Management & Regulation

It is now clear that when President Obama talks about creating or saving jobs, he is not talking about those of this region's fishermen.

Obama's choice to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, has demonstrated since her appointment in early 2009 that her goal is the opposite — to destroy fishermen's jobs. Earlier this month, the Obama administration formalized its support for the national implementation of the so-called "catch share" policy that Lubchenco has said she hopes would reduce the Massachusetts fishing fleet by a "sizable fraction."

Indeed, that is what catch shares have done in most of the two dozen American fisheries where it is already in place. Instead of spreading the wealth, it consolidates it into the hands of fewer, larger players. The system encourages fishermen to sell or trade their shares of a catch limit to other fishermen or to outside corporations or investors and makes a mockery of the administration's mantra of standing up for the middle class.

And according to a number of marine scientists, it doesn't do that much for the conservation of the resource — which is presumably the prime purpose of regulation.

Read the complete editorial from The Salem News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, December 16, 2010
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Urban Forestry Center
45 Elwyn Road., Portsmouth, NH 03801 There are several pressing decisions on the horizon related to river herring management in the Gulf of Maine:

    • implementation of Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Shad and River Herring of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
    • development of Amendment 5 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan of the New England Fishery Management Council
    • the Adaptive Management Plan for Alewife in the St. Croix River of the International Joint Commission of Canada and the United States; and
    • initiation of Amendment 14 to the Atlantic Mackerel Fishery Management Plan of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

This roundtable will provide an update on each of these developments and discuss the dove-tailing of these different management actions as they relate to river herring.

Speakers:

    • Jamie Cournane, University of New Hampshire/Environmental Defense Fund
    • Jake Kritzer, Environmental Defense Fund
    • Terry Stockwell and Joan Trial, Maine Department of Marine Resources

For more information contact:
Rachel Feeney, Northeast Consortium
603-862-2276, rachel.feeney@unh.edu
The Portsmouth Public Library is handicap accessible. Light refreshments will be served.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the founding of North Carolina, it has been accepted as fact that if you work hard, if you persevere, if you are determined, and if you are lucky, you can be a fisherman.  You can own your boat. You can be your own boss. You can feed your family and the larger community. And you can put smiles on the faces and adventurous memories in the minds of countless charter customers who you help experience the wonder and mysteries of our waters.

The only apparent problem with this scenario of being independent, of being a self reliant contributor to society, of providing a service for others is that you do not necessarily get rich.  The fishermen do not seem to find this to be a problem, but an alleged environmental group called the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) does.

 That’s right, even though its employees do not live here or fish for a living, this group has decided that North Carolina’s fishing communities need to be fixed.  Or, in their words, they need to be “more vibrant.”  

EDF has published an endless stream of slick brochures and publications, held numerous conferences, and attempted to enlist numerous fishermen in an attempt to explain how society — make that the government  — can implement a plan that will “create vibrant fishing communities”.  

The plan is called catch shares.  If you eat fish or like to catch fish, catch shares will affect you.  

The Environmental Defense Fund has been the driving force behind this concept. The group has spent thousands and thousands of dollars promoting this concept.  (In the name of full disclosure, I went to Vancouver, B.C., on EDF’s dime to learn about it.) 

Catch shares are here.  They are, as you read this, being implemented by NOAA through the National Marine Fisheries Service. The goal is to reduce the number of working watermen in the United States by more than 60 percent.  The propaganda “informs” fishermen that the ones left standing, after their neighbors are economically destroyed, will be able to get rich and somehow fishing towns and villages will then “be vibrant.”

Welcome to catch shares.  They are designed to kill off the fishermen.  The infrastructure will then die and then somehow, according to the slick brochures produced by EDF and edited by the finest legal minds they can hire, fewer fishing boats and fewer fishermen will result in “vibrant fishing communities.”

Just what is a catch share?  A catch share is an exclusive guarantee that whoever holds the catch share has the exclusive right to harvest a certain percentage of the total allowable catch of a particular species of marine life.  That’s a mouthful, and you read it correctly.  

It does not grant the right to catch a certain number of fish each year.  How many fish can be caught is a number that National Marine Fisheries Service already determines and has imposed on fishermen for years. So if catch shares is not about saving fish, since we already have that scientific process in place, you may be wondering just what the purpose is.

