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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 10
June 2009
Industry input critical to finalize Amd. 16
It’s decision time for possibly the most sweeping change in Northeast groundfish management ever. Fishermen who want to weigh in on how Amendment 16 is ultimately configured need to do it now. There are crucial points still to be resolved.
Public hearings were underway as Commercial Fisheries News went to press in late May with a deadline for written comments of June 8.
During its June 22-25 meeting in Portland, ME, the New England Fishery Management Council will consider input from the public and then vote on which measures to include in the final package.
Amendment 16 then will go to the National Marine Fisheries Service for review and approval. It is scheduled to replace the current interim rule starting on May 1, 2010.
At the heart of Amendment 16 is a dramatic expansion in the number of sectors that will be authorized. A sector is a group of fishermen who come together under a legally binding contract and decide among themselves what rules they will follow to fish for the sector quota without exceeding it.
Sectors are self-selecting, meaning that the people who organize them determine who can join because, if a sector exceeds its quota, everyone in the sector will be penalized.
Right now there are two sectors, one for Cape Cod hook boats and one for Cape Cod gillnetters, and 17 more have been proposed. So, Amendment 16 will authorize up to a total of 19 sectors.
Anyone who is not a member of a sector will be placed in the “common pool” and subjected to fishing rules set out in Amendment 16.
In June, the council will make decisions that will profoundly affect both sectors and the common pool. These will be extremely difficult choices for many council members. There continues to be tremendous uncertainty about the best way to go even among industry leaders and people already committed to joining sectors.
That’s why it is so important for fishermen to carefully study the menu of options, talk to others in similar situations, decide what’s best, and get comments on the record.
For sectors, the biggest decision of all will be the selection of the sector baseline calculation formula. Each sector will get an “annual catch entitlement” (ACE) a quota for almost all stocks it can catch.
Draft Amendment 16 proposes several options for deciding how to calculate that ACE and each one produces significantly different results that are likely to affect sector membership, operation, and success.
For common pool vessels, Amendment 16 proposes three options for controlling fishing morality that basically are various combinations of days-at-sea reductions, differential days-at-sea counting, trip limits, and restricted gear areas.
The other immensely important choice the council will make for the common pool is whether or not to adopt “hard” TACs, which would result in shut downs of common pool fisheries once catches approach TAC levels. The alternative to hard TACs is imposition of even more days-at-sea reductions and stricter differential days-at-sea counting for the year following any TAC overage.
The council’s decisions in June will chart a new course for the future of the groundfish industry at every level. None of the options are ideal because the truth is Amendment 16, no matter how it turns out, will force people out of the fishery. But everyone has this one last chance to be heard.
Copies of the draft amendment and specific instructions on how to submit comments are available on the New England council web site at <www.nefmc.org> or by calling the council office at (978) 465-0492. /cfn/
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