I congratulate members of the New England Fishery Management Council and all those who worked to expand the current groundfish sector management program to help continue a positive transformation of fishing in the Northeast.

I appreciate that this took a great deal of hard work and that it was not easy. After several years of discussion, the council approved Amendment 16 this week, which includes an expansion of catch shares that will be given to sectors.

Under Amendment 16, sector participation will remain voluntary, allowing fishermen to choose to join a sector or remain under the older system of limiting fishing through a range of controls including reducing days at sea.

Each sector approved by the council will be allocated a share of the total allowable catch for a fish stock. Sectors can also trade these catch shares. The sector can catch only its own share and must report both discards of fish and landings to ensure that its members do not exceed their share. Sectors depend on good monitoring of catch and discards, and the council has adopted monitoring measures for sectors at the dock and at sea.

Sectors benefit fishermen by giving them the flexibility to catch their share when weather, markets and individual business conditions are most favorable. They help fishermen catch their allocated share of the total at the least cost and help them avoid flooding the market with fish at any one time, which can affect quality and price. Consumers also benefit from a more reliable supply of high-quality fish.

The allocation of a share of the sustainable catch to each sector eliminates the biologically and economically wasteful race by each vessel to capture as much fish as possible before the fishery-wide limit is reached. This race to fish has often led to more boats going after fewer and fewer fish. Sectors also give fishermen a direct incentive to conserve fish stocks for the long term. If you are given 5 percent of a stock, it will be far more valuable if that stock is rebuilt.

Fishermen, coastal communities and the public should see improvements as a result of the expansion of sector management, including fewer fish discarded at sea and more of the fish caught being sold. This benefits fishermen, helps restore the marine ecosystem and strengthens the economies of coastal communities.

We are already seeing some positive changes. Members of the sector developing in Port Clyde, Maine, have created a community-supported fishery, modeled after the successful community-supported agriculture movement.

Family-owned fishing boats provide whole fresh fish to a reliable market in the same way that community-supported agriculture provides fresh fruit and vegetables to members who support their farms.

The idea of community-supported fisheries is not tied to sectors, as demonstrated by the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives' community-supported fishery: Cape Ann Fresh Catch. However, sectors allow fishermen the flexibility to control their catch in a way that gives them more control over their supply of fish for a community-supported fishery.

The amendment adopted this week includes 19 sectors, 17 of them new. There are sectors for Maine communities such as the Port Clyde sector and a sector based in Portland, Maine, called the Sustainable Fisheries Sector.

Several groundfish sectors will be based in Gloucester and New Bedford. There are sectors in Rhode Island and one that was formed by a group that includes fishermen from eastern Maine and Martha's Vineyard. The two existing sectors are the pioneering hook and fixed gear sectors started several years ago on Cape Cod.

The nation is keenly interested in the sector program here in the oldest fishing ports in the country. And we at NOAA are committed to working with the New England Council to find ways to make the health of the oceans go hand-in-hand with the prosperity of fishermen and the well-being of coastal communities.

I welcome your comments. Please send them to me at public.concerns.groundfish@noaa.gov.

Dr. Jim Balsiger is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's acting assistant administrator for fisheries, based in Silver Spring, Md.