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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 11
July 2010
Maine DMR ready to buy permits for pilot groundfish permit bank
HALLOWELL, ME – The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is gearing up to buy federal groundfish permits as part of a program to preserve and increase opportunities for small-scale fishermen to stay in the fishery.
The Maine Groundfish Permit Banking program is a partnership between the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which has provided $2.9 million to fund the effort, and the DMR, which is handling administration.
“Based on what we learn through this pilot program, we hope to be able to develop permit banks in other states and regions,” said NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul. “Our goal is to create and protect sustainable local fisheries.”
The permit bank will be set up to provide owners of fishing vessels who have limited or no groundfish fishing history an opportunity to lease additional fishing days or allocation at a reasonable cost.
Anyone who wants to lease days or allocation will have to meet certain qualifying criteria and agree to land their catch in Maine ports.
Bid process
The DMR was planning to issue a request for proposals (RFP) in late June to purchase federal Northeast multispecies permits for the bank. The RFP process will take several months.
Sometime in July, the agency plans to hold a conference to explain the bid process to anyone interested in participating. According to the DMR, a review panel and scoring formula will be used to ensure that only strong bids are selected.
“With limited funds and the future of Maine’s many rural fishing ports on the line, we intend to be smart shoppers,” said Terry Stockwell, DMR’s director of external affairs. “Only bids that will result in maximized opportunities for Maine groundfish fishermen will be selected.”
Actual bids will be due later in the summer and the successful bids will be announced shortly after that.
Once the permits are purchased, the DMR will begin the process of distributing fishing rights to eligible vessels, though, due to federal regulations that restrict when and how vessels can join sectors, the distribution phase may not begin until the 2011 fishing year.
“We want to help Maine’s fishermen as soon as possible, but we won’t know our options until we have the permits in hand,” said Stockwell. “We’re taking this one step at a time.”
For more information or to request a copy of the RFP, call Togue Brawn at (207) 624-6558 or e-mail her at <togue.brawn@maine.gov>. /cfn/
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