The New England Fishery Management Council today begins a highly compressed five-day road trip of public hearings for comments on Amendment 16, a suite of modifications of the commercial fishing regulatory system.
The changes will include the introduction of sectors, voluntary groupings of fishermen who fish the same way for the same species from the same ports, as well as annual catch limits and accountability measures.
These innovations will replace the National Marine Fisheries Service’s effort controls that have limited fishermen’s days at sea, and, in many cases, counted one day at sea as two in an attempt to reduce the size of the catch.