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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 4
December 2006
Get ideas in now for groundfish Amendment 16
Like it or not, it’s underway. The New England Fishery Management Council has started the scoping process for Amendment 16 to the groundfish plan.
Amendment 16 is the next major groundfish regulatory action. It will determine how people will fish after May 1, 2009, and it’s a crack in the door, an opportunity for change. So, if you have ideas for alternatives to days-at-sea, trip limits, area closures, or whatever else is now in place, this is the time to say so.
Clearly, everyone is dismayed with the current state of affairs. Days-at-sea have been cut to the bone, leaving many fishermen with no choice but to enter into leasing arrangements that are taking the fleet toward a kind of consolidation that many in the industry do not want.
Fishermen are frustrated by the single-species management approach that forces regulatory discards and undermines stock rebuilding goals. Fishing is more dangerous than ever as regulations push people to steam farther from shore than they should. And all of this has sapped the economic lifeblood of fishermen, shoreside support businesses, and fishing communities. Even the National Marine Fisheries Service has said Framework 42 is “not a model to follow.”
But the council isn’t just looking for criticism. Everyone understands how bad things are and focusing on that is a waste of energy given the extremely important opportunity presented by the Amendment 16 scoping process.
The council needs concrete proposals for change backed by fairly well-developed ideas from industry members who can envision a different course for groundfish management, though one that results in even further cuts in fishing mortality.
Furthermore, the council needs those new ideas now. Eight scoping meetings have been scheduled in November and December in states from Maine to New York. Amendment 16 development is on a fast-track because it must be fully fleshed out, walked through the incredibly complex federal review process, and implemented in less than three years in order to meet stock rebuilding timetables mandated by federal law.
The council has said it “may consider” any of the following approaches for the new amendment: changes to the current days-at-sea management system; recreational fishery measures; total allowable catch management systems; individual quota systems, including transferable quotas commonly known as ITQs; and sector management systems.
But that’s just a starting point. In a Nov. 6 Federal Register notice announcing the scoping meetings, the council clearly stated it would “consider other management systemsthat may replace or supplement the existing effort controls” and encouraged members of the public to submit their own ideas.
The Northeast Seafood Coalition is one group that is taking up the challenge, working hard with fishermen and managers across the region on an innovative “multispecies point system,” an approach that attempts to reduce counterproductive regulatory discards by creating incentives for fishermen to target healthier stocks. And Downeast and midcoast Maine fishermen have ideas of their own.
We know people are worn out, but there are early, hopeful signs of groundfish rebuilding. That’s even more reason to keep trying to find a way to protect both vulnerable young year classes and the fishing fleet and infrastructure so that this industry will still be around when the stocks rebound. /cfn/
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