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Green Group Buys Out Fishermen to Protect Ocean Floor
"Rather than punishing fishermen, you try to provide economic incentives for treating the habitats and fisheries well."
- Chuck Cook, director of The Nature Conservancy's California coastal and marine program.
San Francisco, CA - For four generations, Geoff Bettencourt's family has fished the waters off Half Moon Bay by dragging heavy nets across the ocean floor to scoop up the sole and cod that feed there. But the 35-year-old may soon sell his right to trawl the sea -- not to another fisherman, but to environmentalists.
The Nature Conservancy, an international environmental group best known for buying development rights from farmers, is looking to strike similar deals with fishermen along the coast in a pilot program that it said could be repeated elsewhere.