11TH HOUR RALLY FOR GROUNDFISH continued from home page

 

NMFS policy analysts Tom Warren, Doug Christel, and Mark Grant gave an update on the development of the system.

The majority of fishable groundfish stocks will be allocated to sectors for 2010 and the future, said Grant. Some groundfish stocks remain severely depleted and their take, either through directed landings or bycatch, is strictly limited.

“It’s a pretty stark reality,” said Grant.

The system is complicated and will depend on strict reporting and monitoring to ensure that fishermen don’t overstep the rules that bind them within the sector they’ve joined. All sectors must have at-sea and dock monitoring programs to validate their catch and discard numbers. The sectors must report weekly to NMFS and compile a yearly report of all landings and discards.

“We’ve got 17 sectors with potentially 17 sets of rules,” Grant said. The 17 sectors comprise 812 permits out of 1,477 eligible permits. The allocation for the sectors represents more than 98 percent of the historical catch in the Northeast.

Another 665 permit holders remain in the common pool and will continue to fish under the days-at sea system, limiting the number of days a vessel may fish.

The sectors will receive exemptions from many of the common pool effort control measures in exchange for a quota, formerly referred to as a “total allowable catch” but now called an “annual catch entitlement,” for each species in the management plan.

The sectors conduct fishing activity according to their own business plans. In order to assure that sector quotas are not exceeded, a new system of at-sea and dockside catch monitoring is proposed.

Vessels have until April 30 to drop out of a sector and join the common pool instead for 2010. Fishermen in the common pool will continue to be restricted by the days-at-sea system.

Sectors will also need to meet a rapidly approaching deadline of Sept. 1 to submit their ops plan for 2011, even though fishermen will only be a couple of months into the 2010 fishing year, Grant said.

“We’re going into this knowing that there are going to be tweaks,” Grant said. “We know it’s going to be complex. Our goal is to work toward solutions. We’re going in open-minded and with the goal of flexibility.”

The sector system, said Tom Warren, is expected to be a major player in the improvement of stock assessments, because sectors are expected to record all of their catches and discards – every pound of fish caught by every fisherman.

“I’d hope to see it reflected in the stock assessment,” said Warren.

Fishermen at the meeting expressed concern that sector management might push the small-boat fleet out of the fishery. They said they were concerned that there is not enough total fish allocation for all of the boats currently in the groundfish fleet to make a living. And they said they were concerned that, therefore, larger, more profitable boats would buy up the permits of smaller boats. This would transform the industry and communities, as small boats become superfluous, they said.

“It’s entirely possible that there will be consolidation,” said Grant.  Fishermen said they were concerned that consolidation would create hardships in the industry and communities, if more fishermen go out of business, and if communities continue to lose related infrastructure.

The environmental impact statement for Amendment 16 indicated their concerns are valid.

“The impacts will fall most heavily on vessels and communities that are most dependent on groundfish,” the statement says. “These tend to be the Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts ports adjacent to the Gulf of Maine, though New Bedford is also a port that will be adversely affected.”

However, said Warren, it will be up to the sectors themselves to decide whether and how to accommodate issues surrounding allocation and consolidation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently announced an additional $10 million to continue the development of the new sector program. Over the last two years, a total of $47.2 million has been committed to the groundfish fishery and the transition to sectors. 

Of the $10 million that was provided by Congress, $5 million will go directly to Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire to set up permit banks. A permit bank is a collection of fishing permits purchased and held by an organization to provide access rights such as days-at-sea and annual catch shares for qualifying fishing vessels.

“By working together with the states, we hope to provide the small fishing vessels and small, local communities with increased access to capital, so they can more effectively fish healthy stocks,” said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

Permit banks are expected to provide owners of fishing vessels with limited or no groundfish fishing history an opportunity to lease additional fishing days or allocation at a reasonable cost. This will make it much more economically viable for small fishing vessels and local communities to remain a vital part of New England fisheries. 

The $10 million from Congress also includes $546,000 in direct aid for fishing sector managers and vessel operators, adding to the $954,000 already allocated to offset sector startup and operational costs in 2009 and 2010. In addition, the $10 million includes nearly $4 million for dockside and at-sea monitoring, which will create jobs for monitors and observers in local communities. Finally, $485,000 will go to NOAA’s Fisheries Service for infrastructure and programmatic support.