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Guiding Principles for Development of Effective Monitoring Programs

By Kate Bonzon / Bio / Published: May 3, 2011

The Guiding Principles for Development of Effective Monitoring Programs, summarized in our Catch Share Conversations fact sheet, is the result of two workshops convened by MRAG Americas and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in 2010. The Guiding principles summarize lessons from around the world and are intended to provide fishery managers and stakeholders with guidance on the planning, design, implementation and improvement of monitoring programs. The Guiding Principles should be a point of departure, and recognize the individuality of each fishery. They draw upon the expertise of over two dozen national and international monitoring experts, including national and international government employees, fishing industry representatives, and monitoring company employees. By outlining key components to consider and providing concise recommendations, the Guiding Principles can expedite and improve the design of monitoring programs. Read the entire document here.

Monitoring Principles

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Posted in Uncategorized / Tagged Catch Shares, Fisheries, Fisheries Management, Monitoring | Comments are closed

Catch Share Conversations: Catch Shares and Monitoring Ensure Effective Management

By Kate Bonzon / Bio / Published: May 2, 2011

Monitoring is an essential component of effective and successful fisheries management. Reliable monitoring and reporting can support and improve the management of a fishery by providing verifiable information on fishing activities and assessing the performance and success of fisheries management plans. Developing an effective monitoring program can be complex and many programs evolve over time.

Catch share fisheries tend to have robust monitoring programs and the transition to catch share management offers the opportunity to design an effective monitoring system. In the collection of Catch Share Conversations being presented this week on EDFish, we summarize common monitoring approaches, discuss how monitoring systems provide incentives for participants, offer case studies of existing monitoring programs, and present Guiding Principles for the development and implementation of a monitoring system.

Read our full fact sheet on how catch shares and monitoring ensure effective fisheries management.

Posted in Uncategorized / Tagged Catch Shares, Fisheries, Fishery, Management, Monitoring | Comments are closed

New Report Provides A Roadmap for Improving Fisheries Management in New England

By Jake Kritzer / Bio / Published: April 28, 2011

As the New England Fishery Management Council completes its spring meeting today, Council members, staff and other stakeholders will head back to their homes and offices thinking about implementation of the various decisions made during the three-day meeting.

Thanks to a new report released during the Council meeting, the fisheries community in New England will also be thinking about broader steps needed to improve the overall effectiveness of our fisheries management system. The study behind the report was led by Preston Pate, a former member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and former Director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, who presented its findings to the Council alongside Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, Eric Schwaab.

A review of the management system was requested by Council chair John Pappalardo, a Chatham fisherman and CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, and subsequently initiated by NMFS. Strong support for both the spirit and recommendations of the report was expressed by Mr. Pappalardo and the Council, as well as Mr. Schwaab and NOAA Fisheries.

Media outlets across New England quickly covered the findings and recommendations in the report, with clear and perhaps unsurprising emphasis on the negative outcomes. And that emphasis is warranted, for although the report notes a considerable number of positive attributes of the region’s management system, the effectiveness of those elements is compromised by the negatives.

But let’s pause and take pride in what is working well in New England, and then get down to business of fixing what is not working well.

In fact, several of the positives identified in the report represent steps already underway toward rectifying the negatives. For example, the important role that managers of the 17 groundfish harvest cooperatives, i.e., “sectors”, are playing in improving collaboration and communication with management was highlighted as an encouraging recent development. This is a development that is making progress toward rectifying one of the major areas needing improvement within NMFS: better outreach and communication with industry. We should think creatively about how to make sector managers more effective in filling that role, and support them in doing so.

The report also identified cooperative research as a positive attribute of the regional management system that provides important information for management, and improves relationships among industry members, scientists and managers. Therefore, increasing cooperative research opportunities is another important strategy for improving the communication and trust deficiencies identified in the report.

