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 36 Number 12
August 2009
Common pool: 24-hr clock, 50% cut in days
PORTLAND, ME – Few are pretending that sector fishing will be a panacea, but the cold reality of what it will be like to fish within the common pool under Amendment 16 is now soberingly clear.
Category A-days-at-sea will be cut by 50% from Framework 42 allocations, resulting in an overall A-day vs. B-day split of 27.5%-to-72.5%. Differential counting will be eliminated at the outset, but it might be reinstated in 2011 as an accountability measure (AM) if annual catch limits (ACLs) are exceeded.
Common pool fishermen will work under a 24-hour clock, which, by itself, is a dramatic change for inshore, day-boat fishermen who sometimes have been squeezing in three short trips in a 24-hour day.
The Amendment 16 draft document starkly explained the clock provision this way: Six hours will be counted as one day-at-sea, 25 hours will be counted as two days-at-sea.
Furthermore, common pool fishermen will have to work around two “restricted gear areas” (RGAs) – the Western Georges Bank RGA and the Southern New England RGA – designed to provide extra protection for flatfish stocks.
Common pool fishermen will be able to fish within the RGAs only with a haddock separator trawl, the Ruhle “eliminator” trawl, a rope trawl, stand-up gillnets of regulated mesh, tie-down gillnets of 10" mesh or greater, longlines, tub trawls, and/or handgear.
The New England Fishery Management Council, which made these and many other Amendment 16 decisions on June 24 and 25, did not immediately authorize the use of a five-point trawl, a raised-footrope trawl, or tie-down sink gillnets with mesh of less than 10" for RGAs. Instead, the council said these and other gears would need to go through the standard new-gear vetting and approval process.
Trip limits
The final common pool alternative selected by the council went out to public hearing as Option 3A and included the following trip limits:
Gulf of Maine cod – 2,000 pounds per day up to 12,000 pound per trip, a bright spot for inshore fishermen who hope to keep more of the cod they catch than under the existing 800-pound limit;
Georges Bank cod – 20,000 pounds per trip except for the Eastern US/Canada Management Area, where the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regional administrator will set the trip limit at the beginning of the fishing year based on the US share of that quota;
Handgear A permit cod – 750 pounds per trip;
Handgear B permit cod – 200 pounds per trip;
Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder – 250 pounds per day up to 1,500 pounds per trip;
Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder – 250 pounds per day up to 1,500 pounds per trip;
Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder – all landings prohibited;
Windowpane flounder – all landings prohibited;
Atlantic wolffish – all landings prohibited;
Ocean pout – all landings prohibited; and
Atlantic halibut – one fish per trip with a minimum size of 41".
Hard TAC coming
Like sectors, the common pool will be held to hard TACs, but not until 2012. The council will use hard TACs as its primary AM – accountability measure – to ensure that common pool fishermen don’t exceed ACLs, which are those annual catch limits now required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).
The council was split over whether to impose hard TACs on nonsector fishermen, but a suggestion to use a phased-in approach eventually swayed all but one member.
Until hard TACs come into play, the council approved the use of differential counting as the common pool AM. Toward the end of the 2010 fishing year, NMFS will estimate whether the common pool has exceeded – or is expected to exceed – its ACLs and, if so, the agency will calculate the “differential days-at-sea rate change” needed to prevent ACLs from being exceeded the following year. Appropriate days-at-sea adjustments then will be implemented for the 2011 fishing year, and this likely will occur again in 2012.
Also in 2012, hard TACs will become the primary AM from then on, and common pool fishermen, like those in sectors, will be subject to 20% “random” dockside monitoring.
TAC concerns
All of the options for common pool fishermen under Amendment 16 appeared to be devastating, so, despite some pockets of ferocious opposition to the 24-hour clock, the council’s decision to go with 3A seemed largely to be met with grim resignation.
But the idea of keeping the common pool in check through a hard TAC deeply divided the council and audience.
“Days-at-sea with trip limits and a hard TAC is going to be a death sentence for the common pool,” said New Hampshire council member Mike Leary.
Massachusetts council member Jim Fair added, “I think the effect of this will be to create one giant sector with no manager.”
Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition said the coalition opposed a hard TAC for the common pool.
