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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 7
March 2009
NE council signs off on Amd. 16 alternatives for public hearings
PORTSMOUTH, NH – Amid the chaos of the groundfish Framework 42 lawsuit and upcoming interim action measures for May 1, the New England Fishery Management Council spent several hours on Feb. 10 finalizing public hearing alternatives for Amendment 16.
According to council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts, that was exactly what the council needed to do – “focus on something we have control over.”
He emphasized that even though people were consumed by the court case and interim action, the council could not dictate the outcome of either of those situations and therefore needed to concentrate its attention on the amendment.
Pappalardo acknowledged that Amendment 16 was not a “perfect plan,” but it was a big step in a new direction toward “output” controls like hard quotas and away from “input” controls like days-at-sea.
“This plan represents a significant change in course from my perspective,” said Pappalardo. “It represents a transition – a transition the council indicated it was willing to make.”
(See CFN November 2008 for details about the council’s decision to begin this shift in management strategies.)
The council intends to hold public hearings on Amendment 16 in late April or May and is scheduled to approve final measures in June for submission to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The council’s hope is that NMFS can implement the amendment by May 1, 2010.
Sectors, common pool
The draft amendment is enormous and complex. It proposes to split the industry into two groups – sector fishermen and common pool fishermen.
Sector fishermen will be those who voluntarily choose to join sectors, accept hard quotas, and regulate themselves to keep their landings within the limits of those hard quotas. These are steps in the transition toward “output” controls.
A large chunk of Amendment 16 is devoted to the set-up, operation of, and monitoring of these sectors. The public hearing document will contain several alternatives for calculating people’s “potential sector contributions” or “sector shares,” meaning the amount of fish/history each fisherman will bring to a sector. The shares will contribute to each sector’s collective quota.
Common pool fishermen will be those who choose to remain under broader federal regulations, similar to the way they operate now. The amendment will include several effort control options and accountability measures for common pool fishermen, all of which need careful studying given their considerable impacts.
Overall, Amendment 16 is intended to significantly cut back fishing mortality on several groundfish stocks and will greatly restrict the ability of both sector and common pool fishermen to catch fish.
For more information, keep checking the council’s web site at <www.nefmc.org/nemulti/index.html> or call groundfish plan coordinator Tom Nies at (978) 465-0492. And, keep an eye out for more info in future issues of Commercial Fisheries News.
Janice M. Plante
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