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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 4
December 2005
Area 2 effort control:
Plan provisions: Moratorium on permits; trap caps, allocations; no gauge increase
WASHINGTON, DC - The new Area 2 lobster effort control plan imposes a tough cap on the number of traps that can be fished in the area. It also does away with all further Area 2 gauge increases – at least for the time being.
In brief, the plan prohibits the issuance of new permits and includes several steps to prevent state-federal permit splitting. It gives state fisheries agencies the authority to figure out initial trap allocations for qualified permit holders over the next year. Those initial allocations will go into effect in 2007.
Of the several Addendum VII options for initial individual trap allocations presented at public hearings in the fall, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) lobster board members approved Option A, which grants initial allocations based on the “highest value of effective traps fished” during the period 2001-2003.
The plan does include a medical/military hardship appeal provision so that permit holders who did not fish during 2001-2003, but did fish during 1999 and/or 2000, can ask that their fishing performance during those years be considered for an initial trap allocation.
An overall Area 2 trap cap will have to be approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) lobster board. If the total of the initial allocations exceeds the cap, each permit holder’s trap allocation will be reduced by a specific percentage to cut back the number of traps necessary to meet the cap. This was trap reduction Option A in the public hearing document.
Area 2 fisheries agencies will be responsible for developing an interstate transfer program to accommodate permit holders who want to expand or contract their level of participation in the fishery. One possible sticking point here is that the transfer program won’t go into effect until the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) adopts complimentary rules, a process that, in the past, has often taken years.
To prevent anyone from controlling an excessive number of permits – or traps associated with them – the plan limits ownership or ownership share to no more than two qualified Area 2 permits. Anyone who already has more than two permits is safe, but will not be allowed to acquire additional permits. This was Option A in the public hearing document.
Finally, in a nod to industry, Addendum VII does away with previously scheduled gauge increases and leaves the minimum size for Area 2 lobsters at 3-3/8", “until further changes in future addenda or amendments.”
Permit details
The basis of the effort control plan is the moratorium on the issuance of any new Area 2 commercial permits. The plan further establishes a joint state-federal licensing scheme to keep tabs on how permits are used to prevent permit splitting.
It also specifies that no vessel or permit holder will be allowed to hold more than one allocation on a single fishing history, which is another safeguard against permit splitting or stacking.
Once the trap transfer program is in place, a lobsterman who has an Area 2 permit, but no trap allocation, will be allowed to acquire a trap allocation from another Area 2 permit holder.
Area 2 fisheries agencies will establish a “coordinating committee” to review appeals, as well as the resolutions proposed by the state fisheries management agency, to better ensure consistent decisions.
Trap allocation
Initial trap allocations will be based on each qualifying permit holder’s unique fishing history and on the highest value of “effective traps fished” during 2001-2003.
Basically, a lobsterman’s state fisheries agency will figure “effective traps fished” by taking what a lobsterman reported for pounds landed and number of traps fished in the most active of those three years.
To ensure accuracy and fairness, each lobsterman’s numbers will then be compared to a table created by managers that indicates the “predicted” number of traps it typically takes to catch that amount of poundage in a single year.
The table is based on years’ worth of aggregated reports from the lobster industry. If there is a discrepancy between the lobsterman’s reports and the table, the state agency may adjust the initial allocation.
According to Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries Deputy Director Dan McKiernan, the “effective traps fished” system is most likely to reward people who reported all of their landings.
Fishermen won’t be limited to their initial allocation until 2007. That gives state agencies all of 2006 to sift through “convoluted permit histories,” which is a particularly serious problem in Rhode Island, and to develop trap transfer rules.
The states and NMFS will work together to ensure that vessels and/or permit holders do not receive duplicate allocations for the same catch history from different jurisdictions.
For more information on the new
Area 2 effort control plan, contact your state fisheries agency or call ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns at (202) 289-6400. /cfn/
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