A better fish tale;
New approach to end overfishing
NEWSDAY
January 8, 2009
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial-a-better-way-to-end-overfishing-1.1690104
This link has the beginning of the editorial. For those who are not subscribers to Newsday, we're hoping to obtain permission to reprint the entire piece here on EDFish.

Time to put scallops under a catch share/ITQ program to end industry – NMFS battles (Editorial) 
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS
By John Sackton 
Jan 8, 2009 

[Editorial Comment] It's time for the scallop industry in New England to move towards an ITQ or catch share program. If such a program were in place, much of the dispute between the industry and the New England Fishery Management Council would simply not occur.

Currently, the movement in 2011 is toward 'accountability measures' – such as closing the fishery if a hard cap is reached. But the accountability measures under consideration seem unlikely to change the relationship between the scallop industry and NMFS.

The reason is simple: without an effective ITQ or catch share program, the amount of scallops harvested annually misses management targets – either being more or less than predicted prior to the season. This is natural when a fishery still uses effort based management – where only the number of days fishing is controlled, and the cpue and the productivity of the fishing grounds varies. If 'accountability' then requires a hard cap, the industry will be hit with closures, and a race to fish will ensue.

The industry has long objected to catch shares or an ITQ system because, first, they are happy with the rotational system of closed areas and trip limits, which function similarly to catch shares to some degree, and secondly, a fully developed catch share system would raise the specter of consolidation.

In fact, the scallop industry is highly concentrated with two large owners each responsible for a significant portion of the catch. Scallop vessel owners can operate up to a limit of 17 vessels. Companies with large numbers of vessels and stacked permits can rotate crews to keep the vessels operating far beyond the nominal limits of days at sea per vessel.

Moving to catch shares would probably cap the current level of ownership for the largest scallop fleets, or even reduce it – and that is one reason it is opposed in the industry.

But it is hypocritical for the industry to flail away at NMFS without addressing the fact that more scallops were caught last year than planned. After the fact, some are arguing that the scallop landing limits were set too low. This may be true. But the best cooperative experiences in stock assessment and research take place in fisheries with catch shares – where regulators know exactly what is going to be caught, and the industry works with, and even funds, science to document stock levels, mortality, and knows what are the highest scientifically based harvest levels.

Read more »

Passionate. Dedicated. Those words describe each of the professionals in the Oceans program at Environmental Defense Fund. Our team is comprised of knowledgeable people with a wide range of experience in fisheries, marine sciences and oceans policy. Over the coming weeks we will feature interviews of some of our staff to offer a look into their backgrounds and work in oceans conservation and fisheries management.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Ohio and lived there with my younger brother and mom (who is a nurse) and my dad (who is a math teacher). We moved to South Carolina when I was twelve and I moved to New England 25 years ago. 

How did you get interested in fisheries and oceans issues?

I tried an office job but decided I wanted something different. I signed up for a three-month educational program through the Sea Education Association (SEA) that is run by Boston University out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Students live and work on an oceanographic research vessel to study the ocean. Our 135’ vessel, the Corwith Cramer, had a full science lab so we could do a wide range of research projects.

When the program was over, I didn’t want to leave the water. They had an opening for a cook. I thought to myself, I can handle cooking for 36 people and making a fraction of what I had before, as long as it means staying at sea.  So I sold all my belongings and ended up living on the water for the next five years.  I sailed in New England, the Canadian Maritimes, to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, the Galapagos Islands and throughout the South Pacific.

I held various jobs including cook, deckhand, and eventually became the captain of a skipjack for another educational program in the Chesapeake Bay. After five years at sea, I decided to study in a traditional classroom and got a Master's in Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island.

What was your first desk job after returning from sea and completing graduate school?

I worked for Republican Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, from Maryland’s eastern shore, who was then the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans. That was in 1999 when Magnuson Stevens (the nation’s fisheries law) was up for reauthorization, so I quickly became immersed in fisheries policy.

Congress had to decide whether to let the moratorium on catch shares expire. Fishermen from all over the country visited our office to ask for the ban to be lifted because traditional management was making their lives difficult and wasn’t stopping fish populations from being decimated. Catch shares were benefiting both fishermen and the environment across the globe, and fortunately Congress passed legislation that would enable U.S. fisheries to introduce them. 

Why do you think fisheries management in New England need to change?

Many of New England’s fisheries are in very bad shape. The closest fishing port to my house in Mystic, Connecticut is in Stonington.  This once-vibrant fishing community is now a shadow of what it once was because of dwindling fish populations.  It makes me sad that so many fishermen can’t make a living fishing anymore and that New England could lose such an important part of its heritage. Most fishermen I talk to want their children to be able to become fishermen. I’d like my three-year old to have that option, too, one day if he wants to. But it’s only going to happen if we make some pretty major changes in how we manage our fisheries.

