Independent: Ryan Cleary - Stop fishing
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Stop fishing, St. John's, The Independent, Sunday, May 21, 2006, Ryan Cleary
The time has come to face facts: the Newfoundland fishery is dead, but so much of it was rotten and didn’t deserve to live anyway. That’s not to say the industry is beyond redemption, but it will take drastic measures to save the outport soul — including the immediate halt to all fishing in the northwest Atlantic. No fishing for cod or flounder or redfish or turbot or crab or shrimp or caplin. No fishing, period — not for us, not for foreigners, not for anybody.
Only the baby fish are left, and there aren’t enough of them to make a nickel on. The Chinese can, but they only need a few cents a day to survive and multiply. If the fishing isn’t stopped it will continue until the last fish is caught. It is our nature.
Shrimp stocks are said to be healthy enough, but ask yourself, who holds the rights to the quotas, who owns the trawlers and where are the profits ending up? Shutting down the fishery would be a fabulous way to find out — imagine the uproar in Iceland and Norway alone. No one would notice if the crab fishery shut down, the prices are that poor this season. As for caplin, it’s one of the few dishes left on the ocean’s menu. Take that away and the restaurant shuts down for good.
The world’s fisheries are in complete collapse. Not because of environmental factors — any scientist who leaves that impression should be fired on the spot for incompetence and possible criminal negligence — but as a direct result of overfishing.
The fish are gone because they’ve been caught.
Once the fishing ends, an inventory should be taken of what fish are left, a central question to any recovery plan. Maybe there’s a way to help the recovery along, through hatcheries and fish farms. Maybe there’s not — but no option should be ruled out until it’s tried and tested. We’ve been close-minded for far too long.
To be clear, the purpose of a recovery plan would not be to restore the fishery to the way it was (that blueprint was a failure of monumental proportions), but to make it better, to make it work for a generation down the road (there’s no hope for us).
The romantic image that so many ex-pats (Townies, too) have of the fishery — a fisherman in oilskins handlining from a dory while the missus waits anxiously for his return by the window of their saltbox home that faces the sea — is a lie. That life was brutal — no one in his right mind wants to go back to that. That life did not work; parents did not want it for their children, children did not want it for themselves.
The day of stamp factories and make-work projects are over. Government reliance has weakened the epic Newfoundland work ethic and damaged our pride in ourselves. The fishery must stand or fall on its own. The ideal length for a boat in today’s fishery is probably 85 feet.
Premier Danny Williams’ plan for a one-day fisheries summit next week has the feel of a media circus, designed to force the feds into coughing up a retirement package to take care of the few seniors left around the bay. Any such package will be seen by mainland Canada as yet another handout to the poor Newfoundlanders who don’t have sense enough to look after themselves.
We need another national convention — similar to the one that decided our fate after commission of government. All hands at home and abroad must be made to understand the gravity of the decisions we make now. Early retirement is not the solution to our problems. The mainland must also be made to understand another package would merely treat the symptoms of a disease that we contracted with Confederation.
Loyola Hearn told The Independent recently that the fishery needs a complete overhaul. He was right. Loyola does not believe joint management is the way to go. He is wrong.
The Newfoundland fishery collapsed on the Government of Canada’s watch. Ottawa cannot be trusted to restore the stocks when it allowed them to be wiped out in the first place. (If the feds haven’t moved after 14 years — it’s been that long since John Crosbie closed the fishery — they’ll never move.)
Likewise, the provincial government cannot be trusted to restructure the processing sector or any other sector when it was the province that built a fish plant in every nook and cranny of this place, plants that would have starved to death long ago had Ottawa not been pressured to keep the quotas high.
Governments must work together — if the feds don’t agree to joint management then the Newfoundland and Labrador government must repatriate the entire fishery from federal hands.
