Management & Regulation

New federal regulations that take effect May first will fundamentally change fishing in New Hampshire and the rest of New England. The rules are designed to rebuild depleted stocks of groundfish, such as cod and flounder. But fishermen say the new management policy hits New Hampshire fishermen particularly hard, and could put half the state's fishing boats out of business. New Hampshire Public Radio's Amy Quinton reports.

Dozens of New Hampshire fisherman packed into a small conference room recently in Portsmouth. They came to hear details about new groundfish rules set by the New England Fishery Management Council.

Those rules, for the first time, place a cap on the amount of groundfish that fisherman can catch off New England. Mark Grant, with the National Marine Fisheries Service, says the goal is to end overfishing and rebuild 13 of 19 protected fish species. "And so that reduction in itself is a huge problem, if you reduce the amount of fish people can catch either everyone makes less money, or less people go fishing," he says.

But there's an even bigger change under the new regulations. Fisherman can now join groups, called sectors, and each member of the sector shares the available catch. Those who opt out of those sectors face a decrease in the number of days they can fish, in how much they can catch per trip, and tighter restrictions on where they can fish.

Listen to the audio from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

 

 

 

 

 

Traditional New England groundfish like cod, pollock, and flounder could get a new lease on life as the region’s fishermen switch to an innovative way of divvying up the catch on Saturday.

While the majority of boat captains have signed on to new communal cooperatives, each with its own catch quota, the switch away from the fishing-derby practices of the past has been deeply controversial. Any delay in implementing the new system, however, would be a mistake: The best way to get the kinks out of the catch-share sectors, as the cooperatives are called, is to start the season and deal with problems as they arise.

From Rhode Island to Maine, fishermen have formed into 17 sectors, most based on geography, with each sector allocated a portion of the region’s quota for the groundfish species. Similar cooperatives have proven successful among Cape Cod hook fishermen and in Alaska as a way to head off overfishing.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

Mayor Stanley Mack of Aleutians East Borough, Alaska has written to Chairwoman Madeleine Bordallo stating that based on the experience of Aleutians East Borough "we believe the implementation of a Catch Shares system … is destructive to local fishermen and coastal communities".

The Mayor continued "We also believe the record shows that implementing Catch Shares does not necessarily protect fisheries resources, and that there are other existing management tools to accomplish this which are less destructive to communities and fishermen."

Read Mayor Mack's letter to Congress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think investigators are running low on issues to probe within Jane Lubchenco's increasingly shady National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?

Think again — and add the inside deal to funnel a $6.5 million on-board fishing monitoring contract to a well-connected marine services firm.

NOAA officials now say they've not yet announced which company will get the pact to monitor the new catch-share manegement program being thrust on the New England fishery beginning May 1.

[read this editorial in full in the Gloucester Daily Times]

 

 

 

Jerome Selby, mayor of Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska — one of the nation's top three fishing ports — has written to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources asking that NOAA's catch share policy be delayed until hearings are held in the largest ports of New England, the Gulf Coast, the West Coast, and Alaska.

Mayor Selby wrote "Because of the damage we have experienced to our economy and people from the two catch share programs that have been implemented in Kodiak, we have serious concerns about the new Catch Share policy that is being developed."

The mayor continued, "The new policy should place a strong emphasis on using the lessons learned about negative impact on jobs and communities' economies to minimize these negative impacts in the future."

Read Mayor Selby's letter.

 

 

 

 

 

A global firm with close ties to top federal fisheries officials and the Environmental Defense Fund, architect of the nation's catch share policy, is one of four that has been qualified to provide on-board monitoring — worth as much as $6.5 million a year — when the New England fisheries go under catch system rules May 1.

UPDATE: Firm announced winning contract before it was awarded.  See Environmental firm jumped gun on deal with NOAA

Marion Veber, the acquisitions officer in charge of the selection, which is expected this week, declined all comment on the matter yesterday and refused to identify the qualified firms competing for all or a part of the monitoring contract for the catch share system.

But MRAG Americas, whose president Andrew Rosenberg cuts a high profile in global fisheries, has posted on its Web site that it has already been selected.

[read the full story in the Gloucester Daily Times]

 

 

 

NOAA Fisheries Service Announces That Effective 0001 hour April 21, 2010, The Winter I Scup Possession Limit Will Be Reduced To 1,000 lb For The Remainder Of The Winter I Period (through April 30, 2010).

[View the PDF document]

 

 

 

NOAA has released a compliance guide about regulations implementing measures approved under Amendment 16 and Framework Adjustment 44 (FW 44) to the NE Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP) that become effective on May 1, 2010.

[click here to view the PDF document]

 

 

 

MRAG Americas, the environmental services firm headed by Andrew Rosenberg, who helped Jane Lubchenco write the nation's catch share policy as vice-chair of the Environmental Defense Fund board before she became head of NOAA, prematurely announced winning a contract to provide monitors on groundfishing boats when the policy comes to the groundfishery, a federal contract officer said Tuesday.

Although the award and probable sharing of a contract worth at least $6.5 million in New England's first year under the catch share program remains to be made, MRAG Americas had posted on its Web site Monday that it had been chosen by Lubchenco's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and had a contract.

"MRAG Americas is contracted to provide sector and dockside monitors for sectors within the New England multispecies groundfish fishery," the company announced on its Web site.

[read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full]

 

 

 

MRAG Americas, the environmental services firm headed by Andrew Rosenberg, who helped Jane Lubchenco write the nation's catch share policy as vice-chair of the Environmental Defense Fund board before she became head of NOAA, prematurely announced winning a contract to provide monitors on groundfishing boats when the policy comes to the groundfishery, a federal contract officer said Tuesday.

Although the award and probable sharing of a contract worth at least $6.5 million in New England's first year under the catch share program remains to be made, MRAG Americas had posted on its Web site Monday that it had been chosen by Lubchenco's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and had a contract.

"MRAG Americas is contracted to provide sector and dockside monitors for sectors within the New England multispecies groundfish fishery," the company announced on its Web site.

[read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full]