Management & Regulation

Below is a list of draft motions and minutes of the November New England Fisheries Management Council meetings, held in Newport, RI, from November 17-19, 2009.
See a list of all the draft motions here [.pdf]

At its November meeting, the Council received a report from its SSC concerning final herring ABC advice, addressed management priorities for next year and made decisions related to fishery management plan measures for Atlantic herring, sea scallops, groundfish, monkfish, red crab and dogfish.

See the entire council report here.

The national debate over fishermen’s catch shares is about to begin in earnest.

A draft policy created by a special task force for Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is scheduled for release and three months of public comment on Dec. 10, NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen said yesterday.

Lubchenco has made $18.6 million available for the development of catch share fishing cooperatives in New England, but according to Monica Medina, who chairs the task force, no national funding commitment from Congress has been obtained.

The original date for release of the policy was October, but Medina sought and was given an extension by Lubchenco.

Gulf Coast governors recently wrote to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Lubchenco’s boss, objecting to the "direction and rapidity" of the movement to implement catch shares in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pew Environment Group organized two national teleconferences last month to urge the administration to move cautiously toward commodifying the ocean’s stocks.

A peaceful mass protest against the rush to catch shares was mounted in Gloucester — in the parking lot of the regional offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service — in late October. The demonstration drew more than 200 fishermen from as far away as northern Maine and Montauk, Long Island.

Meanwhile, Congressman Barney Frank, who represents New Bedford, has written to Lubchenco with concerns that conservative allocations could undercut the catch share roll out set to begin next May for part of the ground-fishing fleet.

Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Bob Riley of Alabama wrote "Our concerns center on the potential negative impacts catch share programs could have on our states’ economies, as well as how such programs could restrict citizens’ access to fisheries resources that should be shared by all." The governors cited "negative impacts" from the red snapper catch share system, and said they are "concerned about negative impact from the pending program for Gulf grouper. Creating an exclusive harvesting right for a small group of commercial fishermen inherently marginalizes other users who do not have the same access privileges."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times. 

Fishermen are projecting that this city’s booming sea scallop industry will take a 25 percent revenue hit in 2010 due to proposed cuts in the scallop harvest.

Regional fisheries regulators recently voted in favor of the cuts, which they argue are necessary to ensure that scallop stocks remain at sustainable levels and do not become subject to overfishing.

The New England Fishery Management Council chose a conservative method for calculating the sustainable level of scallop harvest for the 2010 fishing season, which begins March 1. As a result, fishermen will be allowed to harvest about 16 percent of commercially sized scallops.

With recent surveys showing the scallop stock is in good condition, fishermen say they should be allowed to harvest more of the shellfish.

With recent surveys showing the scallop stock is in good condition, fishermen say they should be allowed to harvest more of the shellfish.

"The council is taking a very, very conservative approach, and we don’t feel that it is justified," said Roy Enoksen, president of Eastern Fisheries Inc., a New Bedford company that operates the largest fleet in the industry with 23 scallopers.

"I think everyone in the industry would go along with this if they thought it was in the least bit necessary to preserve the stock," Enoksen said. "But we have a resource that is completely rebuilt and in very good shape."

The proposed cuts, which need final approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service, would do two things. First, they would reduce by one the number of scallop trips allowed into so-called access areas, or areas of the ocean that regulators periodically close to fishing so that scallop stocks can rebuild. In 2009, scallopers were granted five access area trips. The new rules would allow four such trips in 2010.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

How does the mind deceive us! Let me count some of its infinite ways.

It was a painter, Goya, who pinpointed the problem. He saw that "Dreams of reason produce monsters."

And it was my father who gave me the key to unlock some of the related mysteries. He offered this rule: "Every excess is a defect."

Private property is a very good thing. It was Saint Thomas Aquinas who made an exhaustive and convincing list of the benefits of private property. Very little has been added to that list — except an error.

The error consists in believing that the benefits of private property extend without limits, even to cover the privatization of common property.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Capt. Frank Mirarchi, of the  F/V Barbara L. Peters, in Scituate, Mass. wrote to Seafood News, http://www.seafoodnews.com

It is truly sad and ironic that, at a time when New England standsready to embark on a catch shares management program that has thepotential to unleash the productive potential which once made ourfisheries legends, blind adherence to arbitrary targets and deadlinesthreatens this opportunity with economic catastrophe. Reading your 11/24 news analysis column (NE Council takes firsttentative step to rescue catch share program) provides a glimmer ofhope that reason and long term vision may still exist in theinterstices of our otherwise bureaucratized and myopic managementsystem. It is truly sad and ironic that, at a time when New Englandstands ready to embark on a catch shares management program that hasthe potential to unleash the productive potential which once made ourfisheries legends, blind adherence to arbitrary targets and deadlinesthreatens this opportunity with economic catastrophe.

In 48 years of fishing in the Gulf of Maine, I have personallywitnessed bounteous catches dwindle to a pittance in the early 1990’s;then dramatically rebound as the cumulative effects of days at seareductions, area closures and a myriad of additional input controlsreduced fishing effort to a fraction of recent levels. Concomitantly,regulatory discards surged from nearly insignificant levels to anestimated 50% of our catch even as profits withered under a siege ofefficiency stifling rules.

Fishermen in our communities are astounded by the paradox of abundantcatches while they struggle to maintain their businesses. Untilrecently we looked forward to the advent of fishing sectors as arational way to balance the need for conservation with the opportunityfor more autonomy in business decisions. Then the intractableinflexibility of which you write in the context of scallop managementarrived at our doorstep.

