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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 12
August 2007
Sector guidelines allow species flexibility
PORTLAND, ME – From here on out, anyone wanting to establish or join a “sector” under the jurisdiction of the New England Fishery Management Council will have to follow a new set of guidelines adopted by the council during its June 19-21 meeting here.
The council initially set out to create an omnibus sector amendment that would modify each of its fishery management plans (FMPs). That way, sector programs from one species to the next could be developed in a consistent manner, and fishermen wouldn’t have to wait for an amendment to the FMP for their species of interest in order to move forward with an application.
But the omnibus amendment turned out to be extremely difficult to form. With such large differences in fishing practices among the herring, scallop, groundfish, monkfish, whiting, red crab, and skate fisheries, the council’s sector committee found it hard to craft one common policy that could be applied to everyone fairly.
So instead – though not unanimously – it voted to adopt the sector guidelines and hand them over to each of the species committees so they can be further developed and applied to species-specific sector proposals.
Pros and cons
Maine council member Jim Salisbury opposed this approach. He favored having the council continue on the omnibus amendment path rather than have each committee struggle with the remaining complex questions associated with setting up sectors.
“If we had an amendment, we’d get everybody started on a common footing,” he said. “Then you’d be asking the committees to address one or two questions. Now they’ll have to wrestle with this all over again.”
But several other council members, including Dana Rice of Maine, feared the omnibus amendment would take too much time to finalize and would hamper industry’s ability to form sectors in the near future.
“These are all very good, valid points,” said Rice of the benefits of an omnibus amendment. “But I tend to think that if we stall this too much, a lot of good people who are hanging on by a thread are going to go broke. I’m just thinking of the people who might benefit from an expeditious process.”
Council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts agreed.
“If we go forward with an amendment, we will hold some FMPs hostage,” he said, referring to the fact that some species committees, such as the one that deals with whiting, wouldn’t have enough data to answer some of the questions being raised under the sector guidelines.
Connecticut council member Sally McGee also agreed.
“I felt the sector committee’s work was done. It’s not a matter of starting over. The species committees have to do the details,” she said.
McGee said the sector committee “struggled with the most expeditious way to get this tool into the hands of all the permit holders who want to use it.”
She concluded, “It’s incumbent on us to … get these provisions in place. I do think this is the best way to do it.”
Sector definition
Although the sector committee originally developed two “working” definitions of a sector, it adopted a single definition in the end that was supported by the full council.
Under the new guidelines, a sector is defined as “a group of persons holding limited-access vessel permits who have voluntarily entered into a contract and agree to certain fishing restrictions for a specified period of time, and which has been granted a total allowable catch (TAC) or TACs in order to achieve objectives consistent with applicable FMP goals and objectives.”
The new guidelines also require that sectors adopt annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AM), both of which will soon be mandatory as a result of the recent reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
The policy further includes details on how sectors will have to deal with TAC overages, discards, and the fulfillment of TACs, and it stipulates that permit holders can only participate in one sector at a time.
Baseline
In what some consider to be the most fundamental piece of guidance, the policy stipulates that each FMP “must identify a single, fixed, and permanent baseline for the purpose of sector allocations.”
That means the groundfish committee, for example, will need to set a common baseline that all sectors will use to determine catch history, whether that be 1996 through 2001 or 2002 through 2007 or some other fixed period.
Massachusetts council member David Pierce said, “That’s critical. I’m glad the committee took that position. We all need to work off the same baselines.”
However, the sector committee acknowledged that a species FMP might require an exception to the “single” baseline rule. It cited herring as one example. Fishing histories will be far different in Area 1A, the inshore Gulf of Maine, which has supported a traditional herring fishery through time, vs. Area 3 on Georges Bank, where the fishery only redeveloped in a significant way in recent years.
Committee work
The sector committee, with concurrence from the full council, left numerous complex issues to the species committees, including the ability to set geographic area limitations on sectors.
The new guidelines stipulate that species committees, while overseeing sector proposals, must “consider bycatch in other fisheries, effort displacement, the impact on the common pool (non-sector vessels), and any other relevant factors when allocating TAC.”
The guidelines contain numerous details. Anyone interested in forming a sector or joining one that’s currently being formed might want to get a copy of the document from the council office and closely follow developments within the species committees.
The council office phone number is (978) 465-0492, or visit the council’s web site at <www.nefmc.org>. Anyone with questions can ask for Phil Haring, the sector committee’s coordinator, who can be reached at the number above or by e-mail at <pharing@nefmc.org>.
Industry reaction
Hundreds of fishermen have expressed interest in joining or forming sectors, as evidenced by the 19 sector applications currently before the groundfish committee (see story page 12A). Scallop, herring, and red crab fishermen also have expressed interest in forming sectors.
Glen Libby of the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association in Port Clyde, ME said, “I’m in favor of having sectors. It looks to me like it gives us a chance to take our little bit of quota with our 10 boats and manage it ourselves.”
However, scallop vessel owner Harriet Didriksen of New Bedford wasn’t swayed at all.
“I’ve said it before. It’s an ITQ,” she said. “We’re talking about a resource that belongs to everyone.”
Janice M. Plante
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