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The following are various articles taken from the latest Bulletin , a publication put out by the MFU head office located in Shediac, New Brunswick.
Nova Scotia Gearing Up for Vote On Mandatory Dues
MFU Continues Work With Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters
EFF Meets to Discuss the Partnership Issue
Lobster Fishery: Catches Vary Widely
Local 4 - Lobster Size Increase in Zone 26A
The recently appointed Registrar for the Nova Scotia Fisheries Organization Support Act, Clarrie MacKinnon is finalizing the mechanics for a vote to be taken in Regions 1 and 2 as defined by regulations to the Dues Legislation Act. Region 1 includes all core fishers (approximately 600) from the North Shore of Nova Scotia extending from the New Brunswick border to the tip of Inverness Co. in Cape Breton. Region 2 covers Sydney Bight around to the Canso Causeway and includes another proximately 600 fishers.
MacKinnon says the ballots along with self-addressed envelopes will be sent by May 31 with a final return date of June 30. He expects the counting date of July 7. If a minimum of 60 percent of the fishers votes then a simple majority declaring they are in favor of mandatory dues will bring into force the obligation of all core fishers to pay the minimum dues of $100.00 to the accredited organization of their choice.
If an organization wants to be accredited, it must have 100 members, be properly constituted to represent fishers and pay an annual fee of $1,000. All fishers in a Region supporting mandatory dues will be advised of the accredited organizations in their Region.
MacKinnon says the votes in Regions 3 and 4 are targeted for October and Region 5 (Shelburne and Yarmouth counties) and Region 6 (Digby County and Upper Bay of Fundy) will be done before the end of 1997.
In any Region where the vote has been favorable to mandatory dues, the fishers obligation to pay dues begins January 1/1998. Anyone not paid up by April 1/98 will be in default of the Act. According to the Registrar, the enforcement of the Act will depend on prompt submission every three months by the accredited organization of lists of members assigning their dues to them.
Another important point for an organization like the MFU that has Locals in four of the six Regions is that we only need to be accredited once and this accreditation will make us eligible for assignation of dues in any of the Regions where we are based and where the vote has been positive.
The Council of Professional Fish Harvesters (CCPFH) held its first convention in Halifax in March 1997. All the country's major fisher organizations had delegations at the two day affair. A new Board was elected but immediately ran into snags over the formula for representation and over the composition of the Executive. The Board elected Earl McCurdy of the NFLD Fishers Union as President but appointed the Vice President and Secretary Treasurer on an interim basis until issues of representation and Board structure could be sorted out.
In particular, the mid-shore organizations from the Gulf are demanding changes to the constitution. Following a special Board meeting in Ottawa May 13 and 14, Mr. Haché of FRAPP was asked to bring back to the next meeting of the Council a detailed presentation of their issues and their proposals for change.
Despite the many tensions between some of the fisher organizations, there appears to be a general willingness to make the Council work on behalf of all the professional fishers. A big part of the council mandate remains the professionalization of fishers through the development of national standards applicable to new entrants. The MFU also works through the Council on issues of common concern such as DFO policies regarding dockside monitoring and observer companies. DFO was pushing to keep the fisher organizations away from the companies but have now agreed to a more flexible approach.
The MFU expects the Council to track what is going on in the Ottawa bureaucracy and keep us updated on issues concerning the Ocean Act, the new Fisheries Act, partnerships, cost recovery, E.E., etc. On the issue of funding for the Council, there is general agreement that it should eventually come from the present commercial license registration fee and the NFLD Professional Fishers Certification Board (who now are collecting the fee in NFLD) have already committed 10% of the fee to the Council. The MFU can agree to this approach as long as there is no increase in fees and as long as the fisher organizations maintain a direct say as they have in Newfoundland.
The Eastern Fishermen Federation met at the end of April in Halifax to discuss DFO's partnership concept in the new Fisheries Act. Because of the elections, the Act has yet to be adopted by Parliament. Emmett Jessome, Vice President for Nova Scotia and Jeff Brownstein, President of Local 6 in Nova Scotia attended the two day meeting.
Four seminars on the issue were held by different representatives from the industry. Representatives from DFO and from the mobile gear contingent talked about their personal view of partnership. Also, a fisher involved in the Gulf crab fishery and a Native from the Membertou bank shared the experience of their partnering agreement with DFO.
Neil Bellefontaine, Peter Partington and Jim Jamieson from DFO were on hand during the two day meeting to discuss the issue. Fernand Robichaud, (former) Minister of State for Fisheries and MP from Beausejour delivered the keynote address.
