| Oceana Nets Comments Favoring
Ocean Protection
(Note: Stalking horse: Something used to mask a purpose. Words are being used in every facet of communication/media for just this agenda. Please read carefully.) June 6, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - The largest number of public comments ever submitted on an ocean related matter was delivered Tuesday to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Oceana, a new international ocean protection group, submitted the first installment of 60,000 public comments demanding that the federal government enforce current laws designed to halt the destruction of ocean life. In February 2000, Oceana filed a petition calling on NMFS to implement a program that would count, cap and control wasteful bycatch in U.S. fisheries and fulfill its responsibilities under current laws. Oceana petitioned the agency after releasing a report that estimated that about 25 percent of the world's catch of fish is wasted. NMFS will collect comments related to Oceana's petition through June 17. "The unprecedented number of comments demonstrates that the public believes that our oceans, and our coastal economies and communities, are at risk from the wanton loss of marine life," said Carolyn Hartmann, Oceana's vice president for policy. "The government needs to act now." On Tuesday, Hartmann delivered the first installment of more than a dozen large boxes of public comments to Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees NMFS. Oceana delivered the comments in a fishing net to symbolize the 44 billion pounds of fish that are caught as bycatch and wasted each year around the world. Industrial fishing operations use vast fishing nets that strangle, drown and crush billions of other fish, sea turtles, whales, dolphins and other marine species. Other fishing gears, such as bottom trawls, bulldoze the ocean floor, scraping up everything in their path. In U.S. waters each year, more than three billion pounds of fish are caught and discarded, about one pound of fish wasted for every four pounds kept. Last year, the U.S. government admitted that 31 fish species in U.S. fisheries are on the brink of commercial extinction, and about 40 percent of all U.S. fisheries are being overfished. On the East Coast, less than two percent of fishing trips carry scientific observers required to record data on bycatch. Oceana delivered comments collected through the group's website: http://www.OceansAtRisk.com. Oceana would have preferred to save the reams of paper, but NMFS did not accept e-mail comments for this public comment request. "We are grateful to Vice Admiral Lautenbacher for accepting the comments in person and for allowing the public to weigh in on this important environmental issue," Hartmann said. "We look forward to working with him in the future to find solutions to the needless waste of marine life and expect the agency to do more to protect oceans." In the next few weeks, U.S. Congressional committees are planning to vote on bills to amend the nation's principal ocean fish management law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Last month, a House Subcommittee voted on legislation that weakens current law, blocking efforts to rebuild U.S. fisheries to sustainable levels. |