[Capt. Jerry P]

More responses from the letter from Naco

3. Keep America Fishing.org



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Action Alert





New National Policy Proposal for the Ocean and Great Lakes Ignores Recreational Fishing
Your input is needed to ensure that this national policy does not unnecessarily close saltwater and freshwater recreational fishing areas



This past June, President Obama created the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. The Task Force, led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), was charged with developing a national policy and implementation strategy for conserving and managing the United States ocean territory and the Great Lakes. The policy will govern ocean and Great Lakes resource management and coordinate efforts among countless federal, state and local agencies.



Without recreational angler input, decisions made under this national oceans policy could be used to unnecessarily close saltwater and freshwater recreational fishing areas.



The Task Force released their Interim Report on September 10, 2009. The single most obvious flaw in the report is the omission of responsibly regulated recreational fishing as a key activity for the oceans and the Great Lakes. In addition, as a national policy document governing the oceans and Great Lakes, the report is skewed toward a preservationist policy of locking up public waters instead of one that promotes sustainable uses such as recreational fishing.



While the public review and comment period for the Interim Report closed on October 17, you can still act to protect your right to fish. Send the letter below to your Members of Congress urging the Task Force to include recreational fishing and boating in the national policy.



Make sure your voice is heard so that anglers' conservation, economic and social contributions are recognized as a key component of the policy.








4. Recreational Fishing Alliance



The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) had requested that our members and constituents be included in these discussions. However, this never happened as a handful of bureaucrats and industry insiders effectively boxed out our concerns. Some members of the national sportfishing and boating industry were apparently included in roundtable discussions with task force members, as were members of the conservation community, and these Beltway insiders claimed to speak on behalf of our coastal stakeholders including anglers and local business owners. Regrettably, their input was obviously either ignored, irrelevant or simply non-existent. Most likely, because they don’t truly understand our issues and frankly, don’t seem to care.

At first review, the task force findings are especially frightening, and appear to fall in line with the new governmental changes experienced across the country with regard to new councils, new bureaucracies and new management principles. This new Oceans Policy hierarchy seems complex and cumbersome, and it’s unclear where the recreational fishing community will have any input. Our researchers and lobbyists are going through the finer details of the government findings, but it’s apparent that no input from coastal communities is reflected in the final analysis.



In terms of the recreational fishing community itself, this new Oceans Policy is very similar to HR 21, a federal bill which would establish a new national policy for our oceans. On June 18, 2009 RFA Executive Director Jim Donofrio testified before the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife, chaired by Del. Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-GU) in opposition to this type of bureaucracy, adding “RFA maintains that Magnuson must remain the nation’s primary fisheries law and that any national ocean policy spawned from H.R. 21 provide guidance and recommendations to Magnuson, not supersede it.”

The President’s new plan creates unnecessary levels of government bureaucracy which threaten to butt up against existing fisheries laws. The original Magnuson Act was created in 1976 to establish regional management councils to address fisheries issues and ensure the sustainability of our fish and fishermen, but this new government bureaucracy seems a blatant attempt to take the management process away from our fishing communities.

Magnuson has been a success in rebuilding fish stocks, but a failure in protecting access. RFA believes that Magnuson needs to be fixed, and it needs to remain in place as the law which governs the management of our coastal fisheries and particularly the sustainability of “vibrant coastal communities.”

While RFA was testifying against these overbearing and needless government bureaucracies which threaten access to our public resources, national industry insiders, conservation elitists and lifelong Washington “Beltway” professionals were apparently claiming to speak on our behalf. These same “representatives” are continuing to build a wall between the real people in the coastal communities, and the legislators tasked with serving these constituents. In some cases it is being done intentionally and in others through ignorance of the issues and implications of the positions they are taking in the long run. In either case the outcome is the same, recreational fishing and businesses suffer the consequences.

RFA has been working tirelessly to fix Magnuson, but we’ve not gotten the national support of the self proclaimed industry leaders who consistently choose to arbitrate our future in closed-door sessions. These are the same industry leaders who forced a seat at the roundtable discussions and then seemed committed to compromising away our rights as American fishermen - the same industry leaders whose decisions supported the more restrictive language in Magnuson that is at the crux of so many of the closures and drastic quota reductions we are experiencing in fisheries around the country today.

By this token, RFA will continue actively opposing needless government intrusion and arbitrary, non-science based “time certain” deadlines carelessly implemented to address statutory overfishing. We will also continue to remind our national allies that individual stakeholders will not be shut out of the management process any longer. These elite beltway insiders might not like the messenger, but they will be hearing the message quite clearly in the coming months.

Let the truth of the record speak for itself!

Jim Hutchinson

Jim Donofrio
Executive Director
Recreational Fishing Alliance
RFA
888-JOIN- RFA
202-236-4867
609-404-1968 FAX
"First For Anglers"