The report also highlighted two challenges faced by fisheries management in New England more so than any region in the U.S.: Geography and history. The area under the jurisdiction of the New England Council has relatively high population density, and consequently high anthropogenic impacts, in the coastal region. Also, although the region is comparatively small, it includes four coastal states, so that the number of political and regulatory jurisdictions involved are relatively high compared to other regions.

Our history not only makes successful fisheries management in New England more challenging, but in some ways more important. The fishing traditions in New England are key components of our regional identity and our national heritage. Successes in the region are therefore especially symbolic nationally, and following the roadmap requested by Mr. Pappalardo, made possible by Mr. Schwaab, and delivered by Mr. Pate can help ensure greater success toward recovering and strengthening our invaluable fishing heritage moving forward.

Jake Kritzer is EDF’s Senior Marine Scientist for the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. He is also Vice-Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, among other advisory appointments.

Posted in New England / Tagged Catch Shares, Fisheries, Fisheries Management, New England, Ocean, Sectors | Comments are closed

New England Groundfish Fishermen Should Benefit from Unused Quota

By Jake Kritzer / Bio / Published: April 25, 2011

With the support of Senator John Kerry, Congressman Bill Keating, and Congressman Barney Frank, New England groundfish fishermen are asking if they can “carry over” a portion of unused catch for the upcoming fishing year. EDF thinks this makes sense and will work with NMFS and the New England Fishery Management Council to support putting this into place.

Carry-over is generally allowed under catch share programs for two reasons. First, catch limits in later years are often set assuming a certain level of catch in earlier years. If the actual catch is less than the maximum allowed in a given year, that typically will result in a higher level of sustainable yield the following year. Second, allowing carry-over prevents a rush by fishermen to meet their quota limits at the end of the season. Such a rush could disrupt all the benefits catch shares can deliver with respect to careful and selective fishing practices that minimize bycatch and habitat impacts, and strategic choices of when and where to fish in response to weather conditions, market demand, and other factors.

In this first year of the New England groundfish sector program, like the first year of many new management programs, fishermen undoubtedly were cautious as they figured out how best to fish their quota. It makes sense to let fishermen benefit from the conservative harvest seen in the first year of sectors.

Sector fishermen are already allowed to carryover up to 10% of any unused quota. It is clear from looking at the amount of unused quota (see chart below) that the catch of many stocks will be more than 10% below the science-based catch limits set to guard against overfishing. Rather than simply forgo the socio-economic benefits to be gained from at least some of the unused quota, we hope fishery managers can allow fishermen to reap some of the rewards of their conservative fishing this year.

Support seems to be steadily building towards having NMFS and the New England Fishery Management Council take active steps to decide what amount of additional unused quota can safely be carried over for the species that were underfished in 2010. The appropriate percentage levels should be based on the biology of each species, so that we don’t set the fishery back by jeopardizing rebuilding of overfished stocks and compromising the productivity of rebuilt stocks. However, it is unlikely that all of the unused quota should be carried over. After all, natural mortality continues to act upon the stock, and will remove some of the fish that would have been harvested had the full quota been fished. A scientific analysis can determine how much of the fishing year 2010 quota is likely to still be available to the fleet in fishing year 2011.

Taken together, this measure, as well as the increased ACLs for many groundfish stocks next year and fishermen’s continually improving ability to navigate the sector program, should lead to increased yields and revenues across the fleet, and a more economically and environmentally stable fishery in 2011.

Posted in New England / Tagged Catch Shares, Fishery Management, Groundfish, New England, Quota, Sectors | Comments are closed

BP Oil Disaster One Year Later

By / Published: April 20, 2011

BP Oil Spill clean up in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP Oil disaster clean up site in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the tragic BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil well blowout took 11 lives and likely forever changed the rich marine ecosystem of the Gulf. After 87 days and over four million barrels of oil released, the spewing well was finally capped, but not before it killed thousands of birds and other marine life and caused additional hardship for fishermen and coastal communities during an already-struggling economy.

