VSdreams
03-26-2009, 09:23 PM
In the last couple paragraphs in this article says "The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed to make all of the waters south of New England — from Long Island, N.Y., to deep into Georges Bank, west of Cape Cod — into a no-take zone for one year leading up to the imposition of catch shares. The Interim Rule has been condemned by the New England coastal congressional coalition, who have described the approach as tantamount to destroying what is left of the region's commercial fishing industry."
Has anyone heard of this?
NOAA nominee tied to discredited fishing report
by Richard Gaines
staff writer
Jane Lubchenco, the marine biologist awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation to take control of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, helped write a political and policy agenda for the nation based on assumptions of an alarming — and widely disputed — scientific paper.
The paper in question is famous — or infamous — in mainstream scientific circles.
It was used as the springboard for a paper produced before the election of President Barack Obama by a working group of high-profile political and scientific figures, including Lubchenco, from an organization with multiple ties to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a philanthropy seeded with Sun Oil Co. profits and pursuing a hard-line agenda to end "overfishing" around the world.
Published in Nature magazine in 2003 by R.A. Myers and B. Worm, marine biologists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the peer-reviewed study predicted a collapse of biodiversity and an apocalyptic end to seafood-producing species by 2048 due to "overfishing."
"You'd think the ocean is so large, these things would have someplace to hide," Myers said in a Washington Post story about the study soon after it was released. "But it doesn't matter where you look, the story is the same. We are really too good at killing these things."
In the rhetoric of the political policy paper, "Oceans of Abundance, an action agenda for America's vital fishing future," Myers and Worm's conclusion was given a colorful twist.
"There is scientific consensus that fishing is fundamentally altering ocean ecosystems," wrote the largely Pew-connected working group that included Lubchenco. These ecosystems, the narrative continued "are increasingly likely to yield massive swarms of jellyfish rather than food fish."
From that dire projection flowed a series of recommendations based on the imperative to convert fishery regulation to a system of catch shares as soon as possible — a system that New England is scheduled to begin phasing in during 2010.
The approach has advocates and critics, but all agree the transition from a system regulating fishermen's effort — with limited days at sea, and grounds placed off limits — will be difficult.
Lubchenco was identified in the biographies of working group members as a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and a member of the Pew Oceans Commission (but not as a former Pew Fellow).
Since her nomination by Obama to head NOAA, confirmation has been held up for a month in the Senate. Over that time, Lubchenco has declined interview requests.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee last Friday effectively passed the nomination to the floor. A confirmation vote could come at almost any time.
In the same Washington Post story about the Myers and Worm study in 2003, Lubchenco is quoted as ardently appreciative of their work.
"The chronic problem we have in evaluating fisheries is we don't have good data on the size of a population until the fishing is well underway, so we didn't really have a way of evaluating how severe the problem is," Lubchenco said. "What Myers and Worm have done is a laborious, painstaking, comprehensive and careful analysis to try to rectify that situation."
But the Myers and Worm study has been criticized, if not discredited, by an alliance of mainstream scientists — including those prominent within NOAA Fisheries.
Writing in the June 2007 issue of Science magazine, Steve Murawski, the director of scientific programs and the chief science advisor to the National Marine Fisheries Service within NOAA, and his colleagues Richard Methhot and Galen Tromble, described an update of Myers and Worm's work as "inaccurate and overly pessimistic."
Paul Rago, the chief fisheries biologist with NOAA Fisheries at Woods Hole, described the Myers and Worm study "as very controversial. They were taking some trends and extrapolating beyond what many people were comfortable with."
Although his work on the status of the groundfish ecosystem of New England has induced fishing restrictions and the impending Interim (one year) Rule that has become a political and policy flashpoint, Rago's integrity and skills have not been challenged.
Ray W. Hilborn, an aquatic and fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, disapprovingly noted, also in the same issue of Science, that the projection from Myers and Worm "that all of the world's wild fish will be collapsed by 2048 attracted international media attention."
Hilborn wrote that "such a projection is fallacious and inappropriate to appear in a scientific journal."
