Let’s talk about fishing banks. No, not the Grand Banks or Georges Bank, the legendary biological hotspots for cod, haddock and halibut. We’re talking today about permit banks, a new strategy in the effort to produce sustainable fisheries in New England to benefit a diversity of fishermen and fishing ports. Are permit banks our friends or foes?
Permit banks allow entities such as groups of fishermen, states, and even nonprofit organizations to purchase fishing permits, creating “banks” of available permits, and then lease the associated quota back to fishermen, often at below-market prices. They can attach certain conditions to the leases to best serve their communities — for example, quota leasing may be restricted to fishermen who use only certain types of fishing gear, which may be less efficient but better achieve conservation goals while allowing fishing businesses to continue operating. Or quotas can be leased only to owner-operators or to people fishing out of a specific port. This process can help get quota from those who did well in the qualifying period to those who, for various reasons, did not – thus preserving a more diverse fishing fleet.
Read the complete story from Talking Fish.