At a pivotal moment for the New England fishing industry, the Environmental Defense Fund, a lead advocate of catch shares, and two fishing industry news publishers are co-sponsoring informational meetings this week — one in New Bedford, one in Gloucester — on the hotly-disputed fishery regulatory system and its economic shift from one of public-resource competition to managed market commodities.
EDF and the meeting sponsors, Seafood.com News and Saving Seafood (Savingseafood.org), assert the meetings are strictly informational and not promotional. The meetings, which are free to the public feature two Alaskans with experience in the catch share systems in Alaskan fisheries.
EDF has agreed to underwrite the meetings. Seafood.com News and Saving Seafood, which is published from New Bedford, are helping with publicity. Both meetings will run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., with the Gloucester meeting set for Wednesday at The Gloucester House off Rogers Street.
Among those at the meetings will be Joe Childers, president of the United Fishermen of Alaska, and Steve Minor, executive director of the North Pacific Crab Association; John Sackton, publisher of Seafood.com News, will moderate the meetings.
"I've worked in Alaska for many years and got to know Childers and Minor, and gave their names to EDF," said Sackton.
He described Childers as heading the "largest (industry) organization in Alaska."
"Nothing happens that isn't United Fishing of Alaska," he added. "Minor is working in western Alaskan communities during the crab rationalization (conversion of the crab fishery to catch shares) on community protection."
Julie Wormser, EDF's New England Oceans Program director, credited Sackton with introducing her to Childers and Minor, who were part of the group of experts that the New England Fishery Management Council and its co-sponsors brought to the Mount Washington Hotel and Resort last month for a two-day workshop on catch shares.
Co-sponsoring with the council was a universities' based forum that receives financial support from EDF.
Wormser said EDF's goal is to give fishermen in New England who will be adapting to the catch share system a chance to talk to people who have already gone through the experience and discuss "here's what works and what doesn't work."
She said EDF would be setting up other meetings with Childers and Minor.
EDF which has played a high-profile role in advocating catch shares to the Obama administration, intends to exert no editorial influence, Wormser added, noting that the goal of the organization is to "get out of the way."
The meetings come during a period of uncertainty and transition for the fishing communities of New England.
At the urging of Jane Lubchenco, the administrator for fisheries, the New England Fishery Management Council is in the process of completing a partial transformation of the groundfishery from common resource to private market principles.
Catch shares will be allotted to the portion of the industry that has divided into 17 voluntary cooperatives known as sectors while the fishermen who chose to remain independent business owners will fish under effort control limits.
Today, all fishermen are working under the same effort controls, with limited days at sea to fish and areas of the grounds where fishing time counts double against the days at sea quotas.
Alaska's crab fishery was converted to a catch share or Individual Fishing Quota or IFQ system in 2005, with dramatic impact, as the number of boats was reduced, and crew members were left without work, and processors gained in influence.
But, at the same time, the competitive "derby fishing" of the past regime was eliminated, and fishing became safer, catch-share backers say.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-83-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
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