Fisherman Michael Pratt (right) from Green Harbor, Massachusetts wrote the piece below as part of his testimony to the New England Fisheries Management Council for the fleet diversity Amendment 18 Scoping hearings. Ten scoping hearings took place around New England to gather public input on the proposed Amendment 18 which aims to deal with fleet diversity and concentration of quota ownership. Click to watch Michael’s testimony . Also see fisherman Ron Borjeson and fisherman Alex Friedman offer similar testimony during two other Amendment 18 Scoping hearings.

With their permission, we will be featuring the testimonies of fishermen and women during the scoping process on our blog – whofishesmatters.blogspot.com. (Click here to read the full newsletter)