Two very thoughtful articles came out of New England earlier this week, both talking about the current difficulties groundfish fishermen are having in staying afloat financially under the current fisheries management system (1, 2). Both pieces make the case that it is not catch shares but low catch limits (i.e., not enough fish to go around) that is causing such hardship, and that sectors provide fishermen with a better chance to stay solvent while fisheries recover.
I have consistently found John Sackton of Seafood.com and John Richardson of the Portland Press Herald to be two of the most nuanced, insightful reporters covering the New England fishing industry. They have each clearly been writing about this for years, care about what happens, and provide a perspective and context to current events that move my understanding forward.
One Comment
I understand the concerns and the challenges that the fishing community is feeling and going to experience regarding migrating from a DAS to quota system and clearly a catch share based fishery is no silver bullet, however consider the alternative and how the New England fishery has seen its way of living diminshed under the current DAS system.
If properly constructed and with the help of entities, such as CQE’s (Cape Cod Fisheries Trust), this doesnt signal the end of an era but the beginning of a rebuilding process and a sustainable industry. My organization, Nexii Inc. http://www.nexii.com, plans to support this industry in this crossover by helping CQE’s and Fishery Associations raise capital to purchase quota and in the development of a functional electronic catch shares transactions platform where sector heads can effectively manage the transfer of quota, track transfers,track TAC and other key data and start to create a historical record of all transactions and activity within each sector and across various fisheries throughout the U.S. This is to be launched in May of 2010.