NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - August 29, 2010 - Sectors are a form of catch share management under which the catch allocations for the sector boats aren't issued directly to the permit-carrying boats. Rather, they go to the sector, where they are pooled together. This is significant in that the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires a referendum to approve a system of individual quotas, which federal officials avoided through this new hybrid arrangement.

The Standard-Times is a Dow Jones Local Media Group paper.

The series found that:

- The majority of New Bedford draggers have yet to put a net in the water.

- Of the 99 boats locally that enrolled in "sectors," only 31 are fishing.

- Local businesses report declines in business of up to 50%.

- Many fishermen believe their economic woes are not a result of sectors or any particular management system but from catch limits that they believe are set artificially low

- More than six weeks after U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke  increased the catch limit on pollock sixfold some fishermen are still waiting to receive official notification from the National Marine Fisheries Service and are still confined to the levels allowed under the old catch limit.


Read the Saving Seafood summary of the investigation and visit the Standard-Times for the complete analysis.