In a 2006 Seattle times story about the Myers and Worm study, Hilborn was even more blunt. "It's just mind-boggling stupid," he said. "I'm worried about some area of the world, like Africa, but most areas of the world have figured out to how to do effective fishery management."
The dispute over the Myers-Worm papers morphed into a debate about the erosion of standards in peer-reviewed journals. Hilborn wrote in one that the "peer-review process has totally failed and many of these papers are being published only because the editors and selected reviewers believe in the message, or because of their potential newsworthiness."
The vast majority of participants who with Lubchenco worked on the "Oceans of Abundance," or "jellyfish" study and policy proposals, have ties to Pew or Pew-financed organizations.
The report explains that it was "developed by an independent, bipartisan working group of 23 current and former federal and state elected officials, cabinet officers, scientists and administrators." Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and former Congressman James Greenwood co-chaired the working group.
The working group was convened by Environmental Defense Fund and Marine Conservation Biology Institute.
Lubchenco's confirmation hearing, which lasted about two hours and was conducted with Lubchenco paired with John Holdren, the Harvard-academic nominated for White House science advisor, did not explore her adherence to the Pew Environmental Group's agenda, though she was questioned briefly about her enthusiasm for a Pew initiative in the far western Pacific.
That initiative ended in January when President George W. Bush, days before leaving office, agreed to sign off on Pew's idea to take 115,000 square miles around the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island and make them a "marine protected area" without any commercial fishing. For Bush's decision and signature, Pew lauded and granted him a "blue legacy."
The one question to her about the Mariana "marine protected area" which she praised in an op-ed piece in the (Portland) Oregonian, came from U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat. He was curious that the "stakeholders" — the citizens of the island commonwealth — were left out of the process.
Lubchenco deflected that thought, but averred that "marine protected and no take" marine reserves can bring "huge benefit" to the natural resources and "in some cases in helping to restore depleted fisheries."
The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed to make all of the waters south of New England — from Long Island, N.Y., to deep into Georges Bank, west of Cape Cod — into a no-take zone for one year leading up to the imposition of catch shares.
The Interim Rule has been condemned by the New England coastal congressional coalition, who have described the approach as tantamount to destroying what is left of the region's commercial fishing industry.
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_078231953.html
Has anyone heard of this?
NOAA nominee tied to discredited fishing report
by Richard Gaines
staff writer
Jane Lubchenco, the marine biologist awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation to take control of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, helped write a political and policy agenda for the nation based on assumptions of an alarming — and widely disputed — scientific paper.
The paper in question is famous — or infamous — in mainstream scientific circles.
It was used as the springboard for a paper produced before the election of President Barack Obama by a working group of high-profile political and scientific figures, including Lubchenco, from an organization with multiple ties to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a philanthropy seeded with Sun Oil Co. profits and pursuing a hard-line agenda to end "overfishing" around the world.
Published in Nature magazine in 2003 by R.A. Myers and B. Worm, marine biologists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the peer-reviewed study predicted a collapse of biodiversity and an apocalyptic end to seafood-producing species by 2048 due to "overfishing."
"You'd think the ocean is so large, these things would have someplace to hide," Myers said in a Washington Post story about the study soon after it was released. "But it doesn't matter where you look, the story is the same. We are really too good at killing these things."
In the rhetoric of the political policy paper, "Oceans of Abundance, an action agenda for America's vital fishing future," Myers and Worm's conclusion was given a colorful twist.
"There is scientific consensus that fishing is fundamentally altering ocean ecosystems," wrote the largely Pew-connected working group that included Lubchenco. These ecosystems, the narrative continued "are increasingly likely to yield massive swarms of jellyfish rather than food fish."
From that dire projection flowed a series of recommendations based on the imperative to convert fishery regulation to a system of catch shares as soon as possible — a system that New England is scheduled to begin phasing in during 2010.
The approach has advocates and critics, but all agree the transition from a system regulating fishermen's effort — with limited days at sea, and grounds placed off limits — will be difficult.
