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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 12
August 2007
Groundfish Amendment 16
New England council votes to consider 19 sector proposals, ACLs, AMs
PORTLAND, ME – In a significant deviation from the recommendation of its groundfish committee, the New England Fishery Management Council voted on June 21 to consider new sector proposals, as well as modifications to existing sectors, in Amendment 16, which is scheduled for implementation on May 1, 2009.
However, the council stipulated that it will only consider the 19 sector proposals it already has in hand, so anyone else interested in forming a sector will have to wait until Amendment 17 or try to join one of the groups currently under formation.
The groundfish committee previously voted to limit Amendment 16 to modifications of the existing days-at-sea program.
The committee’s preference was to hold off on all other actions, including further development of area management, the point system, sector proposals, and/or individual fishing quota (IFQ) management, until the next amendment.
But Connecticut council member Sally McGee and Rhode Island member David Preble led the charge to allow sector consideration in Amendment 16. They also pushed for a requirement that all sectors, new and existing, receive allocations of all managed groundfish species – not just sector members’ target species – and use a “common baseline” for allocation purposes.
A common baseline means sector members would be allocated hard total allowable catches (TACs) based on their fishing history during a common timeframe – say 1996 through 2001 or 1996 through 2006 or 2002 through 2007 or some other fixed period – regardless of which sector they belong to.
The council further voted that Amendment 16 be used to establish annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AM) for managed stocks as required by the newly reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
And it initiated Amendment 17 to “continue development of the point system, area management, IFQ management, and party/charter boat limited-entry proposals.”
Two-pronged focus
Many fishermen were bitterly disappointed by the groundfish committee’s decision on May 31 that it didn’t have the time or resources to fully develop the area management proposal, the point system proposal, or sectors in Amendment 16.
Neither the committee nor the full council were willing to develop a full-scale alternative to days-at-sea management under the Amendment 16 deadlines. However, several individuals strongly supported allowing sectors to move forward if their proposals met the council’s established Amendment 13 sector requirements and the new sector guidelines adopted on June 19 (see related story page 14A).
McGee, who made the comprehensive motion regarding what would be included in Amendments 16 and 17 said, “This makes sure the short-term priority is to deal with a very narrow range of changes to the days-at-sea system and deals with ACLs and AMs, but it does not put off the other proposals.
“I want us to be clear that we are committed to making a big picture change as was advertised originally,” she continued. “This approach gives the comprehensive groundfish overhaul the breathing room that it needs to be developed more effectively.”
Furthermore, McGee said the new list of items deemed feasible for development in Amendment 16 gives “due consideration of sectors and fixes some of the problems with them. It provides for a common baseline and an allocation of all species.”
Preble strongly supported limiting the scope of Amendment 16 while immediately launching Amendment 17.
“It puts those (other proposals) on the table in a more immediate way,” he said. “We’re not shunting them off.”
Without a fixed strategy, Preble said he feared the council wouldn’t get anywhere.
“We’ve been like a mouse in a maze trying to get to the cheese at the other end,” he said. “We keep bumping into walls. This focuses us.”
Allocating resource
Area management supporters were the most disappointed by the council’s decision.
Robin Alden, executive director of the Stonington, ME-based Penobscot East Resource Center and a leader of the Area Management Coalition, argued that the council was making an irreversible mistake by allocating the resource through sectors before identifying its long-term groundfish management pathway.
“First of all, I think we ought to be right upfront about what will happen with sectors without deciding as a community whether we will be managing in a different way,” she said.
“The fishery will be allocated. It will be done. We will be into IFQs. Before those decisions are made, we need to have serious discussions about how groundfish will be managed,” Alden said.
Stressing that she “strongly opposed” the council’s motion, Alden concluded, “Area management is a frameworkable action in Amendment 13. It could be nested with days-at-sea. But before you do sectors and ACLs and AMs, let’s have a discussion.”
Other area management supporters, including Craig Pendleton, coordinating director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and an Area Management Coalition leader, said the council’s intent to pursue alternative management proposals in the future rang hollow if it didn’t take immediate action to at least start the process.
Amendment 17
This strong stance led to the council’s decision to actually initiate Amendment 17 on June 21 instead of waiting until Amendment 16 was finished or even holding off until November when the council intends to set its 2008 workload priorities.
