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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 3
November 2006
Next groundfish action on tight schedule
PEABODY, MA – The New England Fishery Management Council is encouraging industry members to begin thinking about groundfish measures that’ll go in place May 1, 2009.
Even though that’s two-and-a-half years down the road, the council is under a surprisingly compressed schedule to complete this next major adjustment to the groundfish plan, which most likely will become Amendment 16.
At its Sept. 26-28 meeting here, the council announced that anyone wanting to put new ideas on the table will have to do so within the next few months.
The amendment will be an enormous undertaking for industry, the council, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and NMFS’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. It’ll be based on brand new stock assessments that will utilize data through 2007 and be supported by a full environmental impact statement, a massive document that will include in-depth analyses of all the alternatives managers seriously considered in making the adjustment.
Also, the council agreed to take a look at “alternative management systems” to days-at-sea submitted by stakeholders during this fall’s scoping process.
Some council members expressed concern about trying to reinvent groundfish management in such a relatively short timeframe. But Maine’s George Lapointe saw it differently.
“I think we need to look at new ways of doing things,” he said. “If we don’t make major changes, we will be damned by the current system.”
Options needed
New Hampshire council member David Goethel was extremely supportive of looking at alternatives to days-at-sea.
“We’ve driven that train just about as far as we can go. I don’t want to be constrained by that,” he said.
Goethel encouraged people with new proposals to come forward early in the amendment planning process, and he hoped they’d put forward “simple” ideas that were well developed.
“If you want something different, come to us and show us how it would work,” he said.
George Darcy, assistant regional administrator for sustainable fisheries for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northeast region, supported both the council’s decision to develop an amendment and its intent to solicit new ideas.
“I strongly believe this is the best way for the council to go,” he said. “Framework 42 is certainly not a model we want to follow. No one was happy with that.”
Industry ready
Several industry members indicated they’d be taking the council up on its offer to participate in the early planning stages.
Gary Libby, representing the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association in Maine, said, “We’re in the process of trying to do area management on top of whatever else you come up with. We definitely feel that we’re headed down the right road and hopefully we can bring the fish back as fast or faster than what is mandated by the federal government.”
Craig Pendleton, coordinating director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA), also said his group and others who work with NAMA were committed to “bringing an alternative to the table.”
Pendleton stressed the urgency of adequately addressing the region’s stock rebuilding problems.
“In all the years I’ve been involved, this is the first time ever that I’ve heard – on a consistent basis – men coming to the dock saying there are no fish,” he said.
Geoff Smith of The Nature Conservancy backed up the previous speakers.
“We’re troubled to see that a number of groundfish stocks continue to be depleted and more and more fishermen continue to struggle with fewer and fewer days-at-sea,” he said.
“We have fishermen up and down the coast who are looking at different ways to make this work. We think this council should be encouraging these initiatives,” Smith said. “The Nature Conservancy is committed to working with fishermen and bringing these new ideas to the table.”
Be on “same page”
What the council worried about most was setting false expectations, and in the end, it decided to host a workshop, now scheduled for Nov. 6 in Peabody, to develop “standards and/or principles” to guide the development and submission of alternatives submitted by industry.
The council will approve final standards at its Nov. 14-16 meeting in Gloucester and then immediately schedule scoping meetings for late November and December. It will be during those scoping meetings that people will be able to submit new ideas.
Massachusetts council member Tom Hill supported hosting a pre-scoping workshop.
“I’d like us to agree that we’re all on the same page about what we’re going to do,” he said.
New Hampshire council member John Nelson concurred.
“If you give specific guidelines about what you want to have people give you, you will save time,” he said. “We need to say, ‘This is what we want you to consider.’”
Council member Rip Cunningham of Massachusetts said he hoped the workshop could address three major points:
• Where have we gone wrong?
• Where are the management systems and programs we have in place right now failing? And
• How do we fix things?
No one expects that “fixing things” will be easy.
Amendment 13, which was implemented in 2004, contains rebuilding programs for most key groundfish stocks, along with a requirement for “biennial adjustments” to tweak and/or modify management measures to ensure those rebuilding programs stay on schedule.
The first biennial adjustment was developed as Framework Adjustment 42 and is expected to be implemented this fall. It contains an Amendment 13 default measure that reduces each permit holder’s allocated A-days by 8%.
Amendment 13 calls for a 2008 review of the rebuilding progress with necessary adjustments going in place in 2009.
Although many industry members may have forgotten this, some of the stock rebuilding schedules in Amendment 13 were designed to include additional – and in some cases significant – reductions in fishing mortality in 2009, and the amendment contains a default to achieve these reductions.
The default calls for an 18.2% cut in A-days, which would change the split between A-days and B-days to 45%/55%.
Problem stocks
NMFS and council staffers recently developed a timetable for completing the work related to the 2008 review, and already some of those involved are expressing concern that several rebuilding programs may be behind schedule. If that turns out to be the case after further analysis, more reductions in fishing mortality – in addition to what’s being called for in the default – could be necessary.
Based on assessments completed in 2005 and the mortality reductions called for in Amendment 13, problematic stocks appear to be: white hake; southern windowpane flounder; Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder; Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder; and Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder.
The council may decide to replace the 18.2% A-day reduction default with another provision that’ll achieve similar effort reductions. This and many other issues will begin being discussed during the scoping meetings.
Fisherman Dave Marciano of Gloucester said he appreciated being able to consider new ideas for the next amendment, but he wasn’t so sure the current regime was entirely unsalvageable.
“We all realize Framework 42 might not be the right track, so I support looking at new approaches,” he said. “But I think we need to fix what’s wrong now. I think days-at-sea can be a really good system if we use it properly. But there’s a fundamental disconnect right now between days-at-sea and trip limits.”
Whatever happens, Rich Canastra of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford said the next amendment needs to allow for a steadier flow of fresh fish because processors are being forced to supply markets with frozen product all too often these days.
“We have to put in a plan where fish comes in regularly, consistently, so we only ‘fill-in’ with frozen. We need to be able to keep our market on fresh fish.”
Janice M. Plante
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