Portsmouth Herald: 'Catch Share' System Threatens Seacoast Fishermen

News Article

By Michael McCord

A proposed bill in Congress to scrap the current commercial fisheries system of "catch share" was welcome news to the shrinking New Hampshire fishing community.

"It's not working," said Bob Campbell, manager of the Yankee Fisherman's Cooperative in Seabrook, about the "catch share" system that has been in effect since May 2010. Campbell said total pounds of fish caught among members of the cooperative from May 2010 to April 2011 was down 1 million pounds from the previous reporting period of 2009-2010. He said because the new system has set limited allocation totals for the cooperative's 61 members, it is driving more fishermen out of the water or pushing them to lease their fishing permits. It simply doesn't pay them to fish, much less to hire crew.

David Goethel, a longtime Hampton fisherman and a member of the New England Fishery Management Council, has no doubt about the outcome if changes aren't made by early next year to the "catch share" system, which is the latest attempt by the federal government to balance the need for rebuilding depleted groundwater fish stocks with the economic needs of fishermen to stay in business.

"We're dangerously close to losing it. Forty percent of the New Hampshire fleet will not be able to fish," said Goethel, who cast the sole dissenting vote on the council against implementing "catch share." "This state was founded by fisherman farmers and we could lose it all. It's very, very frustrating. We've been doing things the right way, being responsible small-boat owners who fish in a sustainable way. The laws have become more and more restrictive and it's driving people out.

There were scores of New Hampshire small-boat owners two decades ago, but he said that number is down to around 35.

This past week, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., announced they would introduce the "Saving Fishing Jobs Act of 2011" in response to the heightened concerns by fishermen in their respective states that the federal "catch share" programs "are needlessly devastating New England's Fishing Community." If passed, the proposal, would direct the Secretary of Commerce - the top overseer of the nation's fishery management programs - to terminate new and existing "catch share" programs that result in a 15 percent or more reduction in the total number of fishermen in the program, and develop a new management plan within one year; strengthen the voice of fishing communities in the "catch share" program process; and protect taxpayers from shouldering additional costs associated with implementing and managing new "catch share" programs. Those costs range anywhere from $6 million to $50 million and are scheduled to be paid by boat owners beginning in 2012.

"'Catch share' programs are driving New Hampshire's fishermen out of business," said Ayotte, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee. "Five months after federal "catch shares" were implemented in New England, 55 out of the initial 500 boats in the fishery controlled 61 percent of the revenue, and 253 of the boats were sitting at the dock, unable to fish without quota. This legislation would help level the playing field for independent small fishermen by scrapping unreasonable federal mandates that are killing jobs while giving local fishing communities more control during the program establishment process."

Goethel said he opposed "catch share" because it was fundamentally flawed because it had a badly devised allocation formula and sector creation plan (fishermen are assigned specific sectors) and it had a hidden cost bomb for fishermen who after the first two years would have to pay for management and enforcement of the system. He said because allocation formulas, which replaced the days-at-sea and catch-limit-per-trip model, were based on catch loads during a time period a decade ago when New Hampshire fishermen in particular were severely downgraded due to ever-changing rules, small-boat owners were assigned "catch share" allocations that make groundfish profitability almost impossible. The heavily regulated groundfish cover some 20 species including cod, redfish, flounder, yellowtail and pollock. They do not include herring, shellfish or scallops, which fall under different and less restrictive regulations.

Goethel, who fishes for both groundfish and non-groundfish, said as onerous as the days-at-sea system was, it was preferable to "catch share," which puts small-boat owners at catastrophic economic risk. A suit by the New Hampshire Commercial Fisherman's Association against the federal government over "catch share" allocations is headed for a federal appeals court. At a Senate subcommittee hearing on "catch share" in Boston earlier this month, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has direct fisheries oversight, to issue an emergency increase in allocations.

"I don't know of many who have an allocation of more than 100,000 pounds," Goethel said. "Mine is 70,000 pounds and I know of many who have 45,000 pounds and even 15,000 pounds and no one can survive at that level. You need 200,000."

It has led to lower-allocation fishermen simply staying out of the water and leasing their allocations to other fishermen such as Goethel or to fishing operations with larger boats that can stay out at sea longer.

Pat Fiorri, a spokesman with the New England Fisheries Management Council, which creates policy but does not implement regulations or enforcement, said there have been "mixed reviews" about "catch share" and the council is actively addressing the wide range of issues. C.M. "Rip" Cunningham, chairman of the 18-member NEFMC, said for all its flaws the new program offers more accountability, greater harvesting and marketing flexibility and keeps regulators from micromanaging individual operators - all while dealing with the reality that about half of the 20 groundfish species are still being overfished.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said after more than two decades of increasing fishery regulations, it was "time we gave the fishing industry reason to expect more from the federal government. NOAA Fisheries must offer a clear vision, simplified regulations and straightforward communications so that these small businesses, upon which thousands of additional shoreside jobs depend, can thrive."

Even on the best of sunny days at sea, commercial fishermen are required to navigate a bewildering chart of regulations, species and catch formulas. The dilemma is that since the passing of the first major fisheries law in 1976 - the Magnuson-Stevens Act that set territorial limits and was designed to keep foreign fishing operations from depleting native stocks - each attempt to balance rebuilding fish stocks with the economic interests of fishermen has been at odds.

All solutions come with significant costs.

"We can't go back to the 1980s and early 1990s," Goethel said. "By the end, there were too many fishing all they wanted and we were running out of fish."

When the science of fish depletion was mandated by federal courts in the early 1990s, it was almost too late. The strict measures since to limit the number of vessels, the time at sea and the catch amounts have gone through various evolutions as the fleet continued to shrink.

In testimony at the Oct. 3 Senate hearing, Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA administrator in charge of groundfish management, defended "catch share" as the best option when few are available. Under the old system, she testified, "individual fishermen were told how many days and when they could fish, which often forced them to sea in bad weather. And they were told how much fish they could bring back to port on each trip, forcing them to pitch their extra catch overboard as wasted by-catch.

From 2001-2009, landings dropped by nearly 40 percent, revenues fell by more than half, and the number of vessels in the fishery dwindled to less than half their previous levels. And because these regulations often did not succeed in halting overfishing, the rules were always changing.

The last decade saw 11 major regulatory overhauls and changes in the rules every four months on average, including ratcheting down on the number of "days at sea" available. Decades of overfishing, failing fish stocks and punishing regulations interacted to threaten the region's most iconic industry."

But Goethel accused Lubchenco and NOAA regulators of tipping the scales too much toward environmental concerns with "catch share." Of even greater concern, he said fishermen see "catch share" as an attempt to treat them as potential "criminals" by having too much regulatory and financial focus on enforcement.

His solution is to return to a days-at-sea formula that would include full catch allowances with the freedom to fish when they choose.

"We've seen this every time the panic button gets pushed," said Campbell at the Yankee Fisherman's Cooperative. His cooperative took in fishermen when the Portsmouth Fisherman's Cooperative closed in 2007. "Let's see, we've had a seven-year plan to rebuild stocks and then another seven-year plan, and then a 10-year plan, I think. Each time it was supposed to be the solution to set things right."

He has been around the industry for more than three decades and said the tension between fishermen and regulators is about perceptions and reality.

"I don't think they really took the time to really evaluate the impact ("catch share") would have on the New England fishing industry," Campbell said. "This was a plan imported from somewhere else in an attempt to set nationals standards. They think we don't care about conservation, but especially after the last 20 years, fishermen are the best conservationists because our livelihoods depend on it. To (regulators) it's all about the accounting and it's strictly black and white.

"There's nothing black and white about fishing," he said.

Source