COSTS OF CATCH SHARES continued from home page

 

“Basically, this is a job elimination policy in New England,” Carolyn Kirk, mayor of Gloucester, Massachusetts, told Margaret Spring, chief of staff for National Ocean and Atmospheric Admin- istration ( NOAA ).

Spring was updating NEFMC on a draft national catch share policy. “I think that’s the last thing the administration wants to enact.”

The discussion comes with the June 2009 appointment of a federal Catch Share Task Force, which is tasked with assisting NOAA and the regional fishery management councils as they consider and implement catch-share management programs.

The task force came out of President Obama’s June 2009 statement of his administration’s commitment to creating a comprehensive national ocean policy based on ecosystem-based science and emphasizing public stewardship.

“Sustainable fisheries are an essential component of that commitment, and catch share programs have proven to be powerful tools to manage fisheries to sustainable levels and improve their economic performance,” says NOAA’s draft catch share policy.

“Catch share” is a term used to describe fishery management programs that allocate a specific percentage of the total allowable fishery catch or a specific fishing area to individuals, cooperatives, communities, or other entities. Fisher- men decide how to catch their allotment when weather, markets and individual business conditions are most favorable, and they must ensure that they do not exceed their catch limits.

Catch share programs range from individual transferable quotas to community-based management systems such as sectors. While catch shares take many forms, in general they allocate the quota to allow fishing entities—individuals, communities, cooperatives, etc. — exclusive access to a portion of the quota, but require that fishing cease once that entity’s share of the quota is met.

The city of Gloucester, said Kirk, illustrates a community in transition and the need for caution when it comes to a policy that allocates a public resource.

“If we’re going to have a national policy, we have to address the consequences of the policy, and the consequences in Gloucester of this policy are job loss,” said Kirk. “So where is the transition, where is the job support? It may not be appropriate to this particular document, but it has to acknowledge the consequence of the national policy and have in there how the policy will address it. In Gloucester, one of the things we wrestle with is transitioning our economy. Rather than a full and singular focus on the fishing industry, how do we diversify our economy to build on the fishing industry? How do we innovate with the resources we do have? What is it about being a port city that we can leverage? What is a maritime economy? That is what we’re trying to aspire to. And we could certainly use the assistance of NOAA. I think the policy is very solid when it comes to programs and implementation and outreach and education, but it really needs to be extended…to beyond measurements and beyond counting fish to also counting jobs and also figuring out how we are going to transition to a new economy and do that very, very quickly.”

Fishermen spoke to the need for policy-makers to consider the lives of real people. Harriet Diedricksen, who owns a fishing boat and a ship chandlery in New Bedford, Mass., said her staff has gone from 35 to 10 in recent years.

“Fishing is based on allocation and areas to fish, and no matter how nice you write a paper, if there’s no allocation and there’s no area to fish, there’s no fish and no communities and no jobs for those who get their jobs from fishing,” Diedricksen said.

Diedricksen cautioned against the use of catch shares as a panacea for an industry that is mostly about communities of people working together.

“This never was a big business,” said Diedricksen. “This was a business for hard-working people to make money for their families…to keep it a good income for the coastal communities and for many people to make a good living.”

“Our concerns as a community here in New Hampshire are not any more unique than what’s unfolding in other smaller communities,” said New Hampshire fisherman Eric Anderson. “You’ve got to take that message home and put some sensibility in what you’re trying to create as a policy, and [consider] what equitably translates as something that’s cohesive and live-able and makes sense to people who are affected by it.”

NEFMC members and others spoke to the need for a solid foundation on which to build catch share programs.

“You need to make more of a convincing case that it is a scientifically proven method,” NEFMC member David Pierce told Spring. “If this is going to happen, then the council will have to have the resources to do this. Please don’t burden us with an obligation that we won’t be able to meet.”

Drew Minkiewicz of the Fisheries Survival Fund said the foundation of the catch share concept is stock assessment. “No catch share is going to work if the assessment it’s based upon is faulty,” said Minkiewicz.

Between 1990 and 2010, 14 catch share fisheries have been established in the United States: halibut and sablefish, Western Alaska community development quota, Bering Sea pollock cooperative, Bering Sea king and tanner crab, Pacific sablefish permit tacking, Gulf of Mexico red snapper individual fishing quota, wreckfish, surf clam and ocean quahog, Georges Bank cod hook gear sector, Georges Bank cod fixed gear sector, Central Gulf of Alaska rockfish, Bering Sea groundfish cooperatives, Mid-Atlantic golden tilefish, and Gulf of Mexico grouper and tilefish.

There are three catch share programs in development: scallop general category individual fishing quota, West Coast trawl groundfish individual quota, and New England groundfish sectors.

