Salmontackler, I'll answer that on the skinny that I have. The Enviromental movement although late to the party when it comes to fisheries has recently been effective in working with fisheries organizations in Alaska. Tongass and Chugach National forest reform,riverine protection, oil tanker safety, offshore drilling regulations, and even the Marine Mamal Protection Act, are all partly the result of various groups working together.
After having worked with groups who represent commercial fishing intrest it is not really Kosher to jump on the band wagon of an initative (with no chance of succes), that is stated to kill the jobs of the same people you just won with on all the other issues.
Also in the recent past, early 90's ,the organization S.E.A.C.O.P.S. was started funded and staffed almost entirely by commercial fishers. The sole purpose of the organization was to provide information on the high seas interception of North American Salmon by Asian Driftnetters on the high seas. In that goal the organization was quite successful and alliances were informaly created once again between fishing organizations across the spectrum with many of the enviromental organizations.
Shortly after the United States, Soviet Union, and Japan, got the United Natons ban on highseas driftnetting passed as a law of the sea sport fishing groups siezed upon the concept of painting small scale domestic gillnetters with the same brush. This relly pissed off the gillnetters and sieners and they demanded that the enviros back off on any support for a ban on small scale domestic commercial fishing.
Then there is also the view held by many that the whole net ban disscusion is a "Red Herring" and well meaning folks are being duped into supporting it in lieu of getting focused on the real problem dams, logging, mineing,(sic) and agriculture.
Once again I really hope to make this issue clear and my only purpose in these post is to try and get information out there. I read this board for along time before I started posting and I must say the majority of the members appear to have the fishes intrest at heart but if you don't have all the information it makes it difficult to tell fact from fiction.