Who’s lying now?

We are writing in response to Ms. Ruthe Tighe’s latest article on the Pew Charitable Trust’s move to have President Bush proclaim the CNMI EEZ waters surrounding the three northernmost islands of the Marianas Archipelago (Asunsion, Maug and Uracas) as a marine national monument. Ms. Tighe’s intemperate outburst on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council betrays the frustration which she and the Pew Environmental Group are experiencing in securing populist support for the Commonwealth to cede one third of its territory for a mere 30 pieces of silver! Before we answer Ms. Tighe’s nonsensical diatribe point by point, let us all remember that Pew is Big Oil in green clothing; Big Oil, which, if the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is correct, is at the root of global warming.

Ms. Tighe favors us with a dictionary definition of fishing as though it were somehow an evil pursuit, when in fact it is how millions of people put food on the table daily for their families, including folks in the CNMI. Turning to one of the many online dictionaries, we found the following definitions of “lying” as a verb: The telling of lies; as a noun: untruthfulness; and as an adjective: telling or containing lies; deliberately untruthful; mendacious; false. We think that this more than adequately describes the assertions made about WesPac in Ms. Tighe’s article.

In her confused rambling, Ms. Tighe claims that the creation of the monument would result in a reduction of the WesPac budget as a result of lost jurisdiction. By this token, then WesPac would be receiving the lion’s share of federal dollars for Councils by virtue of administering half of all U.S. EEZ waters. The fact is, the Council receives more jurisdiction. In other words, “size doesn’t matter.”

Ms. Tighe asserts that WesPac has been active in making presentations on the monument at every opportunity. Indeed, WesPac has deliberated on the monument at two Council meetings and invited the Pew representatives to make their pitch at these meetings for the monument. On both occasions they have declined, despite being seen skulking in the audience. Clearly, they don’t appear to have the courage of their convictions. Moreover, we fail to see what is wrong with presenting alternative arguments to those in favor of the monument; this is called open debate and is a feature of a democratic society. Perhaps Ms. Tighe needs a refresher course in civics to be reminded of this.

Similarly, Ms. Tighe also asserts that WesPac’s influence is so terrible that most of those seen supporting the declaration of the waters surrounding Maug, Uracas, Asuncion as a national marine monument appear to be non-local. She continues that “government employees, largely local, and their families have been thoroughly intimidated—not to mention brainwashed—by fellow islanders whereas non-locals, largely not government employees, are thus immune to such intimidation.” Clearly, the several decades Ms. Tighe has spent in the Pacific Islands appear to have been wasted if she has not understood that Pacific Island societies, even those with strong hierarchical systems, allow everybody to have their say. Ms. Tighe’s statements about intimidation and brainwashing by fellow islanders are not just wrong but a shameful insult to the people of the CNMI.

In addition, the democratically elected representatives of the people of the CNMI, from the Governor and the Legislature, to the mayors of Saipan, Tinian, Rota and the Northern Islands, have unanimously opposed the monument. What is it about “no” that Ms. Tighe and her Pew associates don’t understand? WesPac has gone on record stating that it will abide by the decision of the CNMI government and its people on the establishment of the monument. At present, there seems to be unanimous opposition to the monument; thus the Council interprets this to mean “no” and not “yes”.

Turning now to Ms. Tighe’s assertions about the Council itself and its conduct of fishery management, she lays all the global fishery problems at WesPac’s door, whether they occur in the Pacific or not, including the collapse of New England’s cod fishery! From Ms. Tighe’s comments, one would suspect that the Council is composed entirely of commercial fishermen. In fact, of the 13 voting Council members, only three have any connection to commercial fishing. The remainders are composed of cultural practitioners, recreational fishermen, state and federal government officials and, despite Ms. Tighe’s statement to the contrary, also includes an environmentalist, Mr. Peter Young of the organization Ho’okuleana (to take responsibility). Further, a recent vacant seat for Hawaii was not filled with a commercial fisherman but with an eminent fisheries scientist with a long track record of distinguished research on Pacific tunas.

With respect to WesPac’s track record, this Council banned bottom-trawls and drift gillnets in the Western Pacific in the 1980s long before they became fashionable targets for Pew and other members of the environmental community. Among other fishery conservation achievement, this Council has developed the most environmentally responsible pelagic longline fishing methods, whereby turtle interactions, once numbering in the hundreds in the Hawaii fishery have declined to near zero levels. In fact in 2008, not a single loggerhead turtle has been caught by the Hawaii swordfish longline fishery, despite the population showing a marked resurgence over the past decade, thanks in part to Council-funded conservation in Japan. Indeed, Council-funded turtle conservation in Japan and Melanesia during this decade has resulted in an additional 108,000 loggerhead and 177,000 leatherback hatchlings recruited to their respective populations. Perhaps Ms. Tighe would like to inform readers what she has personally done to conserve turtles and other marine animals to which she so passionately refers in her article?

Ms. Tighe’s comments about purse seining frankly display the embarrassing depths of her ignorance about the region and fishery management. U.S. purse seiners in the Western Pacific fisheries operate under an international treaty between the U.S. and the independent Pacific Island states, administered in the U.S. by the Department of State and National Marine Fisheries Service. The Council only has jurisdiction over the fleet when it fishes in the U.S. EEZ. A perusal of the latest Council actions would inform Mr. Tighe that the Council voted to prohibit all purse seine fishing within the U.S. EEZ waters around both Guam and the CNMI. Further, because of the wide scale use of instrumented fish aggregating devices, or “signal emitting logs” as Ms. Tighe calls them, this Council has recommended strict controls on FAD fishing within the U.S. EEZ in the Western Pacific.

Finally, Ms. Tighe attempts to create the impression that WesPac is some vast shadowy, mysterious conspiratorial entity with a powerful hold on governments, people and the media. Like the other Regional Fishery Management Councils, WesPac is a federal creation established by an Act of Congress in 1976, and wholly funded through the Department of Commerce. It has a staff of less than 20 people to develop federal fishery management policies for the CNMI, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii and a group of uninhabited or military-controlled small atolls and islands in the Central Pacific. Its meetings are open to the public and time is set aside at each meeting for public comments, even for items not on the meeting agenda. Notices of meetings are publicized in the Federal Register, in newspapers, radio, and on the Council’s website. All decision making takes place in public with the wording of recommendations shown so that the public can comment on these as decisions are made.

By contrast, the Pew Environmental Group is an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which derives much of its income from the oil industry. It is not a transparent organization like the Council and employs public relations firms (e.g. Scott Foster & Associates of Honolulu) to impugn the reputations of the Council and Council family if Council opinion conflicts with the Pew mantra. If the Marianas Trench monument argument is so convincing, then it should sink or swim on its own merits, without the need for Pew to resort to the sleazy smear tactics more befitting a political campaign.

Finally, in the interests of transparency, Ms. Tighe might wish to confirm that she is not receiving any funds from the Pew Environmental Group, and that her latest bilious diatribe is simply a vitriolic expression of her frustration with democracy in action.