Amendment 16-The Key to Savings New England's Fisheries

Preserve New England's 400-Year Industry and Bring an End to Overfishing

Living in New England we hear a lot about overfishing but still can go to a restaurant and get great seafood. What's going on? What is the proposal to address overfishing and What can we do about it? don't know what the impact of it

Greg Wells of the Pew Environment Group gives a brief overview of the new proposal to reinvigorate the New England fisheries through the proposed Amendment 16 to the groundfish management plan (see www.newenglandfishing.org).

The regular Greater Boston Group Executive committee monthly meeting will begin at 7pm.

New England's groundfish fishery has driven the region's economy and culture for centuries. But today it is in serious trouble. Decades of overfishing and mismanagement have led to severe declines in fish populations, continued restrictions on fishing effort, decreases in revenue, and the loss of our traditional fishing fleet.

With the support of forward-thinking commercial fishing organizations, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) is developing a new approach called sectors to replace the current failed fishery management system. Sectors are community-based, fishermen run co-ops. Sectors follow three simple guidelines:

* They implement science-based catch limits to promote rebuilding of fish populations and prevent overfishing;

* They incorporate monitoring so fishermen and regulators know exactly how much is being caught so that fishing stops once catch limits have been reached; and

* They are allocated their own share of the annual catch limit; while respecting catch limits, sectors provide fishermen with the flexibility to set their own fishing guidelines so they can run their businesses more efficiently and profitably.

On June 23-25, federal fisheries managers will vote on adopting sector management and annual catch limits for the groundfish fishery.

We'll take action to make sure the National Marine Fisheries Service and NEFMC knows that the public supports sector management and annual catch limits that hold all fishermen accountable for their catch.