NAMA Weighs In

A network of fishermen, fishing families and communities, scientists, social scientists, economists, farmers, environmentalists and local food enthusiasts weight in on the NOAA Catch Share Policy proposed by the Catch Share Task Force. The group recommends NOAA's policies foster an economically viable fleet, engender a diverse fleet whose impact on the ocean matches the unique ecosystems contained within, and thus, is environmentally resilient; and, advocated for Catch Share systems that can lead to true community and ecosystem based management.

NAMA joins 50 other organizations from around the country on a letter in support of the Petition to Protect Children From Pesticide Drift (the “Kids’ Petition”), and to comment on the Pesticide Registration Notice regarding pesticide drift labeling and the accompanying guidance. In the letter, the groups urged the Environmental Protection to take immediate protective action by establishing no-spray buffers around areas where children congregate while EPA fully evaluates and protects against pesticide drift exposures to children. This petition asks EPA to take these immediate steps to comply with its legal duty, under the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), Executive Order on Children’s Health and the Environmental Justice Executive Order, to protect all children from all pesticide drift exposures.

Why would NAMA sign onto this letter, you ask? Pesticides and other chemicals often end up in the marine ecosystem affecting the long term health of marine organisms including all the fish and marine animals we are all working so hard to protect.

So, yes, we did it because we feel our kids shouldn't be exposed to pesticides drifting toward them. But we also did it because we believe better alternatives to toxic pesticides exist and must be used not only to protect our kids, but to protect all the species on the planet as we all live "in an inescapable web of mutuality" (part of Martin Luther Kind, Jr. quote. We're not that brilliant!).

A diverse group of individuals, organizations and scientists provide feedback and comments to the White House Council on Environmental Quality's Ocean Policy Task Force regarding Marine Spatial Planning.

Emerging scientific evidence about local stocks is really evidence that ocean populations and ecosystems operate at multiple scales — from very local to very broad. A group of scientist submit comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service during their deliberation around the Amendment 16 to the NE multispecies/groundfish plan suggesting the evidence about the ocean populations and all theoretical knowledge of ecosystems is consistent with the organization of populations at multiple spatial and temporal scales. They believe, in practice, the important implication is that fisheries must be managed at multiple scales, not just a single large scale, if the hope is to be able to learn, adapt and conserve the resource.

Based on our work with fishing communities in New England, we submitted the attached comments on the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force convened by the White House. In short, we recommend:

• Place appropriate conditions on strategy objectives.
• Include a provision for saying “no.” 
• Facilitate timely, coordinated plans of action. 
• Make coastal communities an integral part ofthe decision-making. 
• Recognize the unique position of those people, such as fishermen, who have direct interaction with marine ecosystems.
• Management should be consistent with multiple ecosystem scales.
• Be more explicit about coordination and conflict resolution.
• Incorporate diverse sources of information into management process. 

For details, download the whole document.

In light of the severe risks posed by endosulfan and the numerous effective alternatives, over 30 organizations, including NAMA has renewed the call for the EPA to cancel all endosulfan registrations. Approximately 1.38 million pounds of endosulfan are used annually in the United States on a wide variety of crops including cotton, apples, tomatoes, potatoes, and tobacco. Like DDT and other organochlorines, endosulfan bioaccumulates in food chains; contaminates the oceans, food, and drinking water; and poisons children, farmworkers, fish and other wildlife. Endosulfan is so dangerous that it has been banned in over 60 countries, yet it continues to be widely used in the United States to control agricultural pests on a variety of fruit, vegetable and file crops.

In 2008, the price of basic food staples rose by incredible proportions. Between May 2007 and March 2008, hard red winter wheat rose 137 percent, from July 2007 to June 2008 corn prices rose 98 percent. Other food commodities rose in a similar fashion putting daily sustenance out of reach for 200 million more people in the developing world. Families used to buying kilos of food were only able to buy cups of the same food items. People went hungry. Children stopped growing for months at a time, others perished. The steep price run-up was followed by a sudden slide in commodity prices. Currently, some food commodity prices have decreased to levels that have forced farmers in the developing world and the United States from their farms. The world’s food commodities’ markets have become dangerously and unacceptably volatile.

