By Julie Wormser, New England Regional Director – Environmental Defense Fund Oceans Program.
I want to share Dave Preble’s terrific op-ed that was just published in the New Bedford Standard-Times, Prosperity for New England Fishermen. He wrote it just as groundfish fishermen in New England are preparing to fish under “sectors,” a fishing cooperative based form of catch shares.
I first met Dave at a New England Fishery Management Council meeting last summer. He sits on the Council and is one of the most thoughtful voices on that body. Born into a fishing family, Dave has been involved in both commercial and recreational fishing and fishery management for over 45 years. He has taught me quite a lot about how public policy decisions affect both fish and the fishing communities that depend on them.
Federal regulators recently finalized rules to help regional fishery councils comply with new U.S. fisheries laws to end and prevent overfishing with “annual catch limits” and “accountability measures.” This means that tougher limits on fishing are coming, and Gulf fishery managers can take this opportunity to save fisheries and the multi-billion dollars in economic benefits they provide the region. Here’s what can be done:
The Gulf Council recently voted to consider adding all reef fish to the successful IFQ program already working for red snapper and coming on-line for grouper and tilefish in January. When implemented, it will be one of the largest and most modern and effective management systems in the U.S.
Ocean energy is a new frontier in efforts to meet the world’s ever increasing need to develop renewable energy sources. Last week, 
Several times a year, EDF takes a delegation of fishermen, policy makers and other leaders in the ocean conservation community and fisheries industry to British Columbia to see, first hand, an effective catch shares program at work. Last week, Larry Epstein, Ayelet Hines, Michael Clayton, and Nicanor Requena of the EDF Oceans program hosted a delegation of fisheries stakeholders from Belize on an international exchange to visit the B.C. groundfish fishery.
Some of the fisheries managed by catch shares in the B.C. groundfish fishery have increased in value ten-fold as a result of healthier and improved fish stocks and habitat. During the conversations among B.C. and Belizean government managers, fishermen, and conservationists, the delegation learned how the B.C. catch share evolved and discussed lessons learned. In addition, the delegation visited the catch shares monitoring facility and observed the process of assessing and recording the catch at a dockside offload site.