The catch share program is not about how many fish can be caught.  Catch shares is only about who gets to catch fish.  Catch shares can be bought, they can be sold, and they can be leased or traded.  

So the logical question is what is the conservation advantage of catch shares?  The answer is that there is no conservation advantage.  Catch shares policy is about taking the right to fish away from the masses, from those individuals who want to become fishermen for a lifetime or for a day, and giving that right to harvest fish to a select few.  Catch shares is designed to privatize the ocean.  As a free American citizen, you might want to think about that one for awhile.

Who will get catch shares? Basically, it will be those with the best past history of landings.  That’s right — those who have caught the most in the past will be selected to keep on fishing — in the name of conservation and, of course, “vibrant fishing communities.”

Read the complete commentary from The Island Free Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang joins Bob & Phil to discuss his request, joined by Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, to the Commerce Department Inspector General asking that the fisheries rule-making process be reviewed to include the activities of NOAA and NMFS.  The mayor also discussed the Standard-Times Fishery Forum and his conversation at the event with NMFS director Eric Schwaab.

[click here and listen now]

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — November 9, 2010 — The frustration was palpable as fishermen and fishing advocates lamented industry rules that many at a forum Tuesday night said were regulating livelihoods out of existence.

During the forum at the Fairfield Inn, fishermen peppered National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials and an environmental activist with pointed questions regarding the logic behind a new management system known as "catch shares" that came into effect May 1.

The tense atmosphere was at times punctuated by shouts, boos and claps. The forum, sponsored by The Standard-Times, drew a standing-room-only crowd of a couple hundred.

Julie Wormser, the Environmental Defense Fund's New England and Mid-Atlantic regional director for the oceans program, said catch shares are "very designable" and that fishermen "are no longer racing against the clock."

Wormser said she believed there were "compatible values" that both fishermen and environmental activists shared. She spoke of catch shares presenting an opportunity to "shift control from the authorities to fishermen."

But many suggested the new system is a disaster that is not grounded in solid economics or science and was crafted with no input from the people whose livelihoods are at stake.

Of the present sector management set-up, authorities should "scrap it, fix it right and do it over again," said Fisherman Stephen Welch.

Fishermen faced two choices, neither desirable, before the new system took hold, said Richie Canastra, co-owner of the New Bedford and Boston Seafood Display Auctions. Under the previous system, allocations were so tight they spelled doom, he said. The other option was catch shares.

"The implementation of catch shares in New England was about as voluntary as Stalin's collective farms," said Canastra. "You didn't have to join one voluntarily, but the other option was Siberia."  

Read the complete story from the Standard Times.            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                     

NOAA Fisheries has issued the following Small Entity Compliance Guide for Atlantic Herring Fishery.

November 10, 2010 – Effective 0001 hours November 15, through 0001 hours November 17, 2010, the 2,000-lb herring trip limit for the Atlantic herring fishery in Management Area 1A will be removed.

Most recent catch data indicate the quota threshold of 25,219 mt in Area 1A has not been fully attained. Therefore, federally permitted herring vessels will be allowed to fish for, possess, or land herring in excess of 2,000 lb, consistent with their Atlantic herring vessel permit categories, from 0001 hours November 15, 2010, through 0001 hours November 17, 2010.

Please note that vessels may not fish for, possess, or land over 2,000 lb of herring before 0001 hours November 15, 2010.

After 0001 hours November 17, 2010, vessels may not fish for, catch, possess, or land more than 2,000 lb of Atlantic herring, per trip or calendar day, in or from Area 1A, through 2400 hours, December 31, 2010. Vessels may transit Area 1A with more than 2,000 lb of herring on board, provided such herring were not caught in Area 1A, and provided all fishing gear is stowed and not available for immediate use, as required by 50 CFR 648.23(b).

Dealers issued Federal dealer permits for Atlantic herring are also advised that they may purchase over 2,000 lb of Atlantic herring harvested in Management Area 1A from federally permitted vessels from 0001 hours, November 15, 2010, through 0001 hours, November 17, 2010. Effective November 17, 2010, dealers may not purchase herring from federally permitted Atlantic herring vessels that harvest more than 2,000 lb (907.2 kg) of Atlantic herring from Area 1A, through 2400 hrs local time, December 31, 2010.

