Posted by stephen clark on January 29, 2004 at 04:23:38:
In Reply to: Re: And another thing... posted by old man of the sea on January 28, 2004 at 22:54:48:
"Fishing has been going on for thousands of years."
Yes, that is true but 2000 years ago they used hand lines & small nets and the world population was under 5 million and fish were not harvested for the entire world. In case you haven't noticed there are a few more of us now. And Jesus ain't around to turn one caught fish into thousands.
"Fish huggers enter the scene with their new toy cameras act like a bunch of primadonnas. They want to take control of everything before they understand the real world economics."
You were asleep in economics class old man in the sea... here we go; When there are 12 cookies in the jar meant to feed the whole class and Johnny fisherman takes all twelve for himself... how many cookies are there left for the rest of the class?
"They have no concept of getting along and belong up a tree with the spotted owls."
That's because the ocean has been systematically over fished for the last hundred years or so and the rest of us deserve a healthy ocean teeming with fish as do our progeny. We have waited for the fishing industry to curb it's appetite out of self preservation but it never seems to even acknowledge that there are allot fewer fish now. Re: the Spotted Owl... it was a clever tactic that enviros used to work the system controlled by big timber. There is 2% of old growth forest left in our country... that means that the timber industry has taken away 98% of it... shipping most of it over seas. So what do we the people get out of that compromise? I'd draw the same analogy with the sea... Compromise is a fine concept but to the extraction industries it means taking the majority of the recourse away from the people (if you want to put it into people terms) and selling it for their own enrichment with no regard for the environmental havoc their methods wreck.
"Fish huggers enter the scene with their new toy cameras act like a bunch of primadonnas. They want to take control of everything before they understand the real world economics. They have no concept of getting along and belong up a tree with the spotted owls."
The primadonnas in the fight to restore the ocean to its former self are the fishing industry lock steppers who don’t read anything about the ocean but their profit & loss statements. How many scientists and ex-fisherman need to stand up and say “The ocean is being harmed greatly because of commercial fishing tactics.” before the fishing industry compromises on their gluttony.
"Face it the crys of devastation are based on myopic observations and cannot be taken seriously."
Myopic observation? The Herring, Cod, and Haddock populations are commercially extinct. The only thing myopic about that fact is that people looked at the empty nets and said, “Hey! The fish are gone.” At one of the meetings for the creation of the CI Marine Reserves an ex-fisherman from Massachusetts stood up and said, “Hi, I’m from Gloucester… there are allot of house painters in Gloucester now.” and sat down. That’s about as un-myopic a view as you can get. He’d participated in the over fishing and had seen first hand what had happened to the resource, the industry, and the local communities as a result. I’d say that the myopic view was taken by the fishing community. At the risk of sounding evangelical I suggest to you old man of the sea that you read “Song for a Blue Ocean” by Carl Safina. He was a commercial fisherman on the east coast and has written about both sides of the issue. I would say his book is very un-myopic.
More myopia… I think we as a species discount what other creatures need to survive as part of our resource planning. We should take into account what the Orcas, Sea Lions, Sharks, WSBs, etc… need before going out and hauling away their food for the profit of the very few.
How many enviros conclude that the fishermen were right and that there are plenty of fish for all? Zero
The opposite? Too many to count.
"Until they learn how to politic (that is tactfully compromise) they are just going to get lip service from the suits in office."
Then we should fire those suits and take back our oceans.