NAMA asks for progressive, visionary fishermen to represent Maine on the New England Fishery Management Council.

NAMA joins 72 other organizations to express our deep concern over the Bush administration’s departing gift to the chemical industry on October 15th, 2008 -- the formation of yet another review of the EPA’s health assessment study on dioxins, one of the most toxic chemicals on earth. The organizations request that the EPA cancels the unnecessary review and release the Dioxin Reassessment so that the EPA and others can move forward in developing protective dioxin policies and standards.

NAMA unites with over 100 conservation organizations, fishing groups, consumer organizations, seafood businesses, independent scientists, and other concerned parties in requesting that the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council reject the Aquaculture Fishery Management Plan which is slated for Final Action at their January 2009 Council meeting in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. While the Council, its Joint Management Committee, and the Interdisciplinary Planning Team (IPT) have worked diligently over the last year on this plan, it is still fundamentally flawed in its approach.

NAMA joins conservation, fishing, and consumer organizations to comment on the recent Food and Drug Administration's Draft Guidance on Regulating Genetically Engineered (GE) Animals. The guidance outlines how the FDA plans to use its authority under the New Animal Drug Provisions of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) to oversee GE animals, including GE or transgenic fish. Already, species of transgenic fish are being developed around the world; there is at least one pending before FDA for approval, a GE Atlantic salmon designed to grow as much as 10 to 30 times faster than normal salmon. The groups ask the FDA to reject any applications for transgenic fish because of the foreseeable potential negative impacts to human health, the environment, and fishing communities.

NAMA joins over 100 organizations protesting policies that qualify incinerators—including mass-burn, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma, refuse derived fuel and other incinerator technologies—for renewable energy credits, tax credits, subsidies and other incentives present a renewed threat to environmental and economic justice in U.S. communities.

NAMA joins public health, labor, environmental health and justice organizations requesting Congress to hold oversight hearings and/or initiate a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation with the goal of amending the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and related legislation to improve protections from and remedies for work-related illnesses caused by exposure to chemicals known to harm human health and the environment, including marine ecosystems.

The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance comments on the scoping process for Amendment 4 to the Herring FMP. The industrial herring fleet, which was invited into the Gulf of Maine by the federal government in the early 1990s and has expanded significantly since then, presents a particularly troublesome challenge to efforts of local fishing communities to bring back a healthy ecosystem that supports their traditional fisheries. These commercial fishermen are being asked or required time and
time again to cut back or cease their normal fishing activities to allow the resource to recover. It’s taking longer than expected and even now more closures are being proposed. And yet, the Atlantic herring fishery is permitted to continue with little change in allowable catch and in what type of gear is taking the majority of the catch. While many community based fishermen are asked to give up their livelihoods to recover one fishery, others, many of them tied to the fiscally and physically mobile international fleet, continue un-hobbled because the New England Fishery Management Council and NMFS Northeast Regional Office fail to make the connections between one fishery and another. In this context, NAMA strongly believes that any areas closed to groundfish fishing should be closed to all fisheries except those that are known not to interact with or have bycatch of groundfish.

NAMA comments on the Marine Stewardship Council's certification of the Gulf of California, Mexico sardine fishery. The MSC may certify feed-grade fisheries as part of a larger initiative “to ensure the sustainability of these wild-capture fish used for feed stocks in aquaculture.” The sardine fishery is the first feed-grade fishery to undergo a full assessment for this purpose. However, we argue that the sustainability of the sardine fishery and other reduction fisheries cannot be meaningfully assessed using MSC’s current evaluation system, which was created without consideration for the need to sustain the vital ecological role of the target species as forage - a need worldwide. In summary, NAMA strongly opposes the certification of this fishery.