Anyone being asked to invest $10,000 in what amounts to a franchise should have some projection as to what they can expect in sales and revenues, and not have to trust a government agency that’s built distrust for years.
It’s understandable that fishermen out of Gloucester and around New England would be wary about Northeast Seafood Coalition’s effort to collect $10,000 as an investment in being part of a "sector" within the New England fishery’s new management system next year.
And that uncertainty has nothing to do with the coalition, which had taken a significant leadership role on the sector issue even before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stepped up its hard-line push under new chief administrator Jane Lubchenco.
It has everything to do with NOAA and its National Marine Fisheries Service, which is requiring the submission of potential rosters for these sectors — essentially little fishing corporations in which each boat will have a share of each group’s allowable catch — by Sept. 1 without having any idea of what that allowable catch may be.
Would you be willing to invest $10,000, or even $2,500 in a business franchise without knowing what the government-set sales limit will be? Of course not. Yet that’s what NMFS’s bullheaded time-frame is requiring, and how the Northeast Seafood Coalition is being forced to develop the business model its leaders have worked to build. One could argue the mere idea of government-set limits on "merchandise" is scary enough, especially when applied to ocean resources.