The sector plan will help the Vineyard put together a year-round fishery so that future generations can continue a centuries-old heritage, said Vineyard fisherman Warren Doty. Fishermen's Voice photo

Prior to receiving their annual quota, each sector will be required to submit an operations plan that details the internal allocation of fish among members, method of fishing and areas to be fished. Fishermen who do not join a sector will be subject to the current system of limited days-at-sea (DAS), certain areas in which to fish and rules concerning gear type. Sectors will not be subject to the DAS system.

The sector management system is included as a measure in Amendment 16 to the groundfish management plan. Amendment 16 must still be approved by the Secretary of Commerce. With that approval, sectors could be up and running by May 2010.
“Amendment 16 moves us toward catch shares, toward management regimes that will do a better job for the resource and for the industry that uses the resource,” said NEFMC chairman Rip Cunningham.
Gary Libby of Port Clyde, where the local co-op and the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association plan to form a sector, urged NEFMC to move forward, despite any uncertainties with the plan.
“We’ve gone so far with this now that to turn back would be a mistake,” Libby said. “It does help the small communities in places like the Vineyard and Downeast Maine.”

Existing Sectors
There are already two sectors in Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, which were developed by the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA) and implemented in 2004.

These, said NEFMC member David Pierce, are well-run and provide a level of confidence in the system.

“However, we have a different situation now,” Pierce said. “Potentially, we will have many additional sectors up and down the coast, cross-cutting, overlapping, many different geographical areas, many different approaches, perhaps, for managing their specific allocations among themselves and transferring between sectors. It’s going to be very complicated and very difficult to watch, to understand, to monitor – and we need to.”

“There seems to be some realization that sectors may be a way we want to go, but it’s a slippery slope,” said NEFMC member Dana Rice of Prospect Harbor. “I think we should have thought things through a lot closer before. It may be the saving grace of some people, but there are a lot of unanswered questions.”

A16 proposes to modify the two existing sectors and implement 17 additional sectors. The Georges Bank (GB) Cod Hook Sector and the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector will be modified to receive an allocation of groundfish stocks. Currently, they operate under the DAS system, and only have an allocation of GB cod.

To date, more than 700 groundfish permit holders have expressed interest in joining one of the 17 proposed sectors. Members of the Northeast Seafood Coalition propose to create 13 sectors, with membership and details of hailing ports, gear and area fished to be described in their operation plans.

Four other sectors are proposed. These are the Sustainable Harvest Sector, with more than 70 permit holders fishing in the Gulf of Maine, GB and Southern New England, using trawl, gillnet, and longline gear; a community-based sector created by the Port Clyde Draggermen’s Coop and the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association; the Tri-State Sector, to work with the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Sector and operate in all management areas using trawl, gillnet and hook and the Martha’s Vineyard Community Sector, designed to take into account the unique situation of the island geographically and philosophically.

NEFMC worked on many of the administrative aspects of forming the new system. But there was a pervasive sense that there wasn’t enough hard information to make decisions that could affect an individual fisherman’s ability to survive.

Pierce advocated for 100 percent at-sea observer coverage. “Without 100 percent observer coverage, sector management is going to fail,” said Pierce. Fishermen's Voice photo

“Who’s going to kick the last person out of the lifeboat?” said former fisherman Jim Kendall, of New Bedford Seafood Consulting. “All of these options are not well enough defined to be the final cutting line for who’s going to stay and who’s going to go.”

Kendall called sectors a false hope. “There are so many questions that remain unsolved that this shouldn’t go forward,” Kendall said. The sector system, Kendall said, needs the full approval of all the people who participate in the fishery.

Bill Gerencer, a fisherman and groundfish advisory panel member from Portland, congratulated NEFMC for forging a new direction. However, he said, “For many of us, the road ahead promises additional hardship. I suspect this new direction will result in a sustainably managed fishery in part because it will work, but also because there’s simply not many of us left. In spite of my belief that the new regime will succeed…there will inevitably be consolidation and the reduction of an already seriously reduced fleet, and some significant growing pains that will result from the new approach.”

