulate the scientific basis for this catch limit".In January 2018, judge Koh approved Oceana's motion for summary judgment vacating the 25,000t ACL rule. NMFS had asked judge Koh to amend that judgment but in June 2018 she declined. NMFS, which is currently working on new assessments of the stock to inform future ACL decisions, has since appealed Koh's ruling. Meanwhile, Koh, acting on a request from Oceana, ordered that the agency rewrite the rule.NMFS objected, citing the pending assessments, but Koh was not moved."Moreover, the court is not convinced by defendants’ explanation for the delay. The Service need not wait for new data to promulgate an updated OFL [Overfishing Limit], ABC [Allowable Biological Catch], and ACL because the service need only use the best scientific information available," she wrote.
Precipitous decline?
In its lawsuit, Oceana, claiming that the anchovy stock had "declined precipitously", argued that NMFS hadn't conducted a stock assessment for the species since 1995 and that the true size of the northern anchovy biomass averaged between 10,000t to 15,000t from the 2009 to 2011 period.Speaking to Undercurrent in June 2018 about the ruling, Diane Pleschner-Steele, the executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, disagreed with the biomass estimates, but because the harvesters her group works with are seeing more anchovies, not fewer.Pleschner-Steele said that her group worked in 2017 with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to perform an aerial survey of anchovy stocks."The department’s plane flew along the coast inside the area that the NOAA acoustic trawl survey was transecting at the same time, and our spotter pilot estimated tonnage of the schools he observed," she wrote. "We documented tens of thousands of tons of coastal pelagic species — both sardine and anchovy — that the NOAA cruise did not see or factor into its assessment because they survey largely offshore and don’t come into nearshore waters. This is now recognized as a problem, and we’re hopeful that we can improve stock assessments over time."
Contact the author jason.smith@undercurrentnews.
Original post: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Declares Commercial Fishery Disasters for West Coast Salmon and Sardines
CWPA and California’s wetfish industry are deeply grateful to Secretary Ross and Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Chris Oliver, as well as to West Coast NMFS officials and Governor Brown, for acknowledging that our sardine fishery closure met the legal requirements for designation as a fishery resource disaster. This determination now makes our sardine fishery eligible for NMFS fishery disaster assistance. We look forward to learning the level of disaster assistance that the Department of Commerce will determine. The fact that relief is coming is very good news.
September 25, 2018Determinations make these fisheries eligible for NOAA Fisheries fishery disaster assistance.Today, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that commercial fishery failures occurred between 2015 and 2017 for salmon fisheries in Washington, Oregon, and California, in addition to the sardine fishery in California.“The Department of Commerce and NOAA stand ready to assist fishing towns and cities along the West Coast as they recover,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “After years of hardship, the Department looks forward to providing economic relief that will allow the fisheries and the communities they help support to rebound.”Between July 2016 and March 2018, multiple tribes and governors from Washington, Oregon, and California requested fishery disaster determinations. The Secretary, working with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), evaluated each request based on the available data, and found that all but one (the California red sea urchin fishery) met the requirements for a fishery disaster determination.The determinations for West Coast salmon and sardines now make these fisheries eligible for NOAA Fisheries fishery disaster assistance. The 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act provided $20 million in NOAA Fisheries fishery disaster assistance. The Department of Commerce is determining the appropriate allocations of these funds to eligible fisheries.
Originally posted: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/