The Fish Market

Facts about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations approach to catch shares come from the NOAA Catch Share Policy Executive Summary and a version of the map Catch Share Programs by Region which shows that the agency was once targeting 32 additional catch share programs. The Power Point presentations “NOAA Catch Share Policy: Next Steps” from May 2010; “Council Coordination Committee Meeting” by Gary Reisner, CFO/CAO, in May 2011; and “FY2011 Status A Briefing to MAFAC” by Reisner in October 2010 provided some financial detail about requests and awards for catch share implementation funds. Katherine Brogan, media relations specialist at NOAA, provided the remaining catch share funding figures in an email to the author in February 2016.

Details about the Congressional reception featuring Moonen’s cooking in February 2013 come from the Environmental Defense Fund flyer titled “Please join top chef masters finalist Rick Moonen,” available on its website. They also come from the press release “Fishermen and Chefs Unify Over Sustainable Fishing” by Matt Smelser and from the follow-up article “Fishermen and Chefs United: Keep Catch Shares on the Table” by Matt Rand, both on the Environmental Defense Fund website.

Information about Buddy Guindon’s lawsuit against the federal government comes from the case Guindon v. Pritzker filed in the District of Columbia. Details about fishermen’s request for catch shares in the South Atlantic comes from article “Catch shares schemes rise from the dead in South Atlantic” on the The Coastal Conservation Association website. Facts about the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) Rockfish Program come from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s website.

Chapter 15.

The narrative in Chapter 15 was reported aboard the Lester F. Eldredge in June 2015 and through interviews with Shannon Eldredge on that day, and subsequent email correspondence. An initial interview with Eldredge was conducted in Chatham, Massachusetts in June 2013.

Historical facts about weir fishing comes from Allen Lutins’ master’s thesis Prehistoric Fishweirs in Eastern North America, available on his website at lutins.org. The statistics on catch shares come from the Environmental Defense Fund map “Catch shares around the world,” which the Property and Environment Research Center has on its website.

The scene at Terra Madre was reported through interviews with Eldredge, Brett Tolley, a community organizer for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, and Michele Mesmain, who was the convener of fishers at the conference. Details of Seth Macinko’s talk were reported from the YouTube video of a similar speech, called “Seth Macinko-Challenges facing small-scale fisheries” and posted by the World Forum of Fisher Peoples.

The Environmental Defense Fund describes its work abroad on its website in the article “How to turn around the overfishing crisis.” Information about countries targeted by the Walton Foundation comes from an interview with Teresa Ish, its marine program officer, in December 2015. The Bloomberg Philanthropies’ article “Investing in Sustainable Global Fisheries: Going from Theory to Practice” describes that organization’s catch share work abroad in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional facts about the World Bank’s Global Partnership for the Oceans comes from the World Bank Presentation by James L. Anderson & Michael Arbuckle, called “What is the Global Partnership for Oceans and Why and how can the fisheries stakeholders be engaged.” Details of the status of those efforts come from an interview with Megan Arneson, acting acting executive director of the 50in10 initiative, in December 2015.

Ownership data on the abalone fishery comes from the research of Seth Macinko, specifically comments that he made during meetings about renewing Community Fishing Policy in the European Union at the Danish Parliament building in August 2013. The comments were reported in Fishermen’s Voice, in the article “Shifts of Fishing Access Criticized at Danish Conference.” Information about Chilean protests over privatization of that country’s fisheries comes from David Dougherty’s news report The Privatization of Chile’s Sea on The Real News Network. The description of issues in Icelandic fisheries is sourced from the reporting of Paul Fontaine in The Reykjavik Grapevine, specifically the article “Iceland struggles to Settle the Fishing Quota Dispute,” and from the article “Controversial tax on fisheries profits in Iceland: an improvement to the fisheries management system?” on the Normer website.

