{"id":6397,"date":"2016-04-06T09:53:12","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T13:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/edfish\/?p=6397"},"modified":"2016-04-06T09:53:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T13:53:12","slug":"pacific-council-decisions-provide-greater-flexibility-for-fishermen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/edfish\/2016\/04\/06\/pacific-council-decisions-provide-greater-flexibility-for-fishermen\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Council Decisions Provide Greater Flexibility for Fishermen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pacific.SaschaPotential is for higher catches and increased profitability per trip<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting broke a logjam that has frustrated fishermen for years.<\/p>\n

When the West Coast catch share program \u201cwent on the water\u201d in 2011, many of its new regulations were overlaid on existing\u00a0 – but no longer practical or applicable \u2013 regulations from the fishery\u2019s pre-catch shares past. This had the effect of hamstringing fishermen. They were unable to fully adapt their business plans, their nets and their fishing methods in order to leverage many of the advantages of the new management program.<\/p>\n

A workshop <\/a>we co-sponsored in Portland in February gave fishermen a platform to air their grievances on these matters, and those sentiments were echoed at the Council meeting last week. At that meeting, the Groundfish Advisory Subpanel (GAP) brought a detailed set of recommendations to the Council, and then, one after another, fishermen testified persuasively that the GAP\u2019s common-sense recommendations were not only overdue, but critical in order for them to maximize catch and profitability in a fishery that has already proven a remarkable conservation success.<\/p>\n

Although the specifics of the GAP recommendations adopted by the Council are a fish-wonk\u2019s cornucopia, I\u2019d like to draw out a couple key takeaways:<\/p>\n