Each week, WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosts the Saving Seafood Hour on "Morning Magazine with Phil Paleologos."
Each week, WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosts the Saving Seafood Hour on "Morning Magazine with Phil Paleologos."
Mayor Scott Lang, who locked arms with Congressman Barney Frank and Gov. Deval Patrick last month in a political Phalanx that convinced federal officials to liberate an additional $40 million in the allowable scallop catch, has set up a meeting of fishery stakeholders to jump-start the problem-solving process.
Lang told his Ocean and Fisheries Council, a regional assembly of fishing interests, Monday that he would schedule a meeting with invitees — including agents of environmental groups — in March, 30 days ahead of the next meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council.
"We'll do what the government is supposed to be doing," said Lang, "(and) present our findings to the government so that they will say, 'Why didn't we think of that?'"
The New England management council, an arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service, next meets April 27-29, in Mystic, Conn.
NOAA Fisheries Service (NMFS) has issued a document describing how they are spending Federal dollars in support of catch shares. The text follows:
NOAA Fisheries Service strongly supports sector management. To assist with the change to what will be a new management system for many, we are providing financial support, training and technical assistance to the fishing industry. Here are some of our efforts to date:
– Financed the preparation of each sector’s National Environmental Policy Act documents through 2011. ($1.0m)
– Fully funded sector costs for dockside monitoring in 2010. ($1.2m)
-Provided funding for sector start up and operating costs. ($720k)
– Supported cooperative research focusing on conservation engineering in 2009 and 2010. ($12.0m)
– Funded at-sea monitoring for sectors and observer coverage for the entire multispecies fishery. ($12.7m)
– Funded electronic monitoring pilot project to test and define video and sensor data collection methodologies for sector fisheries. ($920k)
Additional funds will be allocated to support sectors, but we are finalizing details as to exactly how funds will be spent. For more information on multispecies sector management please visit our website:
http://www.nero.noaa.gov/sfd/sfdmultisector.html
NOAA Fisheries Service's Northeast Regional Administrator reviewed the New England Fishery Management Council's request for temporary emergency rulemaking to implement an increase in the 2010 black sea bass quota. Through this action we will help prevent significant direct economic loss for fishery participants and associated industries that would be subject to lower commercial and recreational harvest levels. An additional amount of black sea bass landings will also be able to be set aside for research activities.
Through this temporary emergency rule, NOAA increases the 2010 black sea bass
total allowable catch from 2.71 million lb to 4.5 million lb. After deducting discards, the total allowable landings will increase from 2.3 million lb to 3.7 million lb.
To view the emergency rule as filed in the federal register today, please visit the NOAA website.
NEW BEDFORD — The impending "sector" system of regulating fishing will be a disaster by midyear, according to fishing industry representatives at Monday's meeting of the Mayor's Ocean and Fisheries Council.
Sectors, in which boats are grouped together by category to decide for themselves how to manage their licensed allocations, work on a hair trigger. If one boat in the sector lands the sector's entire quota of one species, say pollock, the entire sector must stop all fishing for the year unless it can purchase another pollock license.
There was great concern that opportunistic members of a sector could grab everyone's share of a species and put them out of business without a method of holding them accountable.
Vito Giacalone of Northeast Seafood said another problem with sector management, which begins May 1, is that the computers and management software aren't ready and that the sectors will have to file weekly catch reports with government regulators the old-fashioned way: with pen and paper.
Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]
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NOAA Fisheries Service and the State of Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) today announced a pilot program to obtain fishing vessel permits and then lease the access rights associated with the permits to small-scale fishermen in rural fishing ports in Maine. NOAA is providing at least $1 million to support this effort, which the DMR will administer. Read the complete story at NOAA News.
Glen Libby said Jan. 28 that there was extensive debate about scallop regulation at the January meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council. Libby serves on the council.
Libby said he was concerned about the precedent set by the reversal, and he voted against the change.
"The much advertised loss of income in the press and from Capitol Hill was somewhat misleading," Libby said. "It was calculated using a simple deduction of days at sea from [2009], using that multiplier based on last year's income to extrapolate a figure of loss. In reality the fleet was expected to go well over this number and the loss would most likely have been considerably less than advertised."
Libby said the new catch rate of 24 percent still represented a reduction in both days at sea and closed area trips.
"The industry did accept a cutback, just not the one originally settled on," he said. "It should also be noted that the scallop industry has become very proactive when it comes to preserving the resource; they deserve credit for this."
A landmark deal between the groundfishing and scallop industries is being seen as proof that the so-called "catch share" system proposed by the Obama administration can work for the overall fishing industry.
The deal does offer evidence that it can work. But it is important to take note of why the deal got made in the first place: It made sense only after the New England Fishery Management Council reversed itself last week and voted for a more reasonable limit on the taking of scallops for the coming year.
And that only happened because of enormous pressure from political leaders, ranging from Congressman Barney Frank to Gov. Deval Patrick.
The agreement calls for the groundfishermen to give about 200,000 pounds of their yellowtail flounder allocation to the scallopers, in exchange for financial consideration that has not yet been determined.
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) will host an educational workshop March 16-18, 2010 on "catch shares."
The workshop will be conducted in cooperation with the Fisheries Leadership and Sustainability Forum, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Participants will include MAFMC members, MAFMC staff, MAFMC Advisory Panel representatives, ASMFC representatives, MAFMC Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) representatives, as well as leadership from the New England Fishery Management Council, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, and NMFS. As with all MAFMC meetings, the workshop will be open to the public and there will be several opportunities for public comment.
The term “catch share” encompasses a broad spectrum of fishery management systems that share a common approach: allocating a portion of a scientifically determined catch limit to a discrete set of users (i.e. individuals, groups, or communities). The MAFMC adopted the first catch share programs in the United States when it implemented an ITQ (individual transferable quota) program for the surfclam and ocean quahog fisheries in 1990. The MAFMC also recently (2009) implemented a catch share system for tilefish (IFQ – individual fishing quota).
Each week, WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosts the Saving Seafood Hour on "Morning Magazine with Phil Paleologos."
February 4, 2010: Congressman Barney Frank joins hosts Phil Paleologos and Bob Vanasse on WBSM's Saving Seafood hour to discuss upcoming hearings on the Inspector General's report, the NEFMC's reversal of its scallop decision, Dr. Lubchenco's recent response to his October letter, and concerns about the scheduled transition to Catch Share regulation of the groundfishery via sectors.