New England fishing officials, hoping to revive the region’s imperiled cod and flounder populations and its distressed fishing industry, Thursday overhauled the way many fishermen will do their jobs.
The new system probably will replace a complex scheme that regulates fishermen’s catch through strict limits on how many fish they can bring to port and how many days they are allowed to venture out to sea – a number that has dwindled to 20 days a year for many fishermen.
Instead, groups of fishermen would be able to form cooperatives that would be allotted a total amount of fish to catch each year. Then fishermen in each cooperative, or “sector,’’ would work out among themselves how to divvy up this quota.