By Michael Belliveau
Woods Harbour is right at the southern extremity of Nova Scotia; it is at the heartland of the largest concentration of fishers in the Maritimes, fishing on perhaps Canada's most productive fisheries resources. Our MFU local has worked with some of the fishers in the area since 1993.
A group of Executive members of a local fisher organization asked MFU's Ricky Nickerson to arrange a meeting with myself and Ricky. They wanted to know more about the MFU. The meeting took place May 9. Their questions were serious and their commitment to organize is strong. Whether or not they want to eventually come into the MFU or whether we can help them we will see. But the meeting caused me to reflect on the state of the fishing community in Southwest Nova Scotia.
The area has been in upheaval, at least since 1990. Every fishermen's organization has been virtually ripped apart by the waves of conflict and division including our own Local. This has happened at a time when the lobster fishery remained strong but the herring and groundfish were in strong decline. It was a time when DFO lost most of its credibility over the disastrous management of the cod resource, a time when DFO implemented ITQs for the mobile draggers and then targeted fixed gear fishers with a whole new set of restrictions on fishing grounds, dockside monitoring, license transfers, trip limits, and quota allocations.
In 1991 the lobstermen tied up in a spontaneous strike, fourteen months later more than a thousand protesters poured into Halifax from land and sea to protest the state of the groundfish fishery. A few months later fishers detained a foreign vessel in Shelburne Harbour. There were large rallies protesting DFO's Native fishery policy. DFO Yarmouth offices were occupied. Only a year ago we had the lengthy protests and occupations in Barrington and Meteghan over license fees, the new license policies and fixed gear quotas, and so on.
Every week it seemed there was a new Moses claiming to lead the fishers out of the wilderness. Respected leaders were vilified and cast aside, longstanding organizations trashed, and new ones claiming divine inspiration, and always there were the opportunists cashing in on the chaos to work out their psychological problems, or to advance their private interest, or to gain a moment of fame, or to push their politics. Strife abounded.
The storm may not be abated but there are some glimmering lights on the social landscape. Fundy Fixed Gear Management Council appears to be working. The inshore herring fishers are talking of a workable plan. Groups like the Woods Harbour one with strong women participation are looking to work with other sensible fisher organizations.
They know they are not in an immediate winnable situation as DFO parcels out quotas to quota associations but they also know that fishing is a generational affair; it is spawned in the family and the community. They know that the inshore fishery is multi-species and that their roots in the lobster fishery will lend strength to their work in the groundfishery.
I believe it is time for a comeback for all those individuals and groups and groups swept aside during the ‘troubles', time to forge a credible, well informed, broad based inshore fisher organization that shares community values and a vision of the fishery where the sons and daughters can aspire to the fishery, can apprentice with the family, and can experiment on their own, time for a fisher organization that can hold its own against the promotion of corporate control of quotas while keeping the fishery in the hand of the independent owner/operator fishermen and women.
Our friends in the Senegal fisher organization in West Africa are facing a major battle with their National Government and the Europeans. In March, the Senegal Government signed a fisheries agreement authorizing as many as 22 European industrial seiners to fish in Senegal waters for herring and mackerel species - these are what the Senegalese people call ‘yaboye' or people's food.
There are literally thousands of inshore fishers fishing these species. You can see them landing the catches on the beaches each morning. You can see hundreds of local people milling about the fishers to buy the fish for consumption in the local village or for re-sale to neighboring villages.
Senegal is a fishing country and everybody eats fish the way we do meat. Sardinelle (herring) is a major source of food for the population and yet the Europeans are authorized to fish 25,000 tons a year for sale in Europe. Fisher representatives like Dao Gaye and Arona Diagne say even 25,000 tons is not enforceable and there will be as much as 75,000 tons taken every year. A direct threat to the food security of the Senegalese population!
What the fishers in Senegal are going through is similar to the great resource destruction of the seiners in the 1960's in Eastern Canada with the added difference our population never depended on herring as a major source of food.
The lobster picture after one month fishing in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence and Sydney Bight ranges from disaster in some areas to average in others to strong on the North side of P.E.I. (LFA 24) In the Gaspé side of the Bay of Chaleurs, catches are down to 75 pounds a day; there are similar horror stories at the Eastern end of Northumberland Strait on the Souris side of P.E.I. and the Pictou side of Nova Scotia.
In Sydney Bight (LFA 27 including harbours like Glace Bay, Alder Point, Big Bras d'Or) the season started May 19 but landings have dropped further from last year's significant drop. Weather conditions in this area have been awful and may be a factor in the lower catches.