Gerencer commended the North- east Fisheries Science Center for their work, but said it will be essential to get better data and timeliness on stock status as sector management moves forward, in order to avoid losing more jobs. “The lack of certainty has very certain and devastating consequences for real people,” Gerencer said.

“Sectors are a death sentence for me and my family,” said one gillnetter. “Sectors are not about being inclusive. It’s about kicking people out on the street.”

But fishermen on Martha’s Vineyard said they looked forward to the establishment of their sector as a way of preserving the fishing heritage for coming generations.

The sector plan will help the Vineyard put together a year-round fishery so that future generations can continue a centuries-old heritage, said Vineyard fisherman Warren Doty. Currently, the Vineyard fishes fluke and bass during the summer, and shellfish in the fall. Years ago, there were well over 50 commercial fishermen on the Vineyard, said Doty and fisherman Tom Osmers, who initiated the sector. Today there are five permit holders. “We’re looking for a winter cod season,” Doty said. “This would help us build the diverse season we need to make our fisheries work.”

Who and How Much
NEFMC grappled with the implications the sector concept might have for exclusion, on the one hand, and consolidation on the other.

In dealing with qualification criteria for catch allocations – particularly the method favored by many of using catch history only – NEFMC members said they were concerned that certain portions of the fleet, particularly inshore dayboats and remote communities such as Downeast Maine, would find themselves unable to receive any allocations because they have little to no catch history in recent years.

NEFMC considered five options for calculating how much of a stock share each permit will bring into a sector.

Option 1 was based on the landings history of each permit during the time period 1996-2006.

Option 2 was based on 50 percent landings history and 50 percent vessel baseline capacity for landed stocks from 1996-2006. The portion allocated applies only to stocks landed by the permit.

Option 3 was based on 50 percent landings history and 50 percent vessel baseline capacity for all stocks from 1996-2006. This option is different from option 2 in that every permit would receive an allocation of every groundfish stock that is part of the sector’s allocation, not just those previously landed by the permit.

Option 4 was based on 50 percent landings history and 50 percent A DAS for all stocks from 1996-2006.

Option 5 pertained only to existing sector allocations for the GB Cod Hook Gear Sectors and the GB Cod Fixed Gear Sector, with landings of GB cod based on the period 1996- 2001.

Option 5 Debate
There was resounding disagreement between those who belong to the two existing sectors and those who don’t as to whether to include option 5. And many fishermen said that option 1, using a straight history calculation, would be unfair to many.

Massachusetts fisherman Allyson Jordan said that people who didn’t leave the industry have spent time and money, and followed the rules, to stay in, and are barely surviving at this point. “We’ve worked for our history,” Jordan said in support of option 1.

But fisherman Chris Brown, who has fished 30 years in Southern New England, opposed a purely historical measure. Brown said it will exclude SNE fisherman, who haven’t been able to keep up their fishing history.

Going with straight catch history is the least acceptable alternative, agreed a representative from the Penobscot East Resource Center in Stonington. Most groundfishermen Downeast stopped fishing in the early 1990s and have very little catch history, he said. Entire communities no longer have a place in the fishery. These communities will be left out of the current allocation; he asked NEFMC to address the problem in a future action.

Massachusetts fisherman Russell Sherman, who has been fishing since the 1970s, said that to choose an option based solely on catch history would be to reward those fishermen who did the most damage to the fishery, and to give the existing sectors a preference would also be wrong.

“If you’re going to screw us, screw us all equally,” Sherman said. In reality, however, said Sherman, none of the options will save his business. “In reality, I’m out of business,” Sherman said. “I’ve already told my crew, ‘May 1, 2010, that’s it, she’s tied up.’ ”

Sherman said he’s lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of past management actions which led him to buy a new vessel because he thought he could get the fishing days he needed. Subsequent actions cut that number to a fraction.

Pierce agreed that a history-only calculation would have tremendous impact on the inshore small-boat fleet. Option 1, he said, would mean that a tremendous windfall of quota would go to people with a landings history.

