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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 12
August 2010
Monkfish:
Sector, IFQ, catch share debate to begin
PORTLAND, ME – With eyes wide open and hoping to borrow some “lessons learned” from the groundfish experience, the New England Fishery Management Council is preparing to launch an extensive outreach and education program to gather industry ideas about potential catch share programs for the monkfish fishery.
Catch share alternatives, such as sectors, individual fishing quotas (IFQs), and/or individual transferable quotas (ITQs), were initially intended to be part of monkfish Amendment 5 (see story next page for Amendment 5 details).
“There was considerable support from the monkfish advisory panel to move in that direction,” said Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine, who chairs the advisory panel.
But the council worried that fishermen outside of the panel were less aware of the effort, and then Amendment 5 became time-sensitive because it contained 2011-2013 quota levels.
So, the council removed the catch share section from Amendment 5 and agreed to develop Amendment 6, which it said would be dedicated to catch share proposals. The council also said that following the completion of Amendment 5, Amendment 6 would become a 2010 workload priority.
Collaborative effort
The New England council has the lead on monkfish, but the fishery is jointly managed with the Mid-Atlantic council. According to monkfish committee Chairman Terry Stockwell of Maine, the New England council intends to ensure that Amendment 6 ends up being “a real collaboration with the Mid-Atlantic council and with industry.”
New England council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts, Executive Director Paul Howard, and Stockwell were planning to attend the Mid-Atlantic council’s Aug. 17-19 meeting in Philadelphia to further discuss outreach efforts with their counterparts.
Participation by Mid-Atlantic fishermen and fishery managers will be fundamental to the success of any potential catch share program, said Stockwell, because some of the biggest monkfish landing ports are located in the Mid-Atlantic.
Barnegat Light, NJ, Chincoteague, VA, and Montauk, NY top the list, but other important Mid-Atlantic monkfish ports include Cape May and Belford, NJ, Ocean City, MD, the Virginia ports of Newport News and Seaford, and Wanchese, NC.
New Bedford, Gloucester, Boston, and Chatham, MA, as well as Portland, ME and Point Judith and Little Compton, RI, are all big monkfish ports in New England, but other contributors include Portsmouth, NH, Scituate, MA, and Stonington, CT.
“We need to satisfy two different regions that really have two different fisheries,” said Stockwell, referring to the differences in fishing practices, quotas, trip limits, and days-at-sea levels between the northern and southern monkfish fishery management areas (see chart next page).
“This will have to be a very deliberate process, and we really need to solicit feedback from the industry,” he said. “We want to make this a real bottom-up effort.”
Fall meetings
The joint monkfish management committee includes members from both the New England and Mid-Atlantic councils, and just over half of the 13 members are new to the monkfish committee this year.
Stockwell said he and council staffers intend to do some initial outreach with the committee itself and the monkfish advisory panel to be sure everyone is fully up to speed with the monkfish plan, Amendment 5, and the purpose of Amendment 6.
He also said that committee members and industry advisers would be asked to help host the industry-wide outreach meetings this fall. The meetings will be held in locations from Portland to Cape Hatteras and possibly will be staged in nine or so major ports.
Advisory panel Chair Maggie Raymond said she thought the meetings would be helpful and make the development of potential programs more inclusive.
“The monkfish committee chairman’s outreach plan for Amendment 6 is intended to broaden stakeholder involvement in the monkfish catch share development process,” she said.
Janice M. Plante
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