Gloucester Demonstration
by Mike Crowe

The primary concerns of the fishermen are that the catch shares plan is being forced down their throats, and that there is no flexibility in the rebuilding plan. In congressional testimony in October NEFMC member David Goethel predicted that problems inherent in the ACL process will result in the contraction of most commercial fisheries in New England into a handful of large boats in large ports. ©Photo by Sam Murfitt

About 300 fishermen demonstrated outside the new $24 million offices of the National Marine Fisheries Services on October 30. The goal of the fishermen was to point out how a catch shares management plan is being forced upon them. Fishermen came from as far south as Virginia to support an effort to have their concerns heard.

Among those concerns is the failure of NMFS to consider the effect this dramatic change of policy will have on fishing communities, a consideration the Magnuson Stevens Act requires.

Fishermen were united in their objection to shifting management plans, vague explanations of how the new system will function, what fishermen are expected to do, and what they can expect to get.
Because of the way fishing history has been used to evalulate what fishermen will be allocated under the new management regime, many it is thought, will be driven out of the business because their allocation will not cover operating expenses.

Fishermen and their families at the 3-hour-long demonstration said new regulations will mean those with more allocation will buy out the catch shares of those who got a smaller allocation. Once a fishermen’s shares are sold, they are out, with no route back into the industry.

Jim Luvgren came to Gloucester with 50 other fishermen from southern New Jersey. A former fisheries council member, Lovgren said he and his fellow fishermen are seeing more fish than they have seen in 30 years. The National Marine Fisheries Service told them they would reap the benefit of early fishing restrictions, but now that the fish are back they are not allowed to fish, he said.

Many at the demonstrators held signs critical of the Pew Environ- mental group, and the Environ- mental Defense Fund. Both groups have financially backed the transition to a catch share management plan, which is also described as an Individual Transferable Quota system. ITQs, or allocated catch share could be sold.
EDF director David Festa has reportedly told Wall Street investor groups that buying catch shares could produce a 400 percent return on investments. The specter of Wall Street driving the fishing industry has fishermen bitter and appalled.

Lovgren said, “We demand a congressional investigation of how they (PEW and EDF) did this. How did they get into a position of control in this industry?”

The ITQ system marks a privatization of commonly owned ocean resource that would allow for permanent consolidation of ownership. Selling a catch share would be like selling the deed to a house, the end of ownership, the end of rights to use.

Proponents of this plan, said fishermen, are largely the well-funded environmental non-governmental organizations like PEW and EDF.

NMFS was also a target of much of the criticism. It too has been pressing for an ITQ system.
Maritime attorney Steve Ouellette said NMFS has crazy mandates and they will get worse with coming accountability measures.

He said, “If the fishery rebuilds too fast, then bycatch numbers go up as well, and the fishery therefore will be shut down.” Catch-22s like this are not new to NMFS policy.

“The primary concerns of the fishermen are that the catch-shares plan is being forced down their throats, and that there is no flexibility in the rebuilding plan,” said Ouellette. He said there is no way New England fishermen, in a healthy fishery, would want quotas.

The size of the crowd impressed Brett Tolley, who was at the demonstration with the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance. He said the event was organized by Amanda Odlin of Scarborough, Maine. Her husband is a fisherman, and she and the others who organized the event, are not professional public relations people or community organizers.

Given that and the size of the crowd, Tolley thought it was an indication of how important these fishery management changes are to the fishing communities they will impact.