Last month, the New England Fishery Management Council left its familiar surroundings to hold a two-day public workshop on catch shares in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

John Pappalardo, chairman of the council and a Massachusetts fisherman, wanted to get fellow fishermen, scientists, state officials and regulators on the council into a more relaxed conversation.

The workshop gave council members a chance to meet face-to-face with fishermen from Alaska, California and British Columbia to share ideas on how best to design catch share programs that work. "Catch share" is a general term for several fishery management strategies that allocate a specific portion of the total allowable catch to individuals, cooperatives communities or other entities.

Designing catch share programs to give fisheries more sustainable futures for fishermen, fish stocks and fishing communities is a challenge at many levels. The New England Fishery Management Council has been working for several years developing sectors, a type of catch share program for the groundfishery. The council and the region's fishing communities have also been working on catch share programs in other fisheries, including scallops and tilefish, with discussions starting for monkfish and herring.

I also recognize that not everyone agrees with the direction the fishery management council is taking, adopting sectors and moving toward a type of catch share management. I took note of the protest held on Oct. 30 in front of our regional office in Gloucester. The key to any successful fishery management program is active fishermen and community involvement in the process. I urge all those involved in the groundfish industry to stay engaged and involved with the fishery management council, and to be respectful of the various participants. Input from the public is essential to a strong catch share program that works for both the fishing community and the resource.

One such message heard from fishermen with experience in catch share programs from around the country is the importance of matching the program to the needs of the individual fishery. A program can be designed to address the problems of too many boats going after too few fish, increasingly shorter fishing seasons, overfished stocks, poor economic returns or excessive bycatch of other species. The design phase of a catch share program is also when fishermen, regulators and the community can limit the portion of the total allowable catch going to one fisherman, cooperative or other entity, letting more people share in the fishery.

The regional fishery management council can also adopt measures to allow for greater access for the next generation of fishermen, and measures to help preserve fishing communities, their waterfront businesses and the jobs that are so valuable for a community's economy and culture.

Even when catch share programs are designed openly and inclusively, the fact remains that catch share programs result in change. And while these changes are designed to solve problems, we're seeing that in fisheries — as well as other issues in our national life — change is not easy.

NOAA will soon be putting out a draft national policy on catch shares for public comment. NOAA's Catch Share Task Force included representatives from all eight of the nation's regional fishery management councils, but the task force could not speak with everyone in every community. That's why we'll have a long comment period to allow people directly affected by these changes to help NOAA improve this policy.

I'll be writing about the draft policy as soon as it's released to the public and I hope you'll take the time to read it, learn more about catch shares and make comments.

I welcome your comments on my column. You can send any comments directly to me at public.concerns.groundfish@noaa.gov.

Jim Balsiger is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's acting assistant administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service.