The Fishing Life: Beware '30x30' in federal climate bill
Doreen Leggett
ORLEANS -- Commercial fishermen rely on the sea and are often more aware of the changing ocean environment than anyone else.
Take fisherman Kurt Martin of Orleans. For close to three decades he has kept daily logs of everything from where he fishes to weather conditions, water temperatures and depth.
A few things stand out: Fog that was virtually synonymous with Chatham is becoming a rarity, summer ocean temperatures have increased about 10 degrees and walking around an iced-in Pleasant Bay come Christmas is a distant memory.
Meanwhile, the lobster fishery south of the Cape is much diminished while Canada’s is growing as warmer water pushes north. Martin said the lobster fishery on the Cape is “stable” now.
“But we are basically on the edge of disaster. We can definitely see the trend of the shift being made.”
Climate change has pushed commercial fishermen to change their business plans, the way they fish, what they fish for, even their home ports. But when far-reaching climate legislation was drafted and filed in the House of Representatives last year (by a representative from Arizona), fishermen were shut out of the conversations. They may be shut out of their fishing grounds as well.
There are many positives in the 300-page bill, but one section would harm fishing communities across the nation, hamstring buy-local movements, increase seafood imports, and complicate efforts to combat climate change.
The initiative, dubbed 30x30, a focal point in the House version of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, would require “protection” of at least 30 percent of U.S. oceans by 2030 by banning “all commercial extractive use” in broad swaths of the ocean, circumventing the country’s sustainable fishery management process. (Specific areas have not yet been identified.)
The move has the support of many environmental groups, even some who in the past have relied on the support of fishermen to promote habitat protection.
In recent years, the New England Fishery Management Council protected sensitive deep-sea coral areas, and added far-reaching protections across 25,000 miles near Georges Bank to many others established through the years. The closures were accomplished through a longstanding process that puts all stakeholders at the table and relies on science to make decisions.
According to NOAA’s Deep Sea Coral Research & Technology Program, fishery management councils have already protected 76 percent of the U.S. ocean from bottom trawling, conserving key habitat as well as species that dwell there.
Work like this has helped make American fisheries the most sustainable in the world, but there has been a growing movement to change that process, and perhaps the outcome. The 30x30 approach had been embraced by President Biden’s campaign, and there’s talk he will sign an executive order to implement it.
That doesn’t have to happen. Small-boat fishermen on the Cape and across the nation are more than willing to talk about climate policy that will foster sustainable fishing and healthy communities, avoiding draconian no-fish moratoriums.
And there’s hope yet for Congress on this issue: in December, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley introduced a Senate version of the ocean climate bill that omitted the harmful 30x30 language after hearing from his coastal community constituents. Now that there is a new Congress, commercial fishermen are hopeful future legislative action will take a new direction in ocean legislation, with fishing community input front and center.
Last fall, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance and other fishermen were panelists at Net Zero, a virtual conference sponsored by the Cape Cod Climate Change Collaborative.
We were invited because commercial fishing has been a mainstay of the local economy for centuries and we are joining the effort to grow jobs and the economy while moving the region to “net zero,” meaning the greenhouse gas produced equals the amount removed from the atmosphere.
It was emphasized then that close to 90 percent of the fish consumed in this country comes from overseas, creating an enormous carbon footprint; the average seafood eaten in the United States travels 5,500 miles from dock to dish. Protecting and supporting our local commercial industry will go a long way toward reversing climate change. 30x30 will not.
Doreen Leggett is communications officer at Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. The Fishing Life appears monthly.
https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/ca...ns/6625079002/
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