Nils Stolpe’s "Another Perspective" (Saving Seafood August 3, 2009) did a good job of illustrating the subtle and not so subtle differences in spin that have been applied to reporting on fishery conservation.
Of course, like any opinion column, “Another Perspective” puts its own spin on the news. There are two assertions in the same sentence in the August 3rd column that are misleading and I would characterize at least one of them as false. The sentence at issue is:
"Need I mention that catch shares, in essence a system of privatization of our fisheries, are at the foundation of the fisheries management revolution that the Pew campaign has been fomenting?"
The fact is that most of our fisheries have already been privatized through the adoption of limited license systems over the last thirty years. The implication that privatization is a bad thing that ought to be opposed is also worth questioning.
Is it realistic to argue that the highly profitable limited access sea scallop fishery is not privatized, even in the absence of a formal catch share system? Would anyone in the industry argue to undo the limited access system in the sea scallop fishery?
I would argue that a formal system of catch shares in the sea scallop fishery would actually create the potential for broader ownership. It is not practical for crewmen or other citizens to own a piece of the scallop fishery under the present system – one must buy a very expensive boat and permit. (Imagine if one could only buy land in farm-size quantities.) Catch shares would make the rights (privileges) to the fishery divisible, making them more accessible to more individuals. Catch shares don’t require a limit on the number of boats, meaning that people in other fisheries could buy scallop quota and combine it wither their other fishing activities. In that way, catch shares could restore the flexibility that our fisheries lost when they went to limited licenses.
The groundfish fishery was privatized with Amendment 5 in 1994. The radical element in Amendment 16 is not the privatization of the groundfish fishery – that has already occurred — but the shift from days-at-sea to pounds as the basis for allocation. Poundage allocations will make it possible for fishermen to put together the mix of species that they need while achieving conservation goals. A comprehensive system of catch shares would allow scallopers to buy yellowtail flounder quota so that they could access millions of dollars of sea scallops that are now left to die because the yellowtail limit closes the scallop fishery.
There is also the implication that The Pew Charitable Trusts have played a major supportive role in the evolution of our fisheries toward catch shares. The truth is that catch shares, in the form of individual transferable quotas (ITQs), were around well before the Pew Trusts became interested in fishery management.
The recently deceased fishery economist Francis Christy proposed individual fishermen’s shares in an Occasional Paper that was published by the Law of the Sea Institute at the University of Rhode Island in 1972. The first fisheries in the United States to be managed with ITQs were state fisheries in the Great Lakes. That happened in the mid and late 1970s. The commercial fishermen there saw ITQs as the only way to protect their industry from being regulated out of business by recreational fishing interests.
Fisheries around the U.S. and around the world were privatized one after the other with limited license systems beginning in the 1970s. (And this does not include the limited and transferable floating and staked fish trap sites that have existed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts since the 1800s.)
New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, and various other countries began a major conversion of their fisheries to ITQs in the 1980s and 90s. In many cases, fisheries switched from limited license and effort control systems to catch shares. Limited licenses privatized the fisheries, but they did not conserve the fish and they didn’t meet fishermen’s needs for flexibility.
The first federal fishery to adopt ITQs in the U.S. was the surf clam and ocean quahog fishery on the Atlantic coast. That was around 1990. Would anyone undo that system?
In 1995 the Alaskan halibut and sablefish fisheries were converted from wasteful and unsafe derby fishing to ITQs.
I am not aware of Pew involvement in any of those ITQ implementations.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a raging national debate over individual transferable quotas. I was an ITQ advocate. Most of the people and organizations that were supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts were opposed to ITQs.
The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA) is often identified as a recipient of Pew and other charitable foundation funding. I don’t know the details of their funding, but I do know that CCCHFA opposed ITQs and supported the Congressional moratorium that was placed on ITQs in 1996 and lasted through 2002. When the CCCHFA finally realized that effective conservation requires both accountability and responsibility for the impact of one’s catch on the fish stock, they asked for a group catch share, now known as a "sector" in New England. By advocating group shares rather than individual shares, CCCHFA hoped to make catch shares more responsive to community concerns than would be the case if catch shares were thrown on a wide-open free market. I see the position of the CCCHFA as evolving toward a more flexible system, but still focused on fishing community concerns.
I was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation for my work on lobster conservation in 1998. My project had nothing to do with catch shares. In the years since, I haven’t found much enthusiasm for catch shares at meetings of the Pew Fellows. Pew Fellows have been involved in a wide range of marine conservation projects that focused on reefs, marine protected areas, fish and fishing communities. The only Pew Fellowship that focused on catch shares, to my recollection, was a comparison of the U.S. and Canadian sea scallop management systems that was done by economist Robert Repetto in 2000.
2008 was the first year that I sensed a widespread recognition of the importance of marine tenure systems (traditional fishing rights, territorial use rights in fisheries [TURFS], and catch shares) at the annual meeting of the Pew Fellows. Marine tenure systems give fishermen some assurance that their livelihood can’t be arbitrarily taken away from them. I was encouraged to see that shift in emphasis and I hope that it continues.
I believe that fishermen should be relieved if the Environment Group of The Pew Charitable Trusts is willing to consider catch shares as a viable conservation tool, rather than advocating the permanent closure of large areas to fishing. I’d be pleased to see more Pew folks advocating a combination of fishery conservation measures, rather than a single-minded focus on no-take marine reserves.
Nils is known to be very thorough and I am therefore surprised that his research would lead him to conclude that The Pew Charitable Trusts have supported the shift to catch shares that is taking place around the world. My experience tells me that many Pew folks have opposed rather than promoted that change. I would consider it good for the fishing industry if the Pew folks are becoming more receptive to catch shares.
Dick Allen is a former commercial fisherman who has been a representative of fishermen and an active participant in the fishery management system since 1972. He served on the New England Fishery Management Council from 1986-1995. Dick is currently working toward his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences in the Department of Fisheries at the University of Rhode Island.He specializes in economically sensible approaches to fishery conservation.