Food and Water Watch press release:
New Bedford, MA — June 16, 2011 — Food & Water Watch launched a campaign calling on Congress to stop the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from further expanding a widely unpopular fisheries management program known as catch shares — a program that has resulted in job loss for thousands of fishermen across the United States. The national consumer advocacy group also released a report revealing that the number of catch share programs, which grant once-public access to fish to private interests, have increased by 150 percent (from 6 to 15) in the United States in less than a decade, while NOAA plans to expand the programs by an additional 33 percent in the next 5 years.
“Fish are a public resource. Unfortunately, private investment groups and even some public interest groups have shamelessly and publicly compared access to fish to the stock market and are treating it like an investment that can be bought and sold for personal profit,” said Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch Executive Director. “They’re aiming to model the fishing business after big agribusiness on land, with giant commercial operations controlling the market.”
A means to essentially privatize fishing, catch shares divide up the fish in any given region and grant access to certain companies and individuals — giving fishing privileges to fewer, often larger corporate interests while pushing out smaller-scale, more traditional fishermen.
As a result, catch shares consolidate the fishing industry. According to the report, in 2010, about five months after a catch shares program began in New England, 55 of the initial 500 boats in the fishery controlled 61 percent of the revenue.
The amount of fish given to a fisherman through a catch share program, also known as quota, is often leased out for profit rather than fished by the quota owner. Last year in New England, for example, 253 of the 500 boats remained docked, unable to fish because they were not granted enough quota and could not afford to purchase more.
The New England catch share program prompted the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford, Mass., along with local fishermen and advocates, to file a suit challenging its legality. Additional lawsuits are ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico and, most recently, the Pacific Coast.
"The massive loss of jobs within the fishing industry is directly correlated to the catch share program,” said Tina Jackson, President of the American Alliance for Fishermen and their Communities and a commercial fisherman and lobsterman herself. “It is vitally necessary for Congress to put forth legislation to halt any further programs of this nature and save the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. that will be lost if NOAA's national catch share policy is allowed to be implemented."
Proponents of catch shares have argued that they help combat overfishing. According to the report, however, catch share programs have shown little evidence that they increase fish stocks. In Norway, cod stocks dropped to their lowest level ever in 2006 after years of catch shares management.
Last April, amidst national concern over wasteful government spending, Congress voted to defund catch shares for fiscal year 2011.
“We hope that Congress will continue in this sensible direction and defund catch shares permanently,” Hauter said. “The last thing our government should be doing during the recession is spending taxpayer dollars on a program that puts thousands out of work.”
Report Executive Summary
When people think of fishing, they probably imagine an independent sea captain and his crew braving the elements in a small vessel to bring a fresh catch to shore and to our plates. But the current focus of U.S. policy for managing our fisher- ies, called catch shares, is destroying the way of life of our nation’s fishermen and coastal communities. This time-honored trade is being replaced by a privatized system that often leaves the future of our nation’s fish, one of our most precious natural resources, in the hands of a small number of larger operations, whose primary goal is often immediate profit rather than sus- tainable use and long-term conservation.
The United States lost most of its family farms to the large industrialized agriculture model. Catch shares create similar condi- tions on our seas by transferring the wealth of our fish populations from the public trust into private hands, by allocating a percentage quota of the total amount of fish that can be caught in a year and allowing these quota to be leased, bought and sold. When catch shares are given to fishermen, those who receive the largest initial distribution of shares — or have the most capital to buy and lease shares — often gain control over the entire fishery. Smaller-scale traditional fishermen are pushed out of the fishery while larger companies, which often use fishing practices that stress ocean ecosystems, take over.
Proponents of catch shares claim they are the best solution to profitably, safely and sustainably manage our fisheries. In this report, Food & Water Watch examines these claims and finds them all wanting.
Catch shares cause economic devastation.
Catch shares only increase profits for some fishermen by cutting hundreds of others out of the fishery entirely. Widespread job loss and reduced wages drag coastal communities that are already struggling in this economy into dire economic situations. Meanwhile, a privileged few are able to profit from exclusive access to a public resource.
Catch shares fail to sustain the health of our fisheries.
Catch shares are only a way to distribute fish among fishermen and have no built-in sustainability measures — overfishing is controlled separately by setting limits on the total number of fish that can be caught. In fact, catch shares inherently contain incentives to use more damaging gear, discard unwanted fish and dismiss adaptive ecosystem-based fishing strategies.
Catch shares fail to achieve legal standards for fishery management.
The federal law governing our nation’s fisheries, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management Act, specifies that fishery man- agement must support the long-term economic health of fishing communities, but catch shares are responsible around the world for destroying the economic health of coastal ports. Further, an international court found that catch shares violated human rights by creating a privileged class of fishermen in a privatized industry.
Catch shares aren’t fair.
Our nation and our oceans deserve better than a system that results in an unfair giveaway of public resources to private entities. Fishermen, rather than being cut out of the fishery, should be a key part of the management process. Smart fishery management can be fair and equitable, maintain public control of the resource, minimize damage to the environment, and promote a better life for our nation’s fishermen and coastal and fishing communities, and a better product for consumers.