Pacific Groundfish Catch
Share Implementation –
To Be Delayed And Sued


The new “catch share” rationalization management plan for the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery, created by Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) – under the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) – has been delayed from its original start date of 1 January 2011. The program, which opponents say will wreak havoc on fishermen and their communities, would manage Pacific Coast groundfish trawling under what is called a “catch-share system,” using what is known as “individual fishing quota.” The catch share program allocates individual fishing quota, which is a percentage of fish that can be caught by an individual fishermen or business.

Restrictions on who may hold quota are virtually non-existent in most catch share programs. What this means, say opponents, is that while fishermen boat owners who have participated in a fishery (or fishing vessel permit holders anyway) most likely will receive initial quota shares, the failure to restrict who may hold quota thereafter could lead to wealthier interests outside the fishing community – such as large processors, speculators, even Wall Street hedge fund managers – buying up quota or otherwise controlling large amounts of it. This then would relegates real working fishermen – certainly future generations of fishermen – to becoming essentially just sea-faring sharecroppers.

Catch share programs can further leads to massive: (1) consolidation; (2) reduced local participation and employment in a fishery; (3) reduced community access to fish stocks in their own adjacent waters; (4) concentration of control of the fishery into fewer and fewer hands; and (5) removal of capital from the industry (i.e., that capital is going instead to third parties, such as bankers or speculators) that would otherwise be circulated among fishermen and within their communities. In summation, opponents claims, “catch share” programs could lead to complete decimation of fishing as a true and valuable human livelihood. The system also takes public resources out of the public’s hands by converting them to private property.

As one can expect, many Pacific Coast fishermen are livid and rallying against this unacceptable program. “The commercial fishing industry here is dead-set against it,” said Jeremiah O’Brien of the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization. “I can’t think of a single fisherman who supports it; it’s a stupid, cockamamie idea.” PCFFA itself has filed a lawsuit against the program, along with the Crab Boat Owner’s Association of San Francisco and the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team. For more information, please read the 28 October 2010 PCFFA Lawsuit Press Release, download here: www.pcffa.org/GroundfishPressRelease-28Oct10.pdf.

Source: PCFFA