For the next two days, the 55 or so officials, appointed part-time legislators, scientists and staff who preside over the New England fishery will assemble in Bretton Woods, N.H., to examine in great detail the new fishing economic system known as catch shares — a system they have already approved for the groundfishery next year.
Otherwise known as individual tradeable quotas — or ITQs — fishermen’s catch shares would convert the swimming common property of the nation’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone into negotiable catching rights, thus converting public property into assignable private commodities. And the new system already approved by the New England Fishery Management Council has drawn growing concern from the fishing industry in Gloucester, throughout New England and in other fishing communities around the country and the world.
Rarely in American history has a new economic system created on a drawing board been installed to replace a pre-existing system, especially one that has been working. Indeed, while many of America’s economic sectors faltered badly in the general market malaise last year, fisheries seemed barely affected.