Northern New Brunswick (LFA 23) saw a five day delay in their opening because of ice conditions but the season has progressed reasonably well with the exception of the Miramichi area where catches are bleak. The sustained high catches on the North side of P.E.I. contrast starkly to the South side where some are landing 60 lbs. A day. There appears to be no clear answer to the wide variation in resource performance in the Southern Gulf.
On the other hand, the situation in Southwest Nova Scotia (LFA 34) appears to be relatively stable as the fishery wrapped up at the end of May. Our fishers in the Meteghan area and the Bay of Fundy reported a reasonably good season whereas those south of Yarmouth had significant drops in the spring but their season also has a winter component (beginning in December) and when catches are combined the season was successful. Prices in this region reached $7.00 in February and were still $5.50 to $6.00 at the end of May - this area fishes exclusively a lobster 4 3/16 inches and up.
Prices in the rest of the spring lobster fishery from Caraquet to Sydney have ranged from $4.00 to $4.25 for canners to $5.00 and $5.25 for the market size. Nova Scotia's Department of Fisheries analyst Janet Raymond attributes the reasonably strong prices to a diversified international market. MFU's Graeme Gawn agrees but adds that the steady drop in the total supply of Canadian and U.S. lobsters is a factor as well as the reasonably strong American dollar (a favorable exchange rate).
But, Jean-Guy Maillet who owns the large processing plant in Richibuctou Cape expresses anxiety about the strength of the live market compared to the 'canner' trade. He feels there is so much over-capacity in the processing sector that a loss of supply to the lure side will mean a scramble for lobsters by the processors and a price war that will lead to heavy losses.
Weekly updates of area prices and catches can be obtained from MFU head office on request.
DFO with fishermen organization from Nova Scotia and P.E.I. arrived at an agreement to increase the carapace size of lobster in parts of area 26A. The annual lobster management plan is identical to last year except concerning the lobster carapace size in the part of the area reserved to Nova Scotia fishers.
Fishers from P.E.I. and Nova Scotia who share area 26A have debated for more than a decade increasing the lobster carapace size. Fishers from Nova Scotia want an increase as opposed to by fishers in P.E.I. Fishers from the two provinces finally agreed to a pilot project that provides for a gradual size increase in the eastern and western end of area 26A in the Northumberland Strait.
In the western end, the minimum size is already set this year at 2 3/4". Beginning next year, lobster size in the eastern end will be gradually increased 1/16" per year for three years until reaching 2 3/4". The decision to increase lobster size was taken after long negotiations between DFO and fishers from Nova Scotia and P.E.I. Even if fishers from P.E.I. do not fish in the areas touched by the pilot project, their agreement was needed for its implementation. In exchange for their agreement, Nova Scotia fishers agreed to stop asking for a lobster size increase for the entire area included in 26A. Hasse Lindblad, President of Local 4, praised P.E.I. fishers for their compromising spirit that allowed conclusion of the agreement. "We wish them all the best in their own conservation efforts."
According to Hasse Lindblad, "It was refreshing to see the Gulf Bona-fide Fishermen's Assocation and the Cumberland North Fishermen's Association work together with Local 4 MFU on this initiative and it's heartening to see a cooperative approach to solving problems bear fruit." Mr. Lindblad also noted the whole hearted support MP's Francis LeBlanc and Diane Brushett gave to the joint efforts to implement the carapace size increase program.
According to Guy Robichaud, biologist at DFO, tagged lobsters and information are coming in steadily as the lobster season goes on in Northern New Brunswick. This tagging project done in collaboration with the MFU should improve the knowledge of lobster migration.
After a month of fishing, the rate of return was of 12% in Pointe Verte, 23% in Val Comeau and 11% in Neguac. In Pointe Sapin, 155 lobsters were tagged along the line between LFA 232 and 25. The return rate of less than 1% in that area is considered as normal since fishing is closed on the other side of the line. Tagged lobsters are caught at an average distance of 5 km of the site where they were tagged.
Bulletin is the newsletter of the Maritime Fishermen's Union.
Send all inquiries to:
MFU Continues Work With Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters
EFF Meets to Discuss the Partnership Issue
Reflection
Meeting in Woods Harbour
'Yaboye' in West Africa
Lobster Fishery: Catches Vary Widely
Send all inquiries to:
The Maritime Fishermen's Union
Shediac, New Brunswick, EOA 3GO
Phone: (506) 532-2485
Fax: (506) 532-2487
Local 4 - Lobster Size Increase in Zone 26A
Tagging Project Successful
It is published in both English and French every six weeks.
The Maritime Fishermen's Union
Shediac, New Brunswick, EOA 3GO
Tel: (506) 532-2485 or Fax: 9506) 532-2487
Layout: Maurice Thériault
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