Amendment 18 and the
“Who Fishes Matters” Tour

One Possibility for a Better Future

by Aaron Dority

©Photo by Sam Murfitt

Thanks to forward-thinking management policies, New England’s rebuilding groundfish stocks now support coastal fishermen from Eastport to Montauk, keeping alive a cherished New England tradition of making a life and a living from the sea.

After numerous years of continual consolidation, accelerated when sector management allowed too much fishing effort to deplete inshore fishing grounds, managers responded with a strong statement of support for fleet diversity by first protecting inshore waters – where critical life stages including juvenile and spawning fish of all groundfish species occur. While offshore boats can venture to Georges Bank, coastal fishermen need healthy inshore stocks.

Given the gravity of the crisis facing New England’s coastal communities in 2013, fishermen, scientists, and everyone who enjoys eating fresh fish are now thankful that fishery managers had the courage then to include critical fleet diversity protections in Amendment 18 to the Council’s groundfish plan.

What will it take for this vision of the future to become reality?

Who Fishes Matters

The Fish Locally Collaborative, a broad network of fishermen, concerned community members, and supportive organizations, spearheaded by the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance held a series of events recently to ensure that the vision described above, and described by countless fishermen over the years, can become reality.

The Fish Locally Collaborative held five community workshops under the banner of the “Who Fishes Matters Tour,” starting on February 28th in Rockland, Maine, and stopping in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Gloucester, and Hyannis, Massachusetts, then ending in Point Judith, Rhode Island on March 6th.

Michelle Mesmain joined the tour from Italy. Michelle runs Slow Fish – a campaign of Slow Food International – finding ways to support community-minded fishermen around the world. Dan Edwards, fisherman from British Columbia also joined the tour, along with several other experts familiar with quota-managed fisheries and community safeguards who shared video testimony from places including Iceland and South Africa. The message was clear – New England fishermen are not alone in facing the problems associated with consolidation – and we are not alone in developing solutions. Sectors may be a new approach, but we can draw upon the mistakes and successes from other regions.

Fishermen and community members shared their concerns and solutions to the problems associated with fleet consolidation in the New England groundfish fishery, by focusing on five themes originally outlined by the Council during the Amendment 18 scoping process.

Inshore/ Offshore Areas

Just like eastern Maine’s fishermen and Cape Cod’s fishermen before them, coastal fishermen from Gloucester to Marshfield, Massachusetts described how the fish on Stellwagen Bank have now disappeared. For the last four years, more than 50 percent of all cod landed were caught in one percent of the Gulf of Maine – two, tiny 10 by 10 nautical mile boxes between Provincetown and Gloucester – and now those fish are gone. Many fishermen want to see tools like trip limits and gear restricted areas used in conjunction with the current catch quotas to provide greater protection for inshore areas and ensure that this pattern of pulse fishing finally stops.

Quota Accumulation Caps

Fishermen discussed how caps might work in our fishery. Given that virtually no one is able to catch enough fish to sustain a healthy business today, one option is to ‘grandfather’ existing permit holders into an accumulation cap system. Caps of one-half to one percent are used in the Alaska halibut/ sablefish fishery to support their owner-operator fleet. If done correctly, accumulation caps can ensure that the sacrifices fishermen make now to rebuild our stocks will yield future benefits not just for a select few well-capitalized operations that manage to pick up extra permits while the stocks are in poor shape, but rather for a broad range of fishermen all along New England’s coast.

Quota Set Asides

Just as quota is currently divided into components, including state-waters, and for other fisheries that catch groundfish as bycatch, so too can this tool be used to set-aside fish for new entrant fishermen as stocks rebuild. Looking to another Alaska model, a recent set-aside representing only a small percentage of the cod stock there now provides critical income for dozens of Alaskan jig fishermen.

ACE Leasing

Fishermen discussed including baseline requirements for annual catch entitlement (ACE) leasing to ensure that small boat quota isn’t all exported to large vessels.

The Tour, and the scoping meetings and listening sessions before it, has prompted a lively discussion at the Council level, as some skeptics continue to deny that consolidation problems even exist.

Others say that sectors can address fleet diversity concerns by themselves. When Council members have asked that sectors share information to demonstrate how this actually could work, some sector reps reply, “respect our rights to privacy, and stop meddling in sector affairs.” Unfortunately, the suggestion to let sectors address fleet diversity concerns sounds too much like letting the fox guard the henhouse.

Others say that fleet diversity protections only apply to individual transferable quotas (ITQ’s), a form of Limited Access Privilege Program, and that the Council therefore shouldn’t waste its time developing measures to protect fleet diversity because it’s not actually required. But required or not – this Amendment can make the difference between a fleet that supports small boat fishermen and owner-operators, and one that doesn’t.

New England’s fishermen have the ability to determine whether Amendment 18 ultimately protects fleet diversity and addresses substantive problems, or whether it is watered-down by a vocal minority. The “Who Fishes Matters Tour” jump-started this process for positive change by engaging fishermen from Maine to Rhode Island. Looking forward, the Fish Locally Collaborative is committed to working alongside fishermen to realize the vision of healthy stocks, prosperous fishermen, and a diverse fleet.