After a moving encounter with a right whale, CLF member Vi Patek joined our lawsuit to protect the endangered species. Members like Vi — and you — are essential to our work going to court and defending, enforcing, and enacting important environmental protections.
“The fishermen have had the ocean all to themselves for centuries,” says Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston. Shelley says the lawsuit challenging the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, and the presidential authority that created it, failed to acknowledge other “values” such as conservation and preservation as powers granted in the Antiquities Act of 1906.
“Today’s decision is a clear victory for our oceans and for the Atlantic’s only marine national monument,” said Peter Shelley, Senior Counsel at CLF. “This decision upholds protections for one of the most fragile and scientifically important areas in the North Atlantic from destructive activities like oil drilling and industrial fishing. Safeguarding the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts ensures that we are leaving a proud legacy for the people of New England.”
Atlantic cod has been overfished for decades, but at their most recent meeting, New England’s regional fishery managers recommended new catch limits that will further harm cod’s chance of recovery. This plan, called Framework 59, ignores the law and science.
“With the ocean getting hotter and more acidic and wildlife facing extinction, the ocean must be a top issue this election season,” said Priscilla Brooks, Director of Ocean Conservation at CLF. “It’s time for bold action to confront the crisis facing our oceans.”
“Fishery managers are failing in their job to end overfishing of New England’s most recognizable fish species,” said Peter Shelley, Senior Counsel at CLF. “Cod is in crisis and the Council once again failed to make the hard decision needed to end overfishing and rebuild these stocks. The proposed limits are unlawful, and the federal government must disapprove them. Directed fishing on Atlantic cod should have been stopped years ago.”
Atlantic herring is one of the most important fish in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. An upcoming decision by the New England Fishery Management Council could recognize herring’s role in maintaining the health of our ocean ecosystem.
In a major win for endangered North Atlantic right whales, a federal judge ruled that gillnet fishing gear must be removed from 3,000 nautical miles of ocean waters in southern New England. Opening the areas to gillnet fishing without considering harm to right whales violated the Endangered Species Act, and the gear must be removed until the required analysis is complete.
“After a series of devastating deaths this summer, pushing paper will not protect right whales from extinction,” said Erica Fuller, CLF Senior Attorney. “We need to use the force of the law to put this species on the path to recovery. The judge absolutely made the correct call: right whales simply can’t wait any longer for the federal government to get around to doing their job.”
“Expanded fishing in a right whale hot spot flies in the face of the Endangered Species Act,” said Erica Fuller, a Senior Attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation — one of the groups that brought the case. “This ruling rightfully reverses a dangerous course and will give right whales the protection they need from fishing gear. We cannot afford to lose even one more of these critically endangered creatures.”
