COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 8
April 2008
ASMFC floats lobster trap transfer protocols
ALEXANDRIA, VA – In light of the growing interest among lobstermen in transferring traps among each other, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Management Board has proposed a new addendum to the interstate lobster plan to ensure that trap transfers are consistent from one jurisdiction to another.
ASMFC member states already had held at least six public hearings on draft Addendum XII as of press time, including ones in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.
But lobstermen still had a chance to attend the following hearings in:
• Ellsworth, ME – April 7, Ellsworth City Hall;
• Portland, ME – April 8, Portland High School Room 304;
• Gloucester, MA – April 7, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) Annisquam River Marine Fisheries Station;
• Chatham, MA – April 8, Chatham Community Center; and
• Narragansett, RI – April 3, University of Rhode Island Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium.
All hearings were scheduled to begin at 6 pm.
Three of ASMFC’s Lobster Conservation and Management Teams (LCMTs) – LCMT 2, LCMT 3, and the Outer Cape Cod LCMT – have proposed individual transferable trap (ITT) programs, so this addendum is particularly important to lobstermen in those areas.
However, the board is encouraging all lobstermen to comment on Addendum XII because the protocols it will eventually establish will apply to any and all areas that want to adopt ITT programs in the future.
According to ASMFC, the goal of Addendum XII is “to provide for fair and consistent implementation of individual transferable trap programs that allow for flexibility to the fishery, meet the conservation objectives of the plan, and ensure that effort does not increase as a result of trap transfers.”
The addendum would not allow trap leasing. It only covers the permanent transfer of permits and trap allocations from one permit holder to another.
You never know
Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA), sent out a memo to MLA members to be sure they were aware of the hearings and their significance.
“Currently, Area 1 has no plans to implement a trap transfer program,” McCarron emphasized.
“Nonetheless,” she explained, “if Area 1 ever decides to implement a trap transfer program, the guidelines proposed in this addendum are the ones we would have to adhere to.”
Furthermore, Addendum XII includes options for addressing potential shifts in effort to Area 1 by lobstermen who transfer some or all of their current trap allocations and then elect to fish in Area 1, which is the only Lobster Conservation Management Area (LCMA) that doesn’t have a history-based trap allocation program.
For many lobstermen outside of Area 1, Addendum XII can’t come soon enough.
Lobster board representative Dan McKiernan of Massachusetts said, “In Area 2, we allocated less traps than were reported fished.”
And as a result, Area 2 fishermen “screamed for transferability,” he said. People demanded the ability to rebuild their businesses or, on the other side, downsize their operations as needed.
“I know this is going to be a struggle between how much flexibility you want to give the fleet and how much flexibility they should get for us to effectively implement the program,” McKiernan said. “But these transferability programs are needed for the areas where traps are truly limited.”
Massachusetts Commissioner Bill Adler added, “We did, in fact, promise these fishermen when these effort control plans were approved that they’d be able to transfer.”
Deep concern
The whole idea of trap transferability, however, has some fishermen worried, including New York lobsterman John German, who fishes Area 6.
German wanted assurance that an ITT program wouldn’t be “rammed down” anyone’s throat.
ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns emphasized, “The board is not putting in a transfer program for any areas that don’t ask for one.”
But German also thought the whole program would lead to a large-scale reactivation of latent effort.
“There are a lot of guys out there sitting on a lot of tags,” he said. “They’re not fishing. But once you let them sell those tags to someone else, those boys are going to fish them, so it’ll be added effort to the hilt.”
German said he couldn’t understand the board’s reasoning.
“We’ve been reducing effort and now we want to increase it?” he asked. “This addendum puts more effort on this fishery than any other addendum I’ve seen.”
Complicated program
The ASMFC lobster board has struggled with the development of an ITT addendum for many months now, taking its lead from a special Lobster Transferability Subcommittee established specifically to work out the details of a trap transfer program.
The program is extremely complicated in large part because of the sheer size of the industry, which fishes both inshore and offshore waters and spans across seven LCMAs from Maine through North Carolina.
