Herring Alliance

A supposedly "grass roots" effort to force the Massachusetts herring fleet to fish farther offshore, something which industry analysts say has no conservation value in a fishery which isn't close to being overfished. Such a move would in all probability make it economically impossible to continue the fishery.

The most powerful members of the Herring Alliance are Earthjustice (link), Pew Environment Group, Natural Resources Defense Council (link), Oceana, the Conservation Law Foundation (link) and Greenpeace. Aside from Greenpeace - which seems to oppose any fishery involving boats larger than 50 feet or so in length - these organizations are heavily funded by Pew. In its earlier days, when the Alliance had only ten members, eight of them were funded by Pew; seven had jointly received $120 million (link). The Aliance has been successful in recruiting other menbers since those early days. Perhaps all of that foundation money floating around had something to do with that.

 On what could be a very relevant note, in spite of all of the resources of the organizations making up the Herring Alliance, and in spite of a startling lack of science dealing with the fish or the fishery, none of the involved ENGOs or the foundations that support them so lavishly (link) have invested any funding whatsoever in on-the-water herring research.