First the NMFS data base of landings history, which serves as the basisfor initial sector allocations, proved to be deeply flawed, riddledwith errors and missing substantial components of individual’shistories. Then, when afforded the opportunity to correct theseomissions, fishermen were told that they would not receive allocationsfrom the corrected histories until 2011, leaving them to subsist for afull year on the results of somebody else’s mistake!

Then, as the Council developed the Annual Catch Limits newly requiredby the 2006 Magnuson Stevens Re authorization Act, the harm done to thestock assessment process by largely unmonitored regulatory discardingbecame manifest. Increasingly assessment models have begun to exhibitretrospective patterns, often indicative of unquantified mortality. Insuch instances, the precautionary principle, a secular analog to the 10Commandments, requires reductions in ABC. Moreover, the new requirementto eliminate overfishing and the inflexible timeline to rebuild stocksprecipitated further reductions in the calculation of TAC, theprecursor to ACL’s. The result, finalized by the November NEFMC meetingwere ACL’s which represented 30% to 60% cuts in 2010 catches versus2008 landings.

The combination of flawed histories and precautionary reductions in ACLhave sapped the optimism which pervaded the initial discussions onsectors/ catch shares. Absent intervention by those of broader vision,these conditions threaten the economic sustainability of large segmentsof the groundfish fishery.

Your comments relative to the GBK yellowtail stock are, in fact, a callto arms for all fisheries. It is ironic and unconscionable that, at thedawn of an era of opportunity provided by catch share management, thedevelopment potential of New England’s fisheries, as well as the livesand businesses of hard working fishermen, are in peril due to a slavishand myopic adherence to arbitrary deadlines. Our CongressionalDelegation should take notice and clarify their intent in draftingMSRA. If they want to restore the economic vitality and foodproductivity of New England’s fishery resources, they must speak out.

Sincerely,

Frank Mirarchi,
F/V Barbara L. Peters,
Scituate, Mass.

PS. I greatly appreciated and benefited from meeting the Alaskanfishermen at the Seafood.com meeting in Gloucester recently. Thank youfor the opportunity.

For nine straight years, the booming scallop catch has made New Bedford the nation’s highest-revenue fishing port. This summer, a survey of a key Northeast fishing area showed the strongest stocks of young scallops in nearly a decade.

So why, scalloper Dan Eilertsen asks, is he looking at 22 percent reduction in the number of days he can fish next year?

"The resource is just so incredibly strong," said Eilertsen, who owns four scallop boats. "It’s just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, and it doesn’t make any sense."

The industry estimates the new rules will mean a loss of $300,000 per boat.

In 2000, New Bedford started its string of nine straight years as the top revenue port in the country, including last year, when it had a total catch worth $241.3 million.

The industry got good news in August when the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on Cape Cod released survey results that showed juvenile scallops on Georges Bank were at their highest level since 2000.

The cuts as the stock flourishes are even more baffling at a time when the jobs are badly needed, Eilertsen said. Scallops are a success story that should be a lot more successful, he said.

"Overall, I don’t know that we’re really managing anywhere near our full potential," he said.

The biggest danger is that the cuts, and the subsequent lower catch, could make a healthy market appear unstable and scare buyers into alternative markets, said Kevin Stokesbury, a leading scallop scientist at the School for Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

IN THE bright midday sun, boats idle as fishermen unload the day’s haul. This scene is commonplace in Maine’s small fishing hamlets; but Port Clyde is known not for its lobsters but for its fish. It is home to the last groundfishing fleet between southern Maine and Canada. Of the species caught off its shores, none is more famous than the Atlantic cod, nutritious and easily preserved when dried and salted. Historically its appeal was such that wars were fought over New England’s fisheries.

Cod have suffered from their popularity. Fifteen years ago the stock crashed to under 10% of the level reckoned sustainable for fishing. As the fish disappeared, so did the fishermen. Before the crash, anyone could get a commercial-fishing permit. Since then the government has stopped issuing new permits and has imposed a tangle of ever-increasing restrictions—limiting fishing days, capping daily hauls, regulating gear and closing areas to boats. These make it difficult to stay in business. Roughly 600 boats are active in the New England fleet, half the number of 2001.

Despite the restrictions, Gulf of Maine cod are still at barely half the desired population, and the population at Georges Bank, 60 miles (100km) offshore is at 12% of it. This has prompted another regulatory overhaul. Fishermen are now banding together to form “fishing sectors”, which are given an annual quota from the New England Fishery Management Council, a federal body.

Read the complete story at The Economist.

New England scallopers are wondering why new restrictions have been placed on what has for years been the region’s healthiest fishery.

Rules passed by the New England Fishery Management Council last week reduced the number of fishing days from 37 this year to 29 in 2010. That’s lowered the projected catch by about 11 million pounds, to 41.5 million.

The industry lost another 18,000 pounds per boat because they’re forbidden to take trips to a closed area of Georges Bank to protect yellowtail flounder.

The industry estimates the new rules will mean a loss of $300,000 per boat.

Fairhaven-based scalloper Dan Eilertsen says the regulations don’t make sense.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Once again the fishing industry and, more particularly, the scallop-harvesting industry is being subjected to extremely conservative rules relating to the ability of the scallopers to harvest product.

The New England Fishery Management Council reduced the number of days that scallopers can operate from 39 to 29 days for the coming fishing year.

For a moment, let’s look at the impact of that kind of reduction in the real world of scallopers involved and scallop processors who distribute product throughout the United States and the world.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.