Looking back a year later on the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, efforts to fully restore the environmental and economic health of the Gulf and its coastal communities continue. As EDF’s Chief Oceans Scientist, Doug Rader, explains in the Austin Statesman, “A full year after the blowout, we are still struggling, as a society, to assess the ecological and human costs from our nation’s worst oil disaster, to understand how to heal – or offset – the worst damage, and to limit future risks associated with America’s offshore energy industries.”

Read Doug Rader’s full opinion article as well as recent EDF press releases on pending legislation for the Gulf of Mexico restoration.

Posted in Uncategorized / Tagged BP, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Oil Disaster, Oil Spill | Comments are closed

Environmental Defense Fund Partners with Gulf Fishermen to Launch Gulf Wild™ Seafood Assurance Program

By Tim Fitzgerald / Bio / Published: March 25, 2011

myGulfWild.com

In a bold effort to restore consumer confidence in Gulf of Mexico seafood, EDF is working with a group of forward-looking Gulf fishermen and other conservation and fishery improvement organizations to launch a new seafood assurance campaign called Gulf Wild™. The Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, a trade organization of fishermen in the individual fishing quota (IFQ) catch share program for Gulf red snapper and grouper, developed Gulf Wild™ in collaboration with EDF to help consumers, chefs, and retailers identify responsibly managed, safety-inspected, authentic Gulf seafood that can be tracked directly to its source.

Shareholders’ Alliance president and Gulf fisherman David Krebs announced Gulf Wild™ earlier this week at the opening of the 2011 International Boston Seafood Show. Krebs said one of the current challenges that Shareholders’ Alliance fishermen face today is “educating conscientious consumers and chefs about the conservation measures we are undertaking, and showing them how these measures are helping species like Gulf grouper and Gulf red snapper.”

Red snapper and grouper on ice, each with the small blue and white Gulf Wild tag attached to the gill.

Gulf Wild™ fish labeled with a sequentially numbered gill tag, which is trackable on mygulfwild.com.

Gulf Wild™ requires participating fishermen to verify that the fish were caught in a sustainable manner under a unique set of “Conservation Covenants”, which guarantee conscientious harvesting. Additionally, Gulf Wild™ fishermen have already been operating under a red snapper IFQ program since 2007 to better manage the fishery.

With that IFQ in place, Krebs said, “Gulf red snapper is moving from a ‘red-listed’ fishery to a more sustainable one.” Since the inception of the red snapper IFQ, overfishing has ended, wasteful discards have dropped by 80%, and fishermen have seen a 40 percent increase in the total allowable catch.

Key to the Gulf Wild™ program is a tracking system that allows the buyer to “find my fish.” Each Gulf Wild™ fish is marked with a sequentially numbered gill tag just minutes after it is brought on board, whose unique credentials are uploaded to the web when the catch reaches shore. That information is made public via myGulfWild.com, where you can enter the unique tag number and confirm the fish species, catch location, landing port, and even information about the vessel and its captain.

Finally, in direct response to consumer concerns stemming from the BP oil disaster, Gulf Wild™ incorporates a stringent safety-testing protocol that goes above and beyond federal requirements. An independent international testing laboratory will routinely sample Gulf Wild™ fish to test for oil-based contaminants such as PAHs, dispersants, and heavy metals.

To start, Gulf Wild™ tags are now on Gulf red snapper and grouper, with more than a dozen species from the IFQ catch share program to follow. We will continue to expand and improve upon Gulf Wild™ in the months to come, in partnership with an advisory panel of respected experts from the culinary, food safety, public health, conservation, and seafood marketing communities.

I am excited about the Gulf Wild™ project for a number of reasons. First, it highlights the efforts of a rebounding fishery that has transitioned to more sensible management and made notable environmental and economic gains as a result. Second, it shows that there are success stories to be told in the wake of last summer’s BP oil disaster. Last, but not least, Gulf Wild™ can serve as a model for other fisheries around the country as a way of building consumer confidence while creating new market value at the same time.

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Seafood / Tagged Conservatin, Grouper, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Wild, Seafood, Snapper | Read 9 Responses