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn't made a secret of its preference for catch shares as a management tool for the nation's fisheries. And Friday, the agency, which is headed by marine biologist and fishing quota proponent Jane Lubchenco, released a formal policy that pushes catch shares as the primary management tool for America's commercial fisheries.

Catch shares, as detailed in Matt Jenkins' article "The Most Cooked Up Catch," are a little like cap and trade for the ocean. Managers set a total number of fish to be caught, then divide that number up into shares. Those shares can be bought and sold, or even temporarily leased, among fishermen in an area. The total number set is determined by the best available science and is supposed to be a sustainable level of catch for the fishery. For many fishermen, the new quotas will likely be lower than they're used to harvesting.

Read the complete story from High Country News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — The scallop industry is chafing under regulations that prohibit fishermen from harvesting scallop stocks on parts of Georges Bank that, the industry maintains, have actually become overabundant.

"There's two areas with a lot of older scallops where we haven't been able to fish for the last 15-plus years," said Drew Minkiewicz, a Washington D.C.-based lawyer with the Fisheries Survival Fund, an industry group representing scallop fishermen from Maine to Virginia.

"There's 30 million scallops up on the Northern Edge, according to the latest SMAST estimate, and we're not getting access to those," Minkiewicz said.

The Northern Edge, officially known as Closed Area II, is that portion of Georges Bank bordering the line separating U.S. and Canadian waters and has been closed since 1994, according to Minkiewicz.

Read the complete story from The South Coast Today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Obama administration Thursday formalized its commitment to a national "catch share policy" — a system already drawing fire from fishermen, and one which NOAA's chief administrator has said will bring a significant new reduction in the size of the fleet.

"I'm really encouraged by this new policy because it's about supporting regionally designed solutions for fisheries," said Amanda Leland, EDF's national oceans policy director. "The policy focuses on providing the technical support and policy guidance needed to make catch shares successful for those who wish to pursue catch shares."

Other environmental non-government organization see catch shares as a powerful destructive force.

"Such programs have done little to encourage sustainable fishing practices or stop fish populations from becoming depleted and in some cases have actually worsened these programs," wrote Food and Water Watch in a global study released in September. "Smaller historic fishermen are continually being forced out of fishing, and wages have plummeted for those able to find work.

"There has been a notable lack of analysis of the impacts of catch share programs on communities and a lack of effort to integrate fair transition policies to help communities handle fallout from some of these programs when capacity becomes consolidated," said Megan Mackey, a fishing policy associate at Ecotrust, a West Coast environmental group that studied catch shares in British Columbia and across the United States.

Last month, Schwaab's announcement of NOAA intentions to expand catch shares into the recreational sector drew howls.

"Mr. Schwaab has disregarded congressional testimony from real anglers and commercial fishermen who are opposed to any type of privatization scheme," said Jim Hutchinson, managing director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance.

"When you read this release and see how Mr. Schwaab is promoting catch shares through a $2.2 million funding initiative supported by Wal-Mart and Intel Corporation," he said, "it's hard to think how anyone in our recreational fishing industry can be anything other than outraged at this announcement."

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New England Fishery Management Council is seeking one new member representing the SNE area to the Groundfish Advisory Panel and one new member representing industry for the Enforcement Advisory Panel. Members will serve for the next three-year term (ending in 2013).

Advisory Panels will consist of individuals who either fish or are knowledgeable and interested in the conservation and management of a fishery or group of fisheries under Council management. To the extent possible, the panels will reflect a range of expertise and interests, geographic areas, user groups and social and economic interests.

The Council is interested in further balancing the existing Groundfish and Enforcement Advisory Panels with an individual with a range of expertise and interests, geographic areas, user groups and social and economic interests. Therefore, individuals from the SNE area are encouraged to apply to the Groundfish Advisory Panel and members from industry are encouraged to apply to the Enforcement Advisory Panel.

The Council’s Executive Committee, with input from the Oversight Committees, will review all applications and appointments will be made at the discretion of the Council Chairman.

If you are interested in serving as a member on one of these Council's Advisory Panels, please submit an application to the Council office. An application is attached to this email or you can obtain one by contacting the Council office at 978/465-0492 or online at www.nefmc.org.

The due date for applications is Friday, November 26, 2010 – 5:00 PM.

Click here for the application.