Will New England fisheries be adopting more catch shares?

The New England Fisheries Management Council voted unanimously to expand catch shares by approving nineteen new fishing cooperatives for groundfish fishermen who will be allocated a portion of the overall catch and be freed from many burdensome rules, like trip limits.  The cooperatives will begin operating on May 1, 2010.

While this decision has been portrayed as controversial, it’s important to know that many of the members of the New England Fisheries Management Council are fishermen or work in the fishing industry, and since that decision was made, more than 90 percent of groundfish fishermen voluntarily signed up for these new cooperatives.

The New England Fisheries Management Council also included in its priorities for 2010 development of a region-wide policy for catch shares, and specific plans to address major bycatch problems in the scallop fishery using a catch share approach as well as catch shares options for the monkfish fishery.

Lastly, what is something many people don’t know about you?

I have a 100-ton U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner's license and I teach Sunday school.

Time to Clean up Hypocrisy and Mis-information in Catch Share debate
As originally printed on SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton – Dec 3, 2009.
Reprinted with permission.

Two editorials we print today against catch shares contain enough mis-information and hypocrisy that we felt compelled to set the record straight. Reading the Food and Water Watch editorial in the Portland Press Herald, or the editorial again slamming NMFS in today's Gloucester Daily Times, you would think a conflagration is burning in New England against catch shares.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The biggest issue causing consternation in the industry in New England is not catch shares, but whether blind adherence to bureaucratic procedures will doom the success of catch shares. About 97% of the fleet has signed on to sector programs, and they are focused on making them work.

Here is our attempt to set the record straight:

Huge errors in NMFS data

There have been repeated stories about how many errors exist in the NMFS catch history database, so that many boats are fishing on incorrect history, and have no opportunity to correct them until 2011. At the recent Council meeting, Pat Kurkul, NMFS regional administrator, said that out of 1480 eligible histories, only 66 have been challenged. This is far fewer than NMFS expected. As a result, they are able to have individual discussions with each person challenging their history.

On the other hand, if you don't own the permit yourself, there is no way to challenge the history, so if you had been leasing a permit, it is the owner of the permit who is responsible for making any challenge. Therefore it is quite likely that there are additional vessels using leased permits where the lease holder thinks the history is inaccurate, but the owner either does not have the records or has left the fishery, and will not challenge the allocation. But in either case, the number of errors and challenges is not nearly as large as some would want you to believe. Read more »

New England fisheries are facing serious challenges. The groundfish industry has been experiencing steep job losses and drops in harvest levels for decades.  Historically low catch levels and a change in management strategy, though geared toward restoring the health of the fishing industry in the long-term, have also meant short-term economic and social stress.

That's why the public needs fair, accurate and useful information — especially those who are not able to attend all public meetings. The public needs to know what is happening and what it means to the fishing industry, to the community and to the health of local fish stocks over time.  Unfortunately, readers of the Gloucester Daily Times are not getting a realistic picture of what is happening or why.

EDF, alongside many in New England, is advocating for a different set of fishery regulations called catch shares. This new type of management has been shown elsewhere to maintain sustainable fishing harvests while helping fishermen stay in business.  Catch shares, like any management system, must be designed well to fit both the biological constraints and the social and economic goals of individual fisheries. 

EDF has spent years learning from managers and fishermen in well over 300 catch share systems currently operating in the United States and other countries. To help promote best practices and transparent information, EDF put out for public comment a draft 130-page catch share design manual that helps fishermen and managers set goals and craft design options to develop quality catch share systems.  We have sponsored fishermen's exchanges with catch share practitioners from British Columbia and Alaska to help New England stakeholders better understand the pros and cons of different catch share systems.  Our goal is to provide research and information sharing that can help everyone make decisions that have better outcomes for the resource and for fishermen than status quo management.

However, readers of the Gloucester Daily Times likely don’t know this. Because instead of providing balanced, objective information about the pros and cons of the current days-at-sea system versus other systems, reporter Richard Gaines has focused his coverage almost entirely upon criticisms of this management tool and given voice almost exclusively to those opposed to it. Coverage of those speaking in favor of the program and its potential benefits has been heavily loaded with biased language that questions the validity of the science, the organizations and the credentials of the experts delivering this point of view.

Sadly, the ones who lose most here are his readers—especially those who have a stake in the health of the fishing industry. We hope those who are interested in learning more about the pros and cons of catch shares and other fishery management practices will contact us, contact the Fishery Management Council, or contact fishermen's groups that have been advocating for a form of catch shares called "sectors" for years.

Change is difficult, and can cause undue stress when it’s not accompanied by an open and thorough exchange of information. Those affected by the changes in New England fisheries need and deserve to have the full story of the changes that are occurring—and they're not getting it in the Gloucester Daily Times.