What are fishing sectors all about?
It’s about the government trying to give another management option to New England’s groundfish fishermen. This new management plan, taking effect in May, will allow commercial fishermen in defined “sectors” to decide on their own how to manage their catch which will be capped by a limit.
The sector concept is a grouping, not a geographical location. It could lay out a new course for fishermen to work together for their mutual benefit, accepting catch limits but designing their own management plan and choosing when and where to fish.
So far, there are 18 New England sectors, including the Port Clyde Community Groundfish Sector made up of members from the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association. Officials say joining a sector isn’t mandatory but those who continue to fish in the Days at Sea management system would be subject to more stringent rules such as 50 percent cut in Days at Sea (24 days for most fishermen) a 24 hour clock and trip limits on Gulf of Maine cod and Pollock.
The allocation of fish for those wishing to join a sector will be based on past total catches and a time period between 1996-2006 a rule that could rankle fishermen if those were poor fishing years. Groundfish fishermen, cooperatives and fishermen’s associations may modify poor allocation by trading, leasing or buying up fishing permits themselves. The state of Maine will be receiving $1 million from the National Marine Fishery Service to start a Maine State Permit Bank to buy groundfish permits or allocation to preserve access to the fishery and help the remaining groundfish fishermen to be viable according to state officials.
Lifelong Port Clyde fisherman Doug Anderson, 61, turned to lobstering after years of fishing for other species, especially scallops.” I scalloped the whole coast, from Eastport to Isle of Shoals and on to New Jersey,” he said. Anderson, who has served on a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) scallop advisory council, said he grew frustrated by the lack of protection for small-scale fishermen; “Big guys own it all.” He said federal intervention has, since the 1980s, “made it hard for the little guy” to survive.
Anderson, part of a still-bustling fishing community, doesn’t blame government policy for declining fisheries. “We were doing things so badly when fish was cheap. Like anybody, we made a lot of mistakes. We killed ’em,” he said of once-plentiful cod and other species.
Anderson is pessimistic about a quick recovery but believes some fish, such as hake and flounder, are making a comeback, in part through government policy. “We’re on the right track, but it may not be on the time track the bureaucrats and scientists expect. It’s got to be a natural and lasting recovery. Eventually we’ll see it,” he said
Fishermen see their daily livelihood in jeopardy while scientists at NMFS say they are alarmed that current days-at-sea and other policies have failed to curtail overfishing-leaving the future of the fish itself in doubt.
Regardless of how unpopular policy-makers may be, if the fish disappear, so will the fishermen. That is one point where fishermen and policy makers find common ground.
Another approach to creating a sustainable fisheries that is being shopped around throughout the nation called “Catch Shares” worries and angers some independent fishermen. They reportedly fear corporations will snap up ‘catch shares’ and put the little guy out of business.
Fishermen from Maine and elsewhere recently rallied at National Marine Fisheries Service regional offices in Gloucester to object to new rules. One protester turned the agency’s acronym into Now My Family’s Starving.
The government under President Barack Obama is trying to give fishermen more say in how things are done, according to Lee Crockett, in charge of federal fisheries policy for the nonprofit Pew Environment Group in a press conference about their recent white paper “Design Matters Making Catch Shares Work”
“One size fits all is inappropriate…it ignores local variability,” Crockett said in a discussion with leaders of fishing organizations around the country. But he stressed the need to protect fish as public resource through sustainable fishery policy.
Paul Parker of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust said his group is promoting “community ownership” through purchasing permits and then leasing them to local fishermen. Begun last year, the trust’s purpose is to “protect depleted fisheries resources, reinvigorate fishing businesses and revitalize coastal fishing communities on Cape Cod. The Trust is buying ground fish and scallop permits and leasing them to qualifying Cape Cod fishermen. The Trust delivers a win-win-win for fishermen, community and the environment by offering financial incentives to fishermen that are willing to adopt legally binding leasehold covenants that end overfishing, limit habitat impacts and minimize bycatch,” according to its web site.
Steve Cartwright is a freelance writer who lives in Waldoboro.