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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 4
December 2007
Groundfish sectors resurrected for Amd. 16
NEWPORT, RI – In a solid reversal of its previous decision, the New England Fishery Management Council voted on Nov. 7 to allow the formation of new groundfish sectors in Amendment 16.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) vehemently opposed the move, saying it had no additional financial or manpower resources to put toward the effort.
But the council went forward anyway and several members expressed a strong commitment to the undertaking.
“I think it’s a responsibility we owe the industry,” said Dana Rice of Maine.
Back in September, the council voted to “suspend” work on sectors until it made further progress on days-at-sea modifications and other measures to meet groundfish biological targets as required under the midterm adjustment to the groundfish plan.
Yet the council was extremely divided in its decision, voting to suspend work on sectors by a slim 9-to-8 margin (see CFN November 2007 for details).
This time, after more than a month-and-a-half of contemplation and listening to passionate appeals from industry, the council cast a strong 13-to-4 vote to resume sector development. This action is meant to give fishermen a chance to voluntarily form sectors and regulate themselves under hard total allowable catches (TACs).
Seventeen groups have proposed to form new sectors under Amendment 16, and the two existing groundfish sectors have proposed significant modifications to their own operating plans.
Won’t be easy
Groundfish committee Chairman Rip Cunningham of Massachusetts said the committee had done a considerable amount of work on sectors and had discussed difficult issues such as baseline periods, methods to calculate history, trading of annual catch entitlements between sectors, overage paybacks, multi-year operations plans, discard monitoring, sector policy issues, TAC carry-forwards, and other things.
However, Cunningham acknowledged that much more needed to be done, and he warned the council that proceeding with sectors would pose significant challenges.
“We need to go into this with our eyes wide open,” he said. “The service (NMFS) essentially has told us there won’t be much – if any – support for sectors. To do this, we will have to stay incredibly focused. We are going to have to change how we operate. We are going to have to make decisions and we are going to have to make them pretty quickly.”
Prior to casting his own “yes” vote, Cunningham said the consequences of not succeeding were extremely high.
“If we fail at doing this, we will lose all credibility with the agency and I think we will lose credibility with the industry,” he said.
NMFS opposition
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul and Northeast Fisheries Science Center Director Nancy Thompson tried hard to persuade the council not to shift its energy back to sectors.
The midterm adjustment to the groundfish plan must be implemented in May 2009, and both Kurkul and Thompson argued that all available NMFS scientists and staff had been tasked to work on the Groundfish Assessment Review Meeting (GARM).
The GARM is a series of meetings devoted to updating the status of all groundfish stocks so the council can determine how much more – or little – it needs to do to meet biological targets for each stock.
According to Thompson, much of the “analytical horsepower” behind the GARM comes from the science center, and she said her team was fully utilized already.
Kurkul added, “From the agency’s perspective, we just don’t have the resources to support the kind of work that needs to be done to include sectors in Amendment 16.”
While agreeing that the groundfish committee had made great progress on sectors, Kurkul said, “There’s still quite a bit left to do.”
Furthermore, she said, “I continue to believe there’s a tremendous amount of work to do for Amendment 16 without sectors. A number of questions remain with just the basic management measures that are going to be considered for the amendment.”
In conclusion, she said, “Where does that get us if the council intends to dedicate its resources to sectors and we dedicate our resources to the midterm adjustment? It sounds like a mess to me.”
Industry speaks
With very few exceptions, the packed room of fishermen and industry leaders rose one by one to speak in strong support of sectors.
Frank Mirarchi of Scituate, MA said, “In my port where I have fished for 45 years, the industry is dying. The number of boats has been halved in the last three years. You can just see the deteriorating economic circumstances of small boat fishermen in the Gulf of Maine.”
Mirarchi urged the council to support the continued development of sectors and not let the fleet “wither and die.” And he did not buy the argument that resources were not available for sector development.
“I have no confidence that Amendment 16 will be any different from any of its predecessors if alternative measures are not developed,” he said. “When there is an absolute socio-economic crisis brewing, you have to find the resources to do the job.”
Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition also asked the council to “plow forward” with sectors so industry could directly deal with the problems of the past few years.
“Framework 42 has totally decimated an enormous percentage of this fleet, and $3 fuel has decimated the rest,” he said.
Giacalone emphasized that sector proponents were putting up the time and financial resources themselves to form sectors and develop operations plans and environmental assessments.
“You have organizations rallying around this effort,” he said. “We’re facing this head on. We’re looking at Magnuson. We’re looking at compliance.”
