Seattle/Fisheries-No Corporate Buy-Out!

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>> U.S. SENATORS IN SEATTLE ON SATURDAY FOR HEARING ON THE        


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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> U.S. SENATORS IN SEATTLE ON SATURDAY FOR HEARING ON THE        
MAGNUSON FISHERY CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT - GREENPEACE
DEMANDS REDUCED FISHERIES WASTE, NO CORPORATE BUY-OUTS  
 
SEATTLE, March 17, 1995 (GP) Hundreds of millions of pounds of
fish are wasted annually in the North Pacific.  Nearly half of
all commercial fish stocks are "over utilized."  These and other
pressing issues around the management of U.S. fisheries will be
discussed this Saturday, when the U.S. Senate holds a field
hearing on the reauthorization of the Magnuson Fisheries
Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA), the Federal law that
manages fisheries in the United States.   The Seattle hearing
will be held at Sea-Tac's Main Terminal, room 6011 from 8:00 a.m.
to 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, March 18.  While the public is
allowed to attend, they are not likely to get an opportunity to
testify.
 
Only one environmentalist was invited to testify at this hearing:
Cristina Mormorunni, fisheries campaigner for Greenpeace in the
Northwest.  Of the 18 people testifying to the Senators, 14 are
representatives of the commercial fishing industry, including
four factory trawler representatives and financiers. 
 
Over 740 million pounds of fish were discarded in the Alaskan
groundfish fisheries in 1993.  Approximately 76 percent of this
amount was contributed by the factory trawler sector alone.      
In addition to focusing on the issue of fisheries waste,
Greenpeace's testimony will target the move to privatize national
fisheries, traditionally a public resource.  Presently, the
factory trawler fleet, the very same large corporate fishing
interests which dumped over 500 million pounds of fish overboard
in 1993,    is leading the effort to privatize fisheries through
a controversial management scheme known as Individual
Transferable Quotas (ITQs).
 
Greenpeace strongly opposes ITQs because this system would allow
large corporations to buy up shares and gain a monopoly over the
public resource.  This would force individual fishermen out of
business, and threaten community-linked fishing operations.     
"ITQs would be a boom for the large fishing corporations but a
bust for fishing communities," said Cristina Mormorunni,
Greenpeace's fisheries campaigner in the Northwest. "Fish is a
resource belonging to all U.S. citizens.  If our nation's
fisheries are privatized, the fish will become private property
and fishing a property right."           
 
ENDS
 
Contact:
Media person Cynthia Rust at Greenpeace Seattle (206) 632-4326