EDFish

HRH the Prince of Wales launches his Marine Programme with a Message of Hope

By / Published: February 8, 2012

In  a speech marking the launch of his International Sustainability Unit (ISU) Marine Programme, HRH the Prince of Wales struck an optimistic note.  His message was clear and simple “if managed properly our seas could still provide us with profitable harvest for years to come.  However, if we are not careful we may end up breaking the bank.”

Good practice can translate into bigger catches of fish, higher earnings and more secure jobs.

In the two years leading up to Friday’ s official launch in London, the ISU has lead both in-depth research and a multi-stakeholder consultation process.  This has resulted in their report Towards Global Sustainable Fisheries.  The Opportunity for Transition.  ISU identified three tools for rebuilding global fish stocks:

  • Smart economics, including access rights and addressing perverse subsidies
  •  An ecosystem approach, including focus on a/o  data collection and reduction of by-catch
  •  Robust management including monitoring and enforcement

“That some organizations have experimented successfully with innovative market incentives to achieve more sustainable fisheries is very encourgaing. It is the ISU’s intention to build a consensus on how some of these mechanisms might be scaled up and how transitional finance might be best deployed,” said the Prince. Read More »

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MD Blue Crab Design Team Exhibits at Recent Watermen Expo, Shares Plans for Pilot Accountability System

By / Published: February 2, 2012

Every year, the Maryland Watermen’s Association hosts a commercial fishermen and aquaculture trade expo attracting hundreds of fishermen and watermen from along the east coast. This year’s recent 38th annual Expo in Ocean City, MD included an exhibit from the Maryland Blue Crab Design Team.  The Design Team, an industry-led task force EDF helped organize, participated in the expo for the opportunity to keep the larger watermen community informed and gain feedback on the collective process to develop long-term solutions for Maryland’s blue crab industry.

Twenty-four Design Team members spoke with over 100 interested watermen and other stakeholders about the Design Team’s vision and goals.  Most recently the Team has been developing a pilot program to test electronic reporting technologies to advance watermen accountability in the fishery and promote the health of the blue crab resource and the businesses that depend on it.  This pilot aims to improve the timing and accuracy of harvest data to fisheries managers. It will mark a major step forward in building a more sustainable fishery leading to a more viable future for the blue crab industry.  The pilot project is expected to be up and running by midyear. Read More »

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New Study Shows That Catch Shares Meet Economic and Conservation Goals

By / Published: January 17, 2012

Reprinted with permission from SeafoodNews.com

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [seafoodnews.com] Jan 12, 2012 By Kate Bonzon

The following article was written by Kate Bonzon, who works for EDF and was one of the authors of a new scientific paper published in Marine Policy that analyzed the performance of 15 catch share programs in the US and Canada. She argues the data shows these programs met most of their goals, especially in the area of conservation, reduced discards, and increased revenue to harvesters. There was a shift in jobs from a larger number of part time jobs to a smaller number of full time jobs, which had varying social impacts depending on the fishery.

America’s fisheries, and the fishing communities they support, have struggled for decades to find a way to both rebuild depleted fish stocks and allow fishermen to earn a decent living. But it has become increasingly evident over the years that traditional management practices – such as drastically curtailing the fishing season – were failing to achieve either of these goals: fleets shrunk, revenues dropped, fishermen were often forced to put out to sea in bad weather, and the industry grew highly unstable. Fish stocks, meanwhile, continued to decline.

The latest effort to achieve that balance – a management approach known as “catch shares,” has generated much discussion among fisheries stakeholders over whether this approach is any better or worse than previous efforts. Now, a recent analysis of 15 fisheries in the United States and British Columbia published in the journal Marine Policy, provides data that clearly show significant environmental and economic improvements in fisheries that have made the transition to catch shares, an approach that allocates fishermen a share of the total allowable catch in exchange for making them accountable for staying within the catch limit.

Commercial discards reduced. Percentage reduction vs. baseline year (year before catch shares)

Discards declined substantially with catch share fisheries.

Read More »

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Obama Administration Considers Moving NOAA to Department of Interior

By / Bio / Published: January 13, 2012

Today, the Obama Administration announced plans to consolidate parts of the federal government, which may include moving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to the Department of Interior. With responsibility for managing the largest sovereign ocean territory in the world, NOAA is a critically important agency.  When considering moving NOAA to the U.S. Department of Interior, policy-makers should ensure that the agency’s mission-critical functions, including management of the nation’s fish stocks, are protected and strengthened.

Such a reorganization could have huge implications for the people who work hard at sea catching the fish we like to eat.  I hope we can have a vigorous debate that looks carefully at the costs and benefits of any plan to move NOAA to Interior and make sure that the public, the nation’s fishermen, and the nation’s fish resources would truly benefit from it.

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New Study Evaluates 15 Fisheries in the U.S. and British Columbia Before and After Catch Shares

By / Bio / Published: January 13, 2012

Can a Change in Management Solve the World’s Most Pressing Marine Conservation Challenge and Foster Vibrant Coastal Communities? A new study published in the journal Marine Policy finds that reforming how fisheries are managed can successfully restore and maintain healthy fish populations and benefit both fishermen and fishing-dependent communities.  The study evaluated 15 fisheries in the U.S. and British Columbia before and after adopting “catch shares” — a type of fishery management increasingly common worldwide.

Catch shares, the study found, delivers “clear gains in environmental performance (and) major economic improvements” as well as dramatic improvements in safety for fishermen.  The improvements were found across a range of fisheries in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and extended to fishermen from both small and large vessels, using a diversity of gears and targeting a variety of fish.  In contrast, the study found that these same fisheries performed poorly under traditional fishery management in virtually all areas.

Overall, the study is a dose of good news at a time when most news we hear about oceans is bad.  The results also come at a time when some in Congress are pushing to eliminate fishermen’s ability to pursue catch shares for their fisheries.  The findings point to a clear choice about which strategy the nation should pursue to achieve abundant oceans that also allow fishermen and fishing-dependent communities to prosper. Read More »

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One Year In: Catch Share System Shows Significant Promise For Improving the West Coast Groundfish Fishery

By / Bio / Published: January 12, 2012

A year ago this week, West Coast trawlers who fish for over 90 species of groundfish – including cod, sole and rockfish – started operating under a catch share management system. The shift for the $40 million-a-year fishery has been called the biggest change in commercial fishing regulations on the West Coast in 50 years.

So far, results have been impressive, particularly a near end to wasteful, so -called “regulatory discards” – fish that traditional regulations required fishermen to toss overboard, often dead.

Fisherman Geoff Bettencourt from Half Moon Bay, California reflected in an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News:  “Under the old system, fishermen had little or no incentive to avoid overfished species or to behave like the natural conservationists that we are… As someone who remembers 2000, when the West Coast groundfish fishery was formally declared a disaster, I’m feeling better than I have in a long time about its future.” Read More »

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