Articles by Grist staff

That’s All Wells and Good

Wells Fargo becomes biggest corporate buyer of clean energy Banking giant Wells Fargo announced yesterday that it has bought renewable-energy certificates to offset 40 percent of its current electricity usage over the next three years. Amounting to 550 million kilowatt hours of wind power a year, it is the largest-ever corporate purchase of renewable energy […]

Nothing to Sea Here, Folks

Arctic sea ice melts to second-lowest monthly minimum on record Last month, sea ice in the Arctic melted to the second-lowest monthly minimum it has reached in 29 years of satellite measurements. The ice reached its record monthly minimum in September 2005; scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center say the monthly record […]

An Embarrassment of Richard

Richard Pombo in danger of losing House seat to Jerry McNerney Rep. Richard Pombo (R), chair of the House Resources Committee and bugbear of the environmental community, is in a knock-down, drag-out fight to win an eighth term representing California’s 11th congressional district. Pombo has far more moolah than his Democratic challenger, Jerry McNerney, but […]

A former fisherman responds to David Benton’s Q&A

Following Grist's Q&A with David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance, George Pletnikoff -- a former fisherman who now works with Greenpeace -- wrote to respond to some of Benton's points, arguing that the Alaskan fisheries are not quite the model of sustainability.

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I read with interest the article about David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance. The board and funders of the Marine Conservation Alliance are a veritable who's who of the industrial fisheries (mostly draggers and factory trawlers), and they have a right to their perspective. But being an Aleut from the Pribilof Islands, I have a different worldview and understanding of what is happening in Alaskan waters. I would like to respond to Benton's brave statement that Alaskan fisheries are healthy and that there are no examples of any overfishing practices. To the contrary, the examples abound.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council manages the lucrative pollock fishery -- lucrative for the moment, that is, for one or two fishing communities and for the Seattle owners. Under the "precautionary" catch limits set by the NPFMC, three of the region's main pollock fisheries have been closed or severely limited due to overfishing: two in the Bering Sea (the Aleutian Island and Bogoslov fisheries) and one in the Gulf of Alaska (the Shelikof Strait roe fishery). Despite use of "strict guidelines," these fisheries have been decimated by the same catch formulas still in use to determine the total allowable catch for pollock in the Bering Sea.

Today, the vast majority of the fishing pressure is on the spawning aggregation in the eastern Bering Sea, home to the last pollock stock capable of supporting a sizable commercial fishery. Yet, there are no marine reserves set up to protect spawning fish. And what does the NPFMC say about this? "We use the best available science to determine total allowable catch limits."