Many fishermen bought groundfish permits to build up their pot of A-days, said Giacalone. At the time, it didn’t matter whether the permit had a sizable catch history or not. Now, catch history is the key to gaining quota in a sector.
“A lot of people in the fishery don’t have the rich catch history that’s desirable,” said Giacalone. “They’re not going to be wanted in sectors. Some folks will be in the common pool because they have no choice.”
Maine council member Mary Beth Tooley recounted her experience with hard TACs in the herring fishery. Without an accompanying catch share program, a hard TAC has led to a rush to fish in Area 1A before the quota gets filled and has created bait shortages and market problems.
“I would never vote to implement that kind of management on anyone else,” she said. “This would put people right off the water right off the bat.”
TAC support
Numerous people strongly supported hard TACs for the common pool.
Roger Fleming of Earthjustice said his organization spent a long time analyzing the common pool options and measuring them against the new MSA requirements for annual catch limits and accountability measures.
“We’ve concluded that the hard TAC backstop is the only alternative that meets legal requirements,” he said.
Fleming said the groundfish committee’s recommendation to adjust days-at-sea in the following fishing year if ACLs were exceeded didn’t pass muster.
“It doesn’t establish a limit,” he said. “It doesn’t make people stop. This would be equivalent to letting people overdraw their bank accounts.”
Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation also supported hard TACs, especially since sectors would be working under them.
“You need to put in hard TACs for the common pool so there are equivalent AMs for all people who will be trying to make a living in this fishery,” he said.
Glen Libby of the Port Clyde sector in Maine said sector fishermen had a meeting specifically to discuss this issue.
“Our guys decided a hard TAC on the common pool might be a way to stop potential impacts on sectors in the future,” he said.
His brother Gary Libby, also a Port Clyde sector member, added, “If we’re moving to TAC fisheries, we should move to TACs for everyone. It’s a fairness issue.”
Choice given
Massachusetts council member Rodney Avila expressed concern that a hard TAC went counter to how the council presented Amendment 16 to the public.
“We told people they could choose sectors with hard TACs or stay with what they’ve got in the common pool,” he said.
“If you’re going to impose a hard TAC on the common pool, I think you need to go back and let those people join sectors,” Avila said. “I don’t think its fair or equal when we change the rules in the last inning of the ball game. If we go along and prove sectors are good, then maybe people will want to choose sectors in the future, but right now, they’re confused. And we’re forcing this down their throats.”
New Hampshire council member Doug Grout also didn’t see the need to immediately impose a hard TAC on the common pool.
“I look at this amendment as a transition from days-at-sea to sector management,” he said. “I want to give the industry the opportunity to be in the common pool with an accountability measure. (Differential) days are OK as an AM. I’m comfortable with that right now.”
Living with TACs
Warren Doty of the Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association said fishermen on the Vineyard supported a hard TAC for the common pool. Many of the species they currently catch, such as summer flounder and squid, are already under hard TACs.
“We work with hard TACs. We live within the limits. We fish in a reasonable way,” Doty said. “Now we’re buying into a sector with hard TACs. Hard TACs can be managed in a way that’s reasonable. Once you adjust to it, you can make it work. We did. I think hard TACs are the future.”
Jeff Kaelin, representing Lund’s Fisheries Inc. of Cape May, NJ and the Garden State Seafood Association, supported the use of differential days-at-sea counting as the AM instead of hard TACs.
But, he added, “If a hard TAC is imposed on the common pool, then I hope the opening of closed areas and rolling closures would not be restricted to sector vessels.”
Gloucester fisherman Dave Marciano echoed that point.
“As you phase in hard TACs, you need to phase out the rolling closures and days-at-sea,” he said. “We need to gain access to healthy stocks.”
Final vote
The council did not act to ease up on rolling closures for common pool fishermen, but the council became increasingly comfortable with the idea of phasing in a hard TAC for the common pool, as long as the industry had a couple of years to adjust to the measure.
Even Avila relented.
“If this is a phase-in, OK,” he said. “My whole heartburn was that we didn’t let people know.”
The motion, following eight attempted perfections and modifications, passed 16-to-1. Beginning in 2012, the common pool will be subject to hard TACs and 20% random dockside monitoring.
Janice M. Plante
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
