Vito Giacalone is a third-generation fisherman, with a rich fishing history that trails back to family members on both sides being heavily involved in the industry, a trend that started with one of his grandfathers in Sicily. It was almost inevitable that he become a fisherman, and he did that as a youth, fishing out of Gloucester from 1977-88, before taking time out to get into construction. It wasn’t until 2000, when he bought a boat and got back into the industry, that he realized things had become far more complex than when his grandfather was first putting his nets in the water.
I had a lot of responsibilities, says Giacalone. I have four children who were young then, but my passion was fishing. I couldn’t believe in the short time that I got back at just how crazy and complex things had gotten with the laws and the rules.
Truly, the past 20 years or so have seen increased government regulations and a push for greater environmental consciousness when it comes to local waters, which translated to the piling on of more restrictions on the industry that helped to form Gloucester’s identity: Fishing sectors designated by the government. Catch-share restrictions. Days-at-sea restrictions. All of these combined to create complex set of rules and regulations that the everyday fisherman would be challenged to overcome on their own, taking on a whole new level of meaning considering this was an industry bred and sustained on independence.
This challenge reached a new level in 2006 with the announcement of construction of a Deep Water Port (DWP) to install natural gas lines approximately 13 miles to the southeast of the coast of Gloucester
It looked like Armageddon was going to hit us, says Giacalone. We had a very large, open meeting. It was not an organization by any stretch. There were people from across the region; we determined we needed a regional voice. You can’t just have Gloucester, or just New Bedford. We’ve always been polarized in this industry. Our fishing communities were very self-dependent, but very ineffective from a political standpoint, and we lost a lot of ground over the years by not working together.
Flash forward to the present day, and the Gloucester fishing industry has apparently survived that Armageddon. It’s not like things were in the city’s heyday, but there is still a functioning and just as important, organized fishing industry. One of the key reasons for this is the organization of groups such as the Northeast Seafood Coalition and the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund (GFCPF). The GFCPF was developed to help assist and organize fishing contracts under the current government-run mandate of separating coastal real estate into sectors, sectors that the federal government watches over closely. The non-profit organization has helped to keep boats and nets in the water for about three years, and truly assisted in keeping the fishing industry alive.
2006-2012 GateHouse Media, Inc.