“Implementation of sector management in the groundfishery,” said Terry Stockwell, Maine Department of Marine Resources deputy commissioner for external affairs, “is an example of the unfortunate costs associated with catch shares, as small coastal communities lose out in the allocation process.”

In general, the transition to sector management is on track for a May 1 start date, although it hasn’t been without its rough patches, Dan Morris, an environmental officer with NOAA’s Northeast Regional Office, told NEFMC.

In June 2009, NEFMC approved implementation of 17 new groundfishing sectors and modifications to the Georges Bank (GB) cod hook and the GB cod fixed gear sectors for fishing year 2010.

“There’s been a great deal of collaboration,” said Morris. “This transition to sectors has been a huge undertaking for National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and for the industry. It’s not always a comfortable collaboration….But we’ve been working on it for eight months now and I think it’s succeeding.”

Involved in sector implementation have been the NMFS Northeast Regional Office, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Office of Law Enforcement, and other divisions; and members of the industry, including permit holders, sector organizers and managers, dealers, and companies that provide monitoring systems.

Regulators and the industry have been grappling with getting three major rulemaking packages off the ground at the same time: Amendment 16, the amendment’s sector rule with operation plans for each of 17 sectors, and Framework 44. At the same time, managers have been developing sector rules.

“We have been accused of building the airplane while trying to fly it,” said Morris. “To some degree, that’s a fair criticism.”

Amendment 16 includes new procedures to establish annual catch limits for groundfish stocks and allows for the establishment of up to 17 new fishing sectors and modification of two existing sectors. All vessels with a federal limited access groundfish permit are eligible to join a groundfish sector.

A sector is a type of catch share program whereby a group of fishing vessels is allotted a share of the total catch. A sector allows a group of people who hold limited access vessel permits to voluntarily enter into a contract that sets fishing restrictions to catch a specific quota of fish, or a total allowable catch (TAC).

Under Amendment 16, all limited access groundfish permit holders will be able to form sectors that will get a share of the year’s allowable catch. Each sector’s share will be based on the historic landings of its members, who each receive an allocation of annual catch entitlement (ACE) based upon their catch history. They will also be able to develop their own rules for allocating that catch among members.

Amendment 16 substantially reduces fishing on certain stocks, and provided for the same or higher levels of fishing on healthy stocks. The sector system is designed to allow fishermen to target healthy stocks.

Fishermen who don’t join a sector may stay on in the “common pool” and continue to fish under the days-at-sea effort control system. Vessels fishing in the common pool in the 2010 fishing year will be subject to a reduced days-at-sea allocation.

Because of uncertainty over future sector membership and the possibility that fishing behavior may change in ways not predicted, NEFMC has also been working on Framework 44, which defines the annual catch limits for each groundfish stock for fishing years 2010 through 2012, and modifies effort control measures for common-pool vessels.

The final rule for both A16 and Framework 44 will be published on March 31. The May 1 start date will not signal a perfect sector management system, said Morris. NOAA will continue to work with sectors on in-season improvements and improvements for 2011.

Self-management through sectors gets the industry into data management in a big way, Morris said.

“Sector manager weekly reports are where it all comes together,” Morris said. Managers will track all information and maintain a near-real-time balance of catch, in order to ensure the sector’s annual catch entitlement (ACE) is not overshot.

Data collection and analysis will be conducted on a much finer scale than in the past, Morris said. A broad-brush approach to collecting data to determine fishing mortality has been okay up to now, he said.

“Now, with sector management, we need to capture all of the landings, the discards, the areas fished, the gear used for a trip, and ascribe it to a specific trip, a specific vessel, and then to a sector so the catch can be subtracted from a sector’s ACE,” Morris said.

Just some of the details to be included in sector operation plans will be a list of vessels comprising the sector, their catch history, rules for entry to and exit from the sector, procedure for notifying NMFS if a member is expelled, application of joint and several liability, list of all federal and state permits held vessels, landing ports, description of how groundfish bycatch will be avoided when fishing in other fisheries, overage penalties if ACE is exceeded, plans and analysis of how the sector will avoid exceeding ACEs, plans for notifying NMFS when ACE thresholds are reached, details about discard monitoring, information about dockside and at-sea monitoring programs, and reporting requirements on landings and discards.

Before the start of the fishing year, sector managers must work with their members to establish contractual agreements; prepare and submit to NMFS an operations plan, sector contract and environmental assessment; and begin implementing the data systems necessary to compile information on every trip taken by members, to track the sector’s quota balances, and to report to NMFS weekly.

Correct and timely dealer reporting will be a critical link, Morris said. Dealers will be retrained as needed, he said.

“We have great appreciation for and applaud the efforts of the sector managers,” said Morris.

The draft NOAA catch share policy will be open for public comment until April 10. Public comments can be submitted electronically via the NMFS catch shares comment website: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/catch shares comments, or emailed to mail to: catchshares@noaa.gov.