But other fishermen say the management tools are needed to make a significant step toward retaining traditional fisheries and opportunities for communities. Legislators aim to guard against fleet-monopolization and invest in local areas and community groups—such as fishermen’s cooperatives. The IFQ program would allow regional councils to set TACs for a species and issue quotas to individual vessels. This differs from the system of allowing fishermen to fish only on certain days. Fishermen with the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA) in Chatham, Mass., support hard TACs, IFQs, and DAPs, said Peter Baker, who lauded the effort to set up standards that allow for community-based management—particularly the success of the Alaska experience, where a system of community development quotas (CDQs) has evolved since the early 1990s. Until fish stocks get back to healthy levels, said Baker, fishermen would just have to live with what they can get. Others, including members of the Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) in Gloucester, Mass., have grave concerns over hard TACs and have set out to educate Congress “on the true complexities and issues surrounding the multi-species fishery,” said NSC executive director Jackie O’Dell. O’Dell emphasized that, when it comes to fisheries throughout the nation, “one ‘policy’ size doesn’t fit all.” “We really want to make sure that the new Magnuson Act doesn’t require standards that are impractical for the Northeast multi-species fishery,” O’Dell said, adding that the MSA “should be focusing on larger guidelines/concepts while allowing the regions (regional councils) to decide upon the actual tools that area appropriate to achieve, for their respective fishery, these larger Magnuson goals.” While noting that IFQs are also a contentious issue for New England, particularly Maine, Camden-based East Coast Pelagic Association (ECPA) executive director Mary Beth Tooley said the overall outcome is workable. “I think they’ve done a fairly good job of balancing the interests of New England and other regions,” Tooley said of the process. New England Fisheries Management Council member and New Bedford Seafood Coalition fisherman Jim Kendall agreed. The amendment will move forward a piece of legislation that has proven pretty strong, he said. “I think we’ve done a hell of a job rebuilding a lot of the resource,” Kendall said, “particularly in light of the fact that fishing is not the only reason species have declined. For us to bear the responsibility of rebuilding stocks and still be able to produce what this country needs shows we’re doing a hell of a job, particularly given the cost to fishing communities and the fall-out they’ve experienced.” Underlying Framework The act’s underlying framework consists of a set of 10 national standards for fisheries management, which regional councils are to apply. Overall, the amendment is meant to provide more workable mechanisms to implement the standards – essentially a bill of rights for the fisheries, both from the animal and human points of view, providing broad statements of what the act is meant to accomplish. In general, the standards aim to prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield for each fishery; base measures on best scientific information available; manage an individual fish stock as a unit throughout its range and interrelated stocks as a unit or in close coordination; allocate fishing privileges fairly while also promoting conservation; consider the efficient use of the resources, but not solely based on economics; allow for variations in the fisheries; minimize costs and avoid duplication; take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities while remaining consistent with conservation requirements; minimize bycatch; and promote safety at sea. Before Magnuson Prior to the passage of the MSA in 1976, foreign fleets dominated U.S. fishing in federal waters, with individual states taking care of state waters. Huge vessels, 300-600 feet long and hitherto used for whaling, were converted to industrial factory fishing boats, sold to foreign owners, and began to appear off the East and West coasts. In 1960, U.S. fishermen accounted for 88 percent of the total catch on Georges Bank. By 1974, that figure had fallen to 10 percent, leading Congress to pass protectionist legislation in the form of the MSA. The statute ended overfishing, established a U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone from 12-200 miles and industrialized the U.S. fishing fleet. The act established a national framework for conserving and managing marine fisheries within federal waters, applied by eight regional fishery management councils, each focusing on a specific coastal region and responsible for developing fishery management plans. As intended, the number of fishing vessels in the U.S. mushroomed—increasing by 40 percent from 1976 to 1995—and the number of fishermen grew by 60 percent, with government subsidies available to defray the initial investment costs in boats, gear and technology. At the same time, demand for seafood increased, accommodated by improvements in fishing technology and onboard refrigeration and processing. Sonar, originally developed during