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Environmental group buys out fishermen to protect ocean floor
For four generations, Geoff Bettencourt's family has fished the waters off Half Moon Bay by dragging heavy nets across the ocean floor to scoop up the sole and cod that feed there.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 July 7, 2006
San Francisco: For four generations, Geoff Bettencourt's family has fished the waters off Half Moon Bay by dragging heavy nets across the ocean floor to scoop up the sole and cod that feed there.
But the 35-year-old may soon sell his right to trawl the sea not to another fisherman, but to environmentalists.
The Nature Conservancy, the international environmental group best known for buying development rights from farmers, is looking to strike similar deals with fishermen along the coast in a pilot programme that it said could be replicated elsewhere.
The group has bought six federal trawling permits and four trawling vessels from fishermen in Morro Bay, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Financial details
The tactic is designed to reward fishermen for forgoing fishing methods that can damage sensitive marine ecosystems.
Financial details weren't disclosed, but each fisherman received "several hundred thousand dollars a piece", said Chuck Cook, director of the group's California coastal and marine program. Rather than punishing fishermen, Cook said, "you try to provide economic incentives for treating the habitats and fisheries well".
The Conservancy said its acquisitions represent the nation's first private buy-out of Pacific fishing vessels and permits for conservation purposes. The buy-outs are also part of its' new, cooperative approach to protect the ocean and contrasted with earlier campaigns that some fishermen saw as a financial burden.
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