Lubchenco was identified in the biographies of working group members as a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and a member of the Pew Oceans Commission (but not as a former Pew Fellow).
Since her nomination by Obama to head NOAA, confirmation has been held up for a month in the Senate. Over that time, Lubchenco has declined interview requests.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee last Friday effectively passed the nomination to the floor. A confirmation vote could come at almost any time.
In the same Washington Post story about the Myers and Worm study in 2003, Lubchenco is quoted as ardently appreciative of their work.
"The chronic problem we have in evaluating fisheries is we don't have good data on the size of a population until the fishing is well underway, so we didn't really have a way of evaluating how severe the problem is," Lubchenco said. "What Myers and Worm have done is a laborious, painstaking, comprehensive and careful analysis to try to rectify that situation."
But the Myers and Worm study has been criticized, if not discredited, by an alliance of mainstream scientists — including those prominent within NOAA Fisheries.
Writing in the June 2007 issue of Science magazine, Steve Murawski, the director of scientific programs and the chief science advisor to the National Marine Fisheries Service within NOAA, and his colleagues Richard Methhot and Galen Tromble, described an update of Myers and Worm's work as "inaccurate and overly pessimistic."
Paul Rago, the chief fisheries biologist with NOAA Fisheries at Woods Hole, described the Myers and Worm study "as very controversial. They were taking some trends and extrapolating beyond what many people were comfortable with."
Although his work on the status of the groundfish ecosystem of New England has induced fishing restrictions and the impending Interim (one year) Rule that has become a political and policy flashpoint, Rago's integrity and skills have not been challenged.
Ray W. Hilborn, an aquatic and fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, disapprovingly noted, also in the same issue of Science, that the projection from Myers and Worm "that all of the world's wild fish will be collapsed by 2048 attracted international media attention."
Hilborn wrote that "such a projection is fallacious and inappropriate to appear in a scientific journal."
In a 2006 Seattle times story about the Myers and Worm study, Hilborn was even more blunt. "It's just mind-boggling stupid," he said. "I'm worried about some area of the world, like Africa, but most areas of the world have figured out to how to do effective fishery management."
The dispute over the Myers-Worm papers morphed into a debate about the erosion of standards in peer-reviewed journals. Hilborn wrote in one that the "peer-review process has totally failed and many of these papers are being published only because the editors and selected reviewers believe in the message, or because of their potential newsworthiness."
The vast majority of participants who with Lubchenco worked on the "Oceans of Abundance," or "jellyfish" study and policy proposals, have ties to Pew or Pew-financed organizations.
The report explains that it was "developed by an independent, bipartisan working group of 23 current and former federal and state elected officials, cabinet officers, scientists and administrators." Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and former Congressman James Greenwood co-chaired the working group.
The working group was convened by Environmental Defense Fund and Marine Conservation Biology Institute.
Lubchenco's confirmation hearing, which lasted about two hours and was conducted with Lubchenco paired with John Holdren, the Harvard-academic nominated for White House science advisor, did not explore her adherence to the Pew Environmental Group's agenda, though she was questioned briefly about her enthusiasm for a Pew initiative in the far western Pacific.
That initiative ended in January when President George W. Bush, days before leaving office, agreed to sign off on Pew's idea to take 115,000 square miles around the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island and make them a "marine protected area" without any commercial fishing. For Bush's decision and signature, Pew lauded and granted him a "blue legacy."
The one question to her about the Mariana "marine protected area" which she praised in an op-ed piece in the (Portland) Oregonian, came from U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat. He was curious that the "stakeholders" — the citizens of the island commonwealth — were left out of the process.
Lubchenco deflected that thought, but averred that "marine protected and no take" marine reserves can bring "huge benefit" to the natural resources and "in some cases in helping to restore depleted fisheries."
The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed to make all of the waters south of New England — from Long Island, N.Y., to deep into Georges Bank, west of Cape Cod — into a no-take zone for one year leading up to the imposition of catch shares.
The Interim Rule has been condemned by the New England coastal congressional coalition, who have described the approach as tantamount to destroying what is left of the region's commercial fishing industry.
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_078231953.html