World War II, was adapted for fishing, taking much of the guesswork out of locating fish. The unintentional result, as commercial fishing grew, was the plummeting of many stocks, symbolized by the collapse of the highly profitable Atlantic cod industry. In 1996, due to growing concern about the status of U.S. fisheries, Congress passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA) to amend the MSA. The SFA addressed three major concerns—overfishing, bycatch, and habitat destruction—and added new requirements for conservation measures. The measures were designed to constrain fishing rates based on the biology of fished species (with the goal of preventing overfishing and rebuilding overfished species in a timely manner); minimize bycatch (the deaths of fish, birds, and other ocean wildlife incidentally caught during fishing operations); and protect ocean habitats essential to fish. But the SFA proved inadequate. In 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reported about 60 percent of commercially important stocks were severely depleted by overfishing. The status of hundreds of other stocks was unknown. The last reauthorization of the act expired six years ago and there has been ongoing debate as to how best amend the act to reflect the current status of fisheries conservation and management. Maine Input The state of Maine worked closely with Senator Snowe’s office during the review process and is satisfied with much of the language, Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner George Lapointe said at the forum. “There’s a lot of positive language in there from the state and council perspective,” Lapointe said, adding that folks should keep an eye on the advancement of the process. The MSA is unique, to some degree, said Snowe communications officer Antonia Ferrier, because of its application at a regional rather than national level. “This bill strikes an important balance with regard to understanding and recognizing regional differences,” Ferrier said. “We must establish a common framework that achieves the goals of sustaining fish and the fishing industry while still providing our regional councils with the flexibility and tools they need to address their unique local challenges,” Snowe said. “Our fisheries law must also accommodate scientific uncertainty, recognize that fisheries ecosystems are highly complex, and ensure that our management system can adapt to ever-changing marine environments. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to preserving the marine resources of our coastal communities.” Last year, Snowe conducted a series of listening sessions in Maine on the reauthorization in order to hear the concerns of Maine’s fishermen and other interest groups. As a result of the meetings, Snowe included new provisions intended to address the concerns of Maine and New England. Subsequent negotiations on the subcommittee produced strong outcomes, beginning with a mandate to set annual catch limits, or TACs, for every fishery managed under the act. NSC’s O’Dell said a hard TAC strategy, known as an “output control,” fails to take into consideration the nature of the multi-species groundfishery. The DAS measure, termed an “effort-based input control” and currently in place, has been employed successfully, O’Dell said, particularly in combination with hard TACs for bycatch. The failure of hard TACs to date, she said, is due to the lack of scientific certainty. CCCHFA’s Baker disagreed, saying catch limits are a critical issue for New England. CCCHFA supports hard TACs and closure of the fishery when the TAC on one species is filled, he said. “We differ from most industry groups about that,” Baker said, “but days-at-sea are a huge failure. Georges Bank cod is in a huge crisis. There has been restriction after restriction, and we don’t see days-at-sea as getting us out of the problem days-at-sea created. It’s a fool’s errand.” Capping what can be taken and figuring out how to live with it is the solution, Baker said. There is some talk of a groundfish mixed stock exception to TACs, to allow fishing on some stocks at low levels in order to maximize the yield of healthy stocks. That approach, Baker said, will wipe out cod, the most valuable and traditional New England stock, simply in order to get fish of little value. ‘Living with it’ would come in the form of another provision in the legislation, which would create national standards for creating dedicated access programs, using tools such as individual fishing quotas, community quotas, privileges for fishing cooperatives, and area-based quotas. Concerns in Maine and New England about the use of quotas have been addressed through a requirement that two-thirds of eligible fishermen must approve the plan before it could be implemented. The biggest problem with IFQs, said New Bedford’s Kendall, is sheer confusion. “Most people don’t understand what they’re referring to when they talk about quotas,” Kendall said. The discussion needs to be clarified, he said, to discern between catch limits and ownership limits. “Often, you hear that New England is opposed to quotas, and that we don’t want to be restricted to landings limits,” Kendall said. “But we’re actually opposed to individual ownership rights.”