That step – the immediate initiation of Amendment 17 – seemed to sway Maine council member Dana Rice, who was reluctant to vote on the Amendment 16 strategy without a firm commitment to a bigger change.
“I don’t want to make the mistake of voting for something and then (the other proposals) get shelved,” he said.
(See story page 16A for more from area management supporters.)
Sectors
Since the majority of council members were convinced that area management and/or the point system – or any other comprehensive overhaul of groundfish management – couldn’t be accomplished in Amendment 16 due to time constraints, the discussion really focused on whether to consider sectors.
Some argued that sector development was already allowed under Amendment 13 so it was only fair to review new sector proposals that had already been submitted by industry.
However, Massachusetts council member David Pierce opposed the idea, citing resource allocation concerns.
“This draws in all of the allocation issues that the groundfish committee agreed should not be part of Amendment 16,” he said.
“I support sectors, but with all of the sector proposals before us, we’ve reached a point where these should be in the allocation amendment,” Pierce said. “It’s all about allocation. I don’t want to find us bogged down with an impossible task. Amendment 16 will be a very big job.”
Pierce also said he was “uncomfortable” including ACLs and AMs in Amendment 16 since the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had not yet released final guidelines for how the councils should go about meeting this new requirement.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was amended and reauthorized on Jan. 12, requires that federal fishery management plans in the future contain “annual catch limits” (the ACLs) and “accountability measures” (the AMs) “to end and prevent overfishing in all US commercial and recreational fisheries in 2010 for stocks subject to overfishing and 2011 for all others.”
NMFS is proposing “guidance” on how these new ACLs and AMs should be developed in order to “facilitate consistent application” among fishery managers (see CFN May 2007 for more details).
Criteria important
New Hampshire council member David Goethel expressed his own reservations about considering sector proposals in Amendment 16 and he urged the council to have a full public debate.
“This is a fundamental change in how this fishery is managed and it has huge implications on everyone in the industry,” he said. “You have to protect everyone’s rights.”
Setting the baseline years “alone is open to huge debate,” Goethel said. “I know people in this industry will want to comment on that.”
New Hampshire council member John Nelson, who chaired the council’s sector committee, noted that the council had voted two days earlier to adopt sector guidelines that will be passed along to each of the species committees.
Nelson said the council needed to be clear that all sector proposals, even the 19 that have already been submitted, have to meet the new sector guideline criteria.
Industry view
Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition supported this approach.
“We recognize that the Amendment 13 sector guidelines need to be improved,” he said.
While Northeast Seafood Coalition members were disappointed that their point system proposal was being delayed until Amendment 17, many joined forces and submitted sector proposals, recognizing that the council was more apt to move forward with sectors at this stage than pull off a completely new approach to groundfish management.
But that didn’t mean coalition members had given up on the point system.
“It may end up being a strategy used within the sectors,” said Giacalone.
Given that sectors were now inevitable, Giacalone concluded, “The coalition is committed to helping our members and the entire industry make these sectors work.”
Safety issues
The Portland Fish Exchange, with help from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, has submitted a proposal to establish the Sustainable Harvest Sector.
Exchange General Manager Hank Soule urged the council to not view sectors as a “resource grab,” as some have called it. He said the Sustainable Harvest Sector was created primarily for safety reasons. Some of the group’s smaller vessels were being forced too far offshore and were taking unnecessary risks under existing rules.
Since sectors have to be renewed on a regular basis, the council and NMFS can keep close tabs on sector activities, added Soule.
“If regulators change the sectors, the sectors will merely have to adapt,” he said.
Next step
The council has now scheduled a groundfish committee meeting for Aug. 1 at the Holiday Inn in Peabody, MA. Sector management issues will be the primary focus of the meeting. Agenda items include:
• Identifying alternatives for the baseline period for allocating fishing opportunities to sectors;
• Identifying stocks that will require sector allocations;
• Reviewing specific sector proposals and the sector committee’s guidelines; and
• Providing allowances for nonsector fisheries such as the scallop dredge fishery, recreational fisheries, and state waters fisheries.
For more information, call Tom Nies, the council’s groundfish plan coordinator, at (978) 465-0492. His e-mail address is <tnies@nefmc.org>.
Janice M. Plante
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