Selectman Tom Pachico of Tisbury, MA was one of several people who traveled from Martha’s Vineyard to advocate for sectors.
“We urge you to look at the sector proposals,” he said. “Don’t say you don’t have time or the money. That doesn’t make sense. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Pachico further said, “For the US government to tell me they can spend billions of dollars to invade foreign countries but they can’t support the little guy is insulting. You make it impossible in some areas for the little guy to make a living.”
Lifelong fisherman Jonathan Mayhew, also from the Vineyard, supported sectors as well.
“You think you study the problem,” he said. “The fishermen out there really study it.”
Mayhew said the current system was forcing fishermen to discard far too much fish. He himself couldn’t do it anymore, so he sold his groundfish days.
“The discard issue is very bad in its own right,” he said.
Anxious to move away from days-at-sea and the past path of groundfish management in general, Mayhew summed it up this way: “Fifteen amendments and we’re down to 48 days?”
Recounting how people used to fish with traditions being handed down from generation to generation, Mayhew said, “We are totally losing that, and I think it’s a direct cause of days-at-sea. Where it really hurts is in the root of a community. It’s very damaging.”
Status quo bad
Dan Holland of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute said the institute had been working with several groups that want to develop sectors.
“I think this has united more of the industry than anything else I’ve seen in the past,” he said.
If the council chose against allowing sectors in Amendment 16 because of financial constraints, Holland said, “The alternative is to continue with this status quo for five more years … all for the sake of a few hundred thousand dollars to do these analyses.”
Chris Brown, president of the Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association, said he was well aware of industry’s plight working under days-at-sea. If anyone should be able to make it under the system, it should be him, he said. His boat was paid for. His house was mostly paid for. His wife worked hard.
“And I still have to tell you that I don’t know if I can make it without sectors,” Brown said. “We need to get away from days-at-sea. You want to fix the days-at-sea system? Then blow it up.”
Allocation concerns
Gillnetter Dave Marciano of Gloucester was the only fisherman to express reservations about sectors, and it was because of his concern over allocation issues.
“This is the sole reason I have never been able to jump on the sector bandwagon,” he said. “It would be the death of me.”
Marciano said gillnetters would not be able to get reasonable allocations under sectors because their gear type often had been – for various reasons – banned from or prevented from effectively targeting key species like cod.
“We never had a fair shake at participation,” he said. “I made the mistake of targeting pollock and haddock, but having good pollock and haddock landings won’t do me any good if the cod resource is rebuilding. I won’t have an allocation because I didn’t pound away on cod.”
The one other person to express concern was John Williamson of The Ocean Conservancy.
Williamson stressed that he supported sectors, but not for Amendment 16.
“My organization and I are fully expecting the midterm adjustment to be completed on time,” he said. “If this (sector development) goes forward, this council needs to make a commitment to the effort.”
Council reacts
Rhode Island council member Mark Gibson voiced strong support for moving ahead with sector development.
“I was one of those who foolishly believed we could revolutionize groundfish management largely with industry-conceived measures,” he said, referring to the council’s initial Amendment 16 industry solicitation for new, innovative ways to manage groundfish.
“They did their part,” said Gibson. “I think the industry exceeded our expectations in coming up with proposals. We owe them sectors.”
Connecticut council member Sally McGee said the council eventually needed to develop annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AM) for groundfish as required under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and sectors could help accomplish that mandate.
“I see getting back to sectors as serving two purposes: moving us away from the days-at-sea system for people who opt into sectors, and getting at ACLs and AMs since sectors will be operating under a hard TAC,” she said. “More and more people are genuinely interested in this.”
Is it doable?
Massachusetts council member Tom Hill, however, expressed concern about the council being able to set up the sector process without NMFS’s help.
“It’s foolish to presume that the groundfish committee is going to be able to do analytical work without the agency,” he said.
Rhode Island council member Frank Blount also had reservations. He used the Framework 33 lawsuit, which resulted in court orders and settlement agreements that paved the way for Amendment 13, to illustrate what could happen if the council failed to meet the May 2009 implementation deadline for Amendment 16.
“We’re almost in the same situation,” he said. “Pretty soon we’ll be told what to do instead of doing what we want to do. We have more than enough work already with Amendment 16.”
In the end, Hill, Blount, Kurkul, and Connecticut’s David Simpson voted “no” on the motion to resurrect sectors. The other 13 council members voted “yes.”
Janice M. Plante
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