December 14, 2012 — When she took office in 2009, Jane Lubchenco vowed to get New England's ailing groundfishery back on track. In an e-mail this week, announcing her intention to resign, the marine ecologist wrote she had succeeded in "…ending overfishing, rebuilding stocks and returning fisheries to profitability."
"It's hard to really say that any one of those things, except for ending overfishing, has taken place," says Bob Vanasse, who runs Saving Seafood, a Washington D.C.-based industry group that represents captains, fishermen, seafood processors and brokers in the eastern United States. "Most of the fisheries are actually in extremely difficult conditions. So to say that fishing has returned to profitability is a very peculiar claim."
One exception, says Vanasse, is the scallop fishery off Massachusetts. Regulators in Maine are hoping that dividing the scallop grounds here into three zones – and moving to a management system resembling crop rotation – will lead to a comeback, like the one down south.
As Lubchenco prepares to leave NOAA, debate continues over perhaps the most controversial change that occurred on her watch. In May of 2010, NOAA moved to a "catch shares" system in a bid to revive stocks in the depleted New England groundfishery. Regulators set catch limits for each species like cod, haddock and flounder. Fisherman are allotted a portion of the allowable catch that they can haul in themselves, or sell or lease to someone else.
Policymakers, and many groundfishermen here in Maine, say the change has been a largely positive one. Glen Libby runs Port Clyde Fresh Catch. "We've been thinned up enough up this way," he says. "If we get thinned out anymore, we won't have anything."
Libby, who's also a member of the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association, points out that there are just 40 groundfishing boats in the entire state, and none between Port Clyde and the Canadian border. "It's done several things that it was designed to do. It's controlled the catch levels."
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