On option 5, pertaining to existing sectors, Paul Parker, director of CCCHFA’s Cape Cod Fisheries Trust, said it is fair to consider those sectors separately because their members have steadily relied on the GB cod quota. With the decline in the GB cod allocation for both sectors, he and others said, any further reduction will put them out of business.

But NEFMC member David Goethel said the baseline should be the same for everybody. “If we send a signal to the industry today that we’re going to treat some people one way and other people another way,” said Goethel, “they’re going to come in tomorrow and say, ‘Hey, hooray for me and to hell with you.’”

In the end, NEFMC decided allocation should be based on catch history between 1996 and 2006. And they allowed the two sectors currently in operation to keep their original allocation of cod.

Consolidation
On the consolidation front, others spoke to the need to prevent the sector concept from being used as a way to consolidate allocation to a single entity. To address the issue, there was some discussion of defining a sector as three or more people, none of whom have an interest in each other’s vessels.

Maggie Raymond of the Associated Fisheries of Maine said the industry’s understanding was that a sector would comprise at least two people, not three. Raymond said that at least one sector has formed with that understanding in mind.

Dan Holland of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute wanted to know if the provision would preclude a community-based organization operating a permit bank from becoming a sector, because only one entity would own the permits.

The important thing, said Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation, is that the system must provide for a group of vessel owners and not be manipulated down to one controlling interest.

For the sector system to work, NEFMC generally agreed, a rigorous monitoring program will be needed. But questions revolved around the type of monitoring needed, and who would pay for it.

Options included 100 percent dockside monitoring for all sector vessels, or less than 100 percent at-sea electronic monitoring and at-sea observations. Some considered 100 percent dockside and at-sea monitoring to be overkill and too costly. Others considered both well worth the cost.

“It’s interesting to me that the people who aren’t going to have to pay for the dockside monitoring think the fishing industry is all crooks, cheats and liars,” said Goethel, “and those who are going to have to pay for it are busy polishing their halos and telling everybody what angels they are. I think the fact of the matter is, we all know that it’s probably somewhere in between, that nobody’s perfect, that the fishing industry has its percentage of crooks just like politicians and lawyers and accountants and everybody else. So you’re going to need some form of monitoring.”

Kendall wanted to know if vessels would be constrained from fishing if sectors can’t afford to provide 100 percent monitoring. “I’m sympathetic to the industry’s concerns about cost,” said NMFS’ Pat Kurkel.

Kurkel said that NMFS expects to be able to fund dockside monitoring in 2010 but not necessarily into the future, particularly because no one knows yet how many sectors, participants, or trips there will be. The federal government has made $16 million available to support the development of sectors, and more money could be available later, she said.

Goethel cautioned against counting on the federal government to kick in funds for monitoring past a year or two because any monitoring program has to be something the industry can afford. “Sectors are a non-starter with 100 percent monitoring, at least for the dayboats,” Goethel said.

Still, Sally McGee and others said that, in this transition time, monitoring will be crucial.

NEFMC examined various ratios of monitoring in the form of dockside, at-sea observers, and electronic. A representative from the NMFS observer program said that electronic monitoring systems are still in development.

Pierce advocated for 100 percent at-sea observer coverage. “Without 100 percent observer coverage, sector management is going to fail,” said Pierce.

NEFMC voted in dockside monitoring at 50 percent for year one and 20 percent for year two and on. They approved at-sea monitoring at less than 100 percent, and deferred the determination of appropriate monitoring levels to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Given the uncertainties surrounding the transition period, Pierce advocated for a more formal role for NEFMC in reviewing each sector’s operation plan. For the coming go-round of sectors, the plans will be reviewed by NMFS, which may consult with NEFMC but is not required to. Pierce said the plans should go to the states as well, because of the potential shifts in fishing effort into state waters.

The fishery is moving into sector management despite a lot of unknowns, Pierce said. “There will be unforeseen consequences of sector management,” Pierce said.

CCCHFA president Peter Taylor, a lifelong fisherman, said NEFMC acted properly in showing a commitment to the success of sectors.

"There are still going to be tough days ahead, but sectors will finally allow fishermen around New England to get back to the business of fishing,” Taylor said.