Foreign Affairs will go mental if the province ordered a fleet of dories to take over the Grand Banks, but it’s time we put our concerns ahead of everyone else’s. It’s time to wake up Canada and the rest of the world to the environmental tragedy unfolding around us. The fishery is collapsing like no other point in our history. We must decide on a working model for the outports and have the fortitude to see it through. Life or death — the choice is ours
The time has come to face facts: the Newfoundland fishery is dead, but so much of it was rotten and didn’t deserve to live anyway. That’s not to say the industry is beyond redemption, but it will take drastic measures to save the outport soul — including the immediate halt to all fishing in the northwest Atlantic. No fishing for cod or flounder or redfish or turbot or crab or shrimp or caplin. No fishing, period — not for us, not for foreigners, not for anybody.
Only the baby fish are left, and there aren’t enough of them to make a nickel on. The Chinese can, but they only need a few cents a day to survive and multiply. If the fishing isn’t stopped it will continue until the last fish is caught. It is our nature.
Shrimp stocks are said to be healthy enough, but ask yourself, who holds the rights to the quotas, who owns the trawlers and where are the profits ending up? Shutting down the fishery would be a fabulous way to find out — imagine the uproar in Iceland and Norway alone. No one would notice if the crab fishery shut down, the prices are that poor this season. As for caplin, it’s one of the few dishes left on the ocean’s menu. Take that away and the restaurant shuts down for good.
The world’s fisheries are in complete collapse. Not because of environmental factors — any scientist who leaves that impression should be fired on the spot for incompetence and possible criminal negligence — but as a direct result of overfishing.
The fish are gone because they’ve been caught.
Once the fishing ends, an inventory should be taken of what fish are left, a central question to any recovery plan. Maybe there’s a way to help the recovery along, through hatcheries and fish farms. Maybe there’s not — but no option should be ruled out until it’s tried and tested. We’ve been close-minded for far too long.
To be clear, the purpose of a recovery plan would not be to restore the fishery to the way it was (that blueprint was a failure of monumental proportions), but to make it better, to make it work for a generation down the road (there’s no hope for us).
The romantic image that so many ex-pats (Townies, too) have of the fishery — a fisherman in oilskins handlining from a dory while the missus waits anxiously for his return by the window of their saltbox home that faces the sea — is a lie. That life was brutal — no one in his right mind wants to go back to that. That life did not work; parents did not want it for their children, children did not want it for themselves.
The day of stamp factories and make-work projects are over. Government reliance has weakened the epic Newfoundland work ethic and damaged our pride in ourselves. The fishery must stand or fall on its own. The ideal length for a boat in today’s fishery is probably 85 feet.
Premier Danny Williams’ plan for a one-day fisheries summit next week has the feel of a media circus, designed to force the feds into coughing up a retirement package to take care of the few seniors left around the bay. Any such package will be seen by mainland Canada as yet another handout to the poor Newfoundlanders who don’t have sense enough to look after themselves.
We need another national convention — similar to the one that decided our fate after commission of government. All hands at home and abroad must be made to understand the gravity of the decisions we make now. Early retirement is not the solution to our problems. The mainland must also be made to understand another package would merely treat the symptoms of a disease that we contracted with Confederation.
Loyola Hearn told The Independent recently that the fishery needs a complete overhaul. He was right. Loyola does not believe joint management is the way to go. He is wrong.
The Newfoundland fishery collapsed on the Government of Canada’s watch. Ottawa cannot be trusted to restore the stocks when it allowed them to be wiped out in the first place. (If the feds haven’t moved after 14 years — it’s been that long since John Crosbie closed the fishery — they’ll never move.)
Likewise, the provincial government cannot be trusted to restructure the processing sector or any other sector when it was the province that built a fish plant in every nook and cranny of this place, plants that would have starved to death long ago had Ottawa not been pressured to keep the quotas high.
Governments must work together — if the feds don’t agree to joint management then the Newfoundland and Labrador government must repatriate the entire fishery from federal hands.
Foreign Affairs will go mental if the province ordered a fleet of dories to take over the Grand Banks, but it’s time we put our concerns ahead of everyone else’s. It’s time to wake up Canada and the rest of the world to the environmental tragedy unfolding around us. The fishery is collapsing like no other point in our history. We must decide on a working model for the outports and have the fortitude to see it through. Life or death — the choice is ours
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