Again with the draggers? Are we really that blind with greed?

Letter to the Editor

This letter to the editor is my first in 25 years, which should give some indication of the seriousness I feel the issue deserves. Recently, I have heard a word from my past that caused disappointment, sadness, and anger. It has been 32 years since I last heard it. It is, for me, a symbol of destruction, ignorance, and unbridled greed: Dragger.

Not since the cod moratorium of 1992 have I heard it uttered, and, foolishly, I assumed we had realized the nemesis for what it is, and evolved to a more contemporary method of fish harvesting that wouldn’t ignore the devastating results of our previous, archaic methods. I was, unfortunately, sadly mistaken. I realize that talk is cheap, and the people with the greatest ability to effect change are seemingly tainted by the one thing that has haunted the weakest of politicians, businessmen, and indeed others since mankind began: Greed.

Throughout my career in aviation, I have studied human factors, which include 12 categories, including lack of awareness and knowledge, pressure, stress, distraction and norms. The path from a routine day to an accident can be compared to the links of a chain, where circumstance, bad luck, fate, and human factors all do their part to ensure the inevitable accident happens. However, if strategies are put in place to identify and mitigate human factors, and even one link of the chain is broken, the end result accident does not happen.

I believe the path to success has a similar make-up. The progression from desire, through compassion, knowledge, education, goodwill, and hard work to success can also be seen as links of a chain. The breaking of one link of this chain will also ensure the end result, success, isn’t reached. I think the factor that is most prevalent in this regard is greed. Pure undiluted, unmitigated, unchecked greed.

I think that those who are disadvantaged, or have-not, as we in Newfoundland have been rightly referred to for generations, are most susceptible to the pitfalls of greed. We are not alone. I recall the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, also in 1992, where a lady was exiting a broken window of a looted store with as much stolen clothing as she could carry. When asked by a reporter why she would resort to stealing, her only response was “I gotta get mine.”

I have seen it, especially in our mismanagement of most species of the ocean that we have harvested, from cod to crab to shrimp, among others. I have witnessed seeing a bag of harvested shrimp, comprised of about 90 percent cradling a full payload of hundreds of eggs, no doubt just weeks away from being released to the depths. It wouldn’t take having a three-digit IQ, or being a marine scientist, to reason that if the shrimp fishery was delayed for the days or weeks needed for the species to play its natural part, the industry could thrive. But, again, the greed sets in, and no thought is given.

I believe there are two types of ignorance. One stems from not knowing, and the other, the unforgivable one, stems from not caring. Because there is no excuse any longer for not knowing, I fear far too many in our fair province are suffering from the latter. Let’s put pressure on those in power to send the draggers to the scrap heap. We have no excuse for their use, and never did. To ruin the ocean floor for all species for decades was always unacceptable to most of us. In my view, it’s akin to using a potato harvester that takes three feet of topsoil in the process. I can only hope that we can responsibly navigate this latest burst of greed and ignorance. Surely, we are smarter and better than this. Good luck to all.

Howard Sturge

Topsail

Editor’s Note: For those who haven’t been following the fishery lately, this letter pertains to Canada’s decision to allow a portion of the 18,000 cod quota announced earlier this year to be fished by offshore fleets.