Balsiger Column Builds Bridges with Gloucester Fishing Community

Monica Allen
NOAA's Office of Communications & External Affairs

June 10, 2009 — This past winter, tensions reached a new high in America’s oldest fishing port.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service was about to put in place a rule reducing fishing that would affect fishermen in Gloucester and other ports up and down the Northeast coast. The local newspaper had been criticizing these proposed cuts in fishing designed to help rebuild fish stocks. The leaders of NOAA Fisheries decided to request a meeting with Gloucester’s mayor, Cheryl Kirk, and the editor of the city’s daily newspaper to discuss the matter and listen to community concerns.|

 

One snowy day in early March, after meeting with the mayor and leaders of Gloucester’s fishing industry, Jim Balsiger, the acting head of NOAA’s Fisheries, Patricia Kurkul, the Gloucester-based Northeast regional administrator for Fisheries and Monica Allen, Fisheries public affairs specialist, met with the Gloucester Daily Times. Balsiger asked the paper’s editor, Ray Lamont, if he could write a regular column that would allow him to share his perspective and open up a forum for discussion with the community.

Lamont said yes.

“I knew we needed to open up better lines of communication with those in the fishing industry and others in the community,” said Balsiger. “I also wanted to be sure that people in Gloucester and throughout the Northeast understood that NOAA shared the goal of the region to maintain good fishing jobs, healthy fishing stocks, and vital coastal communities.”

Every two weeks, Balsiger uses his column to talk openly with fishermen and the broader community about a range of issues including what NOAA’s scientists are learning about fish stocks, the ways fishermen from the region and around the country have worked cooperatively with NOAA scientists, and some of the recent breakthroughs in fisheries management.

One of the strongest themes of Balsiger’s column has been about how fishermen and NOAA researchers and partners have already worked together to solve problems — something the broader community has not heard a lot about. For example, Balsiger wrote about how two Rhode Island fishermen teamed up with a fishing gear maker, university researchers, and NOAA staff to design a net that catches haddock, but allows depleted fish stocks such as cod and flounder to swim free.

In another column, Balsiger described the benefits seen by a Cape Cod, Mass., fisherman involved in a pilot project to manage cod through a catch-share program that allocates a portion of the total catch to a group of fishermen. More recently, Balsiger looked around the country for examples of how members of the fishing industry have pioneered effective management ideas.

Balsiger’s column appears prominently on the Gloucester Daily Time’s editorial page. At the bottom of each column is an email address readers can use to respond directly to him. Responses to the column have ranged from criticism of Fisheries’ policies to praise from a local writer who was pleased that Balsiger was championing the need for fishermen to work with scientists and managers to safeguard the ocean and our fish populations.

Not surprisingly, Balsiger’s column has not stopped the paper’s editor from penning editorials critical of NOAA. But, that wasn’t its intent.

“I hope the column has helped the public understand that NOAA needs fishermen as active partners if we’re going to succeed in rebuilding healthy fish stocks and in sustaining a diverse marine ecosystem for today and for future generations,” Balsiger said. “The experience has also convinced me that it might be a good idea to share this column with other newspapers in coastal communities around the nation.”

You can check out one of Balsiger’s recent columns at: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/archivesearch/local_story_142162711.html.