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February 17, 2010

Catch share study cites community impact

By Richard Gaines

A new report on catch shares — the Obama administration's high-priority commitment to re-engineer and essentially privatize America's fisheries into a system that functions like a commodities market — acknowledges the socio-economic risks in rushing changes fraught with danger for fishing communities.

Produced last summer and fall during chaotic, climactic votes by the New England Fishery Management Council to bring a hybrid catch share system to the New England groundfishery, the joint report by the Meridian Institute and MRAG Americas repeatedly urged caution.

"Catch shares must be designed carefully to maximize the potential benefits and avoid adverse impacts," was one conclusion of the researchers. They reviewed the experiences of eight fisheries in the U.S., Canada, Iceland and Australia that have made — or are in the process of making — the conversion to catch share regulatory systems.

"There are still lots of things to be worked out," Andy Rosenberg, president of MRAG Americas, said in a telephone interview. Rosenberg is a former regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, where he was predecessor to Patricia Kurkul.

The council had been developing the catch share program for New England for more than three years. But the climatic votes were taken in rapid-fire fashion in two days in June in Portland, Maine — just weeks after Jane Lubchenco, the newly installed chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called for quick action on the final elements and details.

More recently, Lubchenco's first proposed budget for NOAA, released earlier this month, shifts money from cooperative research into funding to implement catch shares. The fisheries budget's biggest spike, $54 million, is for funding catch shares. A draft policy on catch shares remains out for public comment through April.

The Meridian-MRAG Americas report focuses on the social and economic dimensions — though Lubchenco and the Environmental Defense Fund, where the policy was honed and promoted, have emphasized the powers of catch shares to create a more efficient, predictable and stronger fishery. Lubchenco was vice chairwoman of the board at EDF before joining the Obama administration.

"Communities are often unintentionally impacted by catch share programs," the authors wrote. "Mechanisms to minimize negative impacts can include geographic requirements and allocations of quota to communities.

"Amendment 16 (the catch share regulatory regime) does not require membership in sectors to be related to geographical or other community affiliation," the report continues, "nor were community-based entities — such as municipalities — allocated a portion of the quota."

The authors expressed concern that, while the council asserted the goal of avoiding "excessive consolidation that would eliminate the day boat fishery, "there is no cap on the amount of (allocation) a sector can obtain, and Amendment 16 does not address minimum sector size, ownership caps, owner-operator rules, or any other mechanism that appear to be intended to limit consolidation or protect fleet diversity.

"There also does not appear to be a definition of 'excessive consolidation' in the regulation," the authors wrote.

After taking the key votes in June and deciding on different allocation formulas for the commercial fleet, a small pod of pioneers in sector/catch share fishing based on Cape Cod, and the recreational sector, the council — at end of the three-day meeting — crafted a modified effort-control plan for the few fishermen who decide to stay out of the catch share experiment.

In September, the council decided to modify key elements of the common pool plan, and left the sectors with a dramatically reduced allocation in pollock — an act many sector fishermen have denounced as dooming the experiment.

The reduced allocation of pollock to about one third of the catch for 2008 was seen as a "circuit breaker," potentially forcing the sectors to shut down until additional allocations could be acquired for other locales.

The consultants warned of "excessive consolidation that results in the decline of traditional fishing communities and fishing practices and inflated quota purchasing and leasing prices.

Buyback programs that allow fishermen to cash out of the industry were cited in the report as one way to minimize the impact of brutal win/lose decisions based on allocation formulas. The consultants noted that the groundfish system did not include such buybacks.

The catch share system that Lubchenco and EDF have created has not been discussed or approved by Congress, which will be asked next week by a national meeting of fishing people in Washington, D.C., to provide some legislative relief from the rigid imperatives for full recovery of distressed stocks.

The planned "United We Fish" protest is expected to attract thousands to the steps of the U.S. Capitol for a rally at noon a week from today.

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

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Catch share study cites community impact
by By Richard Gaines , , Wed Feb 17, 2010, 05:52 AM EST
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