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 37 Number 10
June 2010
Groundfish: Are ‘accumulation limits’ next?
MYSTIC, CT – Now that groundfish sectors appear to be here to stay, the New England Fishery Management Council is asking a new question: Should it put “accumulation limits” on sectors or even individual permit holders to prevent them from gathering “excessive shares” – or too much quota – in the fishery?
The council debated this issue during its April 27-29 meeting because its interspecies committee, which had met three weeks earlier, proposed the concept as a means to “prevent excessive consolidation in order to maintain some fleet diversity.”
But the council quickly became tangled in the term “fleet diversity” and was divided about whether consolidation itself was good or bad.
Rhode Island council member Dave Preble said, “There are a number of reasons to prevent excessive consolidation. Fleet diversity is one, but it’s not the only one. We haven’t defined fleet diversity yet.”
Maine council member Jim Odlin, too, was uncomfortable with the language but for different reasons. With quotas being so low on numerous groundfish stocks, he believed a certain amount of consolidation would be necessary for anyone at all to financially make it in the fishery.
“Amendment 16 was designed to allow consolidation,” Odlin said.
Connecticut council member Sally McGee agreed, but she also noted that the council removed all catch caps on sectors during development of Amendment 16 when it became clear that limits would only force sectors to split into two, increasing their administrative burdens.
However, she said, the council did recognize “the vulnerability of the inshore fleet,” even though that recognition never translated into regulations in Amendment 16.
What’s the vision?
Others noted that developing accumulation caps or defining fleet diversity would be difficult without a clear “vision” of the fishery.
Brett Tolley of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA) said NAMA had already conducted an extensive, two-year-long visioning process and had forwarded the results to the interspecies committee.
That effort, said Tolley, led to a consensus among participating industry members that “diversity,” defined as “a geographically distributed commercial and recreational fleet that includes all gear types and boats sizes,” was a fundamental part of their “fleet vision.” Other vision components included “economic viability, participatory governance, and environmental resilience.”
Ron Smolowitz of the Fisheries Survival Fund urged the council to step back, start over, and develop its own broad vision statement for the industry as a whole, not just groundfish.
And, he said, “The vision for inshore has to be different from the vision for offshore.”
White paper
As the discussion grew more complicated and the council wrestled with the whole concept of accumulation limits, Maine council member Terry Stockwell, who was uncomfortable with some of the ideas being tossed about, said, “We have a groundfish fishery that’s in a huge transition here, and I don’t want to go through an academic exercise while the fleet crumbles away.”
He suggested that the council direct its staff to develop a “white paper on groundfish fleet diversity and accumulation limits” that would be further reviewed by the groundfish committee, not the interspecies committee. The council agreed to the proposal.
Among other things, the white paper will include definitions of fleet diversity used in other fisheries.
No control date
The council then discussed whether a control date would be useful. The idea was put forward by McGee as a way to broadly inform industry that the council was seriously considering accumulation limits in the groundfish fishery.
But that prospect raised an immediate furor and was soundly defeated.
Several council members said a control date would only accelerate the buying of fish and permits and lead to a race to fish.
Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine and a member of the Sustainable Harvest Sector said a control date would send “absolutely the wrong message” during a period when fishermen were frantically struggling to find ways to survive under extremely small catch limits.
“There are people who are desperately trying to find someone to buy their permit so they don’t lose their house,” she said.
“Nobody feels good about people having to leave the fishery, but that’s what’s happening. It’s a fact,” she said. “If you’re serious about coming up with accumulation limits, then put some numbers out on the table so people will know what they’re up against, and we’ll try to figure out a way to make it work. But don’t throw out a control date.”
The motion to “direct the groundfish committee to provide recommendations to the council at its June meeting on establishing an accumulation-limit control date” failed in a 5-to-11 vote with one abstention.
Different philosophies
New Hampshire council member David Goethel said the council’s biggest problem was that it was fundamentally divided about the subject of consolidation.
“This body as a whole doesn’t want to move in the same direction,” he said.
Some members supported the idea of allowing fishermen to buy each other out and consolidate, while others, like himself, thought consolidation wasn’t a good a thing and that job opportunities and preserving small communities were more important.
“Once you consolidate, you can’t undo it,” he said. “The council ought to take it slow. We have a duty to get it right.”
Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation applauded the council for debating the issue.
“We think this is a very important conversation,” he said. “It should certainly be tackled in a deliberate manner and I think it should be a very high priority.”
Shelley emphasized the need for the council to use real information while moving ahead.
“The (response) to consolidation has to be data-driven,” he said. “We need to have some data for the council to be responsible about the decisions it’s making.”
Janice M. Plante
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
