OTTAWA - “I read the news of a re-opened and expanded cod fishery with alarm, "said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. "The cautious fishery of recent years, a sentinel or stewardship fishery, was allowing limited re-establishment of stocks. But opening the fishery to larger harvests and foreign vessels is just reckless. Does DFO never learn?
“Greens support the scientists and Newfoundland and Labrador fishers who oppose this decision. Many of us worked with in-shore fishers in the late 1980s as they valiantly challenged DFO's flawed "spawning biomass" fantasies. By pushing for unsustainable levels of harvest, DFO caused one of the most populous animal species on the planet to be reduced to commercial extinction. The current DFO advice flies in the face of stock assessments, the dynamics of the capelin population, and the climate crisis.
“I wrote a blurb in 1998 for Michael Harris’s Lament for an Ocean, an exhaustive review of DFO mismanagement. I said then that I would not trust DFO with my aquarium. Little has changed.
Greens call on Fisheries Minister the Hon Diane Lebouthillier to immediately reconsider and, before it is too late, to reduce this unacceptable risk by restoring the more cautious stewardship fishery.
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