June 4, 2014 — The agreement reached last week divides the package into three equal pots. One third will go to direct payments to fishermen, one third to states to spend as they see fit, and the final third will be used to buy boats and permits from fishermen willing to exit the fishery permanently. Because Massachusetts is home to more groundfishermen than any other state in New England, as well as the highest grossing groundfish port, the Commonwealth will receive $14.5 million.
“I think it was the best that could be done,” says Bob Vanasse, Executive Director of Saving Seafood. “The different agencies did their best to slice it up equitably between the states. And a number of the members were adamant that there should be payments to the fishermen.”
But not all fishermen are covered by the federal package. Permit holders who caught less than 5,000 pounds of groundfish in the four years leading up to the disaster declaration aren’t eligible for payments. Neither are the hundreds of crew members who work on nearly every groundfish boat.
“The federal plan just leaves too many fishermen behind,” says Tom Dempsey, Policy Director for the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. “Crew were completely ignored, and I don’t think that’s right.”
Massachusetts could use some of its allotted funds to help permit holders, crew members, and recreational fishermen impacted by the disaster. Regional administrator John Bullard says members of the Massachusetts delegation expressed a desire to do so during the negotiations that led to the current deal. Rhode Island delegates talked about investing in research projects that involve, rather than alienate, fishermen, while New Hampshire expressed a need to support the last remaining fish processing plant in that state.
Some of those state-level investments could help move the fishery toward a more sustainable future, but the final portion of the federal relief package may determine the shape of the groundfish fleet itself. Nearly $11 million has been set aside for buy-back or buy-out programs that would help some fishermen exit the fishery permanently. Talks about the nature of those programs begin in a few weeks, and the uncertainty has some fishermen – even those who might be interested in getting out of the business – concerned.
When it comes to the long-term health of the fishery, though, this relief package is overshadowed by pending changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the federal law that mandates and guides fishery management nationwide. Federal legislators are in the process of amending and reauthorizing the law, as they do every several years.
“The long-term answer to healthy fishing communities is healthy fish stocks, not disaster aid. This is a band-aid,” Bullard says. “The buy-out or buy-back which might help us right-size the fleet could be a long-term solution. But the real answer is building the stocks back.”
There’s disagreement about whether a draft bill released by House Committee on Natural Resources last week would do that. That bill emphasizes flexibility in management, and calls for scientists and managers to do more in the way of taking into account factors other than fishing that may be affecting fish stocks, including climate change, pollution, and predator-prey interactions. It also asks fishery biologists to incorporate new technologies into the process of assessing wild fish populations.
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