For starters, Addendum XII proposes to classify all lobster permit holders who have been assigned traps in LCMAs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and Outer Cape Cod into one of three categories:
State-only, meaning they fish only within state waters;
Federal-only, meaning they fish only within federal waters; or
Dual, which would apply to lobstermen who fish both state and federal waters, whether they do so within one area – say both the state and federal waters of Area 2 – or across multiple areas.
The addendum also proposes that a lobster permit and its fishing history could not be separated. If a dual permit holder “splits” his permits by transferring either the state or federal permit to “another entity,” then “the entire fishing history would remain with the federal permit for the purposes of the initial qualification and allocation decision.”
Several board members argued that the Addendum XII public hearing document needed to be simplified.
“I’m just envisioning the chaos at public hearings,” said Adler.
But National Marine Fisheries Service representative Harry Mears didn’t agree.
“I don’t think it’s going to get any simpler than what we have,” he said. “The concerns are in the document. It does go into the level of detail that’s needed to show how we’re going to implement three different transferability programs that impact many different jurisdictions.”
Funding problem
The addendum addresses a whole array of ITT-related issues in extensive detail and contains numerous examples to illustrate specific points, all of which were reviewed by the lobster board at a Feb. 4 meeting in Alexandria, VA.
But possibly the most important issue that surfaced related to the cost of administering the program.
Addendum XII stresses the “critical need to establish and fund a centralized database to monitor permit and trap allocation transfers.” But it doesn’t yet contain any of the details.
“Funding has to be available for us to proceed with the trap transfer program,” said New Hampshire Commissioner Ritchie White.
“I have concern about how this is going to be administered and where the money is going to come from. Shouldn’t that be in the forefront?” he asked.
Board members agreed that the ITT program needed to be run from a single base – possibly through the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program – to ensure trap transactions occur smoothly, and that two types of funding were needed: short-term funds to establish the centralized monitoring program; and then long-term funds to run it.
However, they also recognized that state and federal funds might not be available.
Should industry pay?
The board then discussed whether lobstermen themselves should fund the program – either through tag fees or some other mechanism. Some questioned whether a fee would apply to all lobstermen or just those who actually transfer traps.
Maine Commissioner George Lapointe adamantly argued against any type of universal fee or additional tax on trap tags.
“We just increased trap tag fees in Maine to pay for whale research,” he said. “It will not work to increase again for something we’re not involved in. To have fishermen in Area 1 pay for something they don’t want doesn’t make sense to me.”
Harry Mears said he didn’t know whether or not industry should pay for the program, but he said, “It’s a legitimate question to ask.”
Mears urged the board to move forward with public hearings and let industry take a crack at the question.
“These are critical issues that aren’t going to go away,” he said. “I think we do need public input.”
Mears supported putting together a “targeted workshop” to “look into the cost parameters” in detail, including software needs and how many people would be needed to run the ITT program.
Not insurmountable
The board eventually agreed to include a section in the Addendum XII public hearing document asking lobstermen for ideas about how to fund the program without state and federal money.
Ritchie White supported the decision.
“At the least, we need to have it say in this document that fishermen may need to pay for this,” he said.
Dan McKiernan didn’t see the cost part of the program as insurmountable.
“I can envision one of our staffers working on this,” he said.
Above all, McKiernan wanted to keep the momentum going for the ITT program.
“Transferability is a necessary component to any trap allocation program,” he stressed.
Lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns reminded board members that trap transfers between areas – say between Areas 2 and 3 – would not be possible until the full monitoring program was up and running.
“In-state transfers could happen relatively quickly depending on how fast a state can implement regulations, but dual permit holders could not transfer until a complete system is in place,” she said. “It’s a limited number of people who will be able to transfer quickly.”
The ASMFC lobster board is expected to review public comments and take further action on Addendum XII at its May 5 meeting in Alexandria, VA.
Janice M. Plante
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