CCCHFA’s Baker said IFQs and dedicated access could go a long way toward meeting social needs rather than economic circumstances. The combination, he said, would allow communities, cooperatives or sectors to hold quotas and thus retain a traditional fishing stake for local fishermen. Forging a similar path under groundfish Amendment 13, CCCHFA now holds a sector allocation of 12 percent of Georges Bank cod. Baker pointed out that Alaska has had a positive experience with a similar concept—the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program—, which was granted perpetuity status through the SFA process and is formally recognized in the new amendment. The CDQ program, begun in 1992, is a federal fisheries program that allocates a percentage of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands quotas for groundfish, prohibited species, halibut, and crab to regional organizations. The program has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and revenues, along with education and training benefits for more than 25,000 residents, and contributed to extensive infrastructure funding in western Alaska. The concept could have similar value in the Northeast, Baker said. “We see it as people with like interests in the same geographic area being able to stay in,” Baker said. “There are not enough fish to justify our fleet. But now, we have the political capital to hold onto what we have.” O’Dell said her group strongly opposes authorizing fishing communities to acquire limited access privileges. “It would be completely at odds with the characteristics of traditional New England fisheries, which are comprised of intensely independent small business owners, to authorize a local or municipal government to purchase and control the privilege of their fishermen to go fishing,” O’Dell said. Adding, “It would also tend to pit one fishing community in our region against another at a time when fishermen and communities from across the region need desperately to work together to ensure the long-term sustainability of their resources and industry.” Other Provisions The amendment would also direct managers to consider steaming time, or the time it takes fishermen from different states to transit to distant fishing grounds, so that fishermen may not lose their fishing days-at-sea simply to transit; provide a waiver of the U.S. processing requirement for fisheries that can show historic practice of processing in other countries that have comparable food safety standards, which would allow Maine herring fishermen to continue using Canadian processors; direct the Secretary of Commerce to work with the Small Business Administration and other federal assistance agencies to facilitate U.S. investment in new domestic processors, helping them get off the ground in places like Maine where a processing void exists for some fisheries; direct NMFS to make clearer rules for streamlining the criteria and approval of experimental fishing permits (EFPs), in an effort to find new fishing opportunities and test new gear, particularly for groundfishermen (To date, NMFS has been unable to approve most EFS requests under the current management systems due to technicalities.); direct managers to utilize economic and social data and assessment methods based on the best information available; authorize the cooperative research of herring in the Gulf of Maine to help answer questions about stock size and distribution; require NMFS to determine when state-licensed fishing on depleted cod is consistent with the federal groundfish management plan; authorize the establishment of a coordinating committee to align the fishery management plan decision-making process with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process; authorize a national cooperative research program to improve data collection; establish a program dedicated to the development of technologies and methods to reduce bycatch; and increase the role of science in decision-making by establishing a new Fisheries Conservation and Management Fund to accommodate the growing need for fisheries technology and science. Also still an ongoing discussion is the act’s current requirement to rebuild fish stocks in a time period not to exceed 10 years. O’Dell said NSC supports eliminating the provision in favor of retaining language, already in the act, that specifies a time period for rebuilding a fishery “shall be as short as possible, taking into account the status and biology of any overfished stocks of fish, the needs of fishing communities” and other factors. Kendall agreed that many fishermen are looking for new language on overfishing and the rebuilding timeline, due to impacts the 10-year timeframe has on fishermen. On specific issues, Tooley said the herring research provision would be an important opportunity to the fishery from a scientific rather than political perspective, while the processing waiver provision is also important for the industry. “The herring industry has always had a traditional back and forth with Canada,” Tooley said. Despite any disagreements as the reauthorization rounds its last lap, the consensus among fishermen and their representatives was the same, and summed up by Baker: “We’re for traditional fishing.” |