Facts about Elinor Ostrom come from the Nobel Prize website and from a post-mortem article highlighting her achievements in The Economist, titled “Elinor Ostrom, defender of the commons, died on June 12, aged 78.” The amount of fisheries assistance given to New England fishers during the cod crash comes from a February 2014 press release from David Cicilline, the Rhode Island congressman, titled “New England Fishermen to Receive Nearly $33 Million in Federal Disaster Assistance.”

Chapter 16.

The scene at the dock is a composite of the author’s own observation on location in May 2013 and of biologist Lew Bullock’s work via Skype in January 2016. Those observations were combined with interviews and email correspondence with Bullock between January 2016 and April 2016 and with Jason De La Cruz between May 2013 and April 2016. It was written this way to accommodate fish number 5089301, which set the design standard for the Gulf Wild tracking system. The number still works in the Track Your Fish feature on the Gulf Wild website.

Details of the Environmental Defense Fund’s 2016 seafood campaign come from the article “12 fish you’ve probably never heard of but should eat” on the organization’s website. The Environmental Defense Fund provides next steps in its catch share campaign, including information about the 12 countries it now targets, on its website, specifically in the articles “How to turn around the overfishing crisis,” and “A sustainable, global food supply is within reach. Here’s why.” Information about the Walton Family Foundation’s efforts to remake ocean policy around the world come from Teresa Ish, the foundation’s marine program officer.

Facts about catch-share related lawsuits around the world, and the decision by some countries to retool catch share programs to mitigate downsides comes from the University of Alaska study Fisheries Privatization and the Remaking of Fishery Systems by Courtney Carothers and Catherine Chambers.

Buddy Guindon’s next steps as an advocate come from the man himself. His media and appearances were in Episode 25 of the HBO show Vice and on the show Big Fish Texas on the National Geographic Channel. Use of his image by Kathryn Murdoch can be seen in the YouTube video “Kathryn Murdoch Speaks at the first annual EAT Stockholm Food Forum.” Murdoch’s own status as an Environmental Defense Fund trustee is available on the Eat Forum website. Guindon also provided information about legislative efforts for catch shares, and about Gulf Wild distribution and tagging numbers, as did De La Cruz.

Information about the recovered state of the grouper and red snapper fisheries was taken from the article “Are Our Fisheries Laws Working? Just Ask About Gag Grouper,” on the NOAA Fisheries website, and from the red snapper or grouper listings on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch website. Detail about the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership analysis was sourced from the partnership’s website, specifically the timeline found under the heading “GOM Reef Fish.”

Lee Crockett, Director of U.S. Oceans at Pew Charitable Trusts, provided important perspective on the Magnuson Stevens Act reauthorization. Information about legislation introduced and its progress in the House and Senate was also tracked on the NOAA Fisheries website on the page “Magnuson-Stevens Act—Ongoing Reauthorization Activities.”

Chapter 17.

Scenes aboard the Finlander were reported on location, and in subsequent interviews with Tim Rider. The trip was documented in photographs, which were later used to identify clothing. The author was on location at the Saco farmer’s market the following day, and interviewed Slow Fish advocate Spencer Montgomery for information about the relationship between those advocates and the New England Fish Mongers.

Details about Slow Fish comes from a Skype interview with its convener, Michèle Mesmain in December 2015. Additional information about the Slow Fish conference in New Orleans was found on the Slow Fish 2016 website.

Information about the “Who Fishes Matters” campaign comes from the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, and specifically from the press releases “Fishermen Walk Out and Tell Policy-Makers: The System is Broken” and “New England’s community-based fishermen and supporters to demonstrate against corporate consolidation and inaction by fisheries policy makers” by Brett Tolley and Leigh Belanger. Additional detail was provided in interviews with Tolley.

Facts about the Oregon albacore fishery come from the Annual Oregon Albacore Tuna (Thunnus alalunga) Report, 2015 by Christian Heath at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, from the Oregon Albacore Commission website, and from Nancy Fitzpatrick, executive director of the commission.This page reserved for index. There is a NOAA catch share map and timeline coming.