SEAFOOD.COM NEWS — May 16, 2013 — Mayor Carolyn Kirk and fisheries stakeholders in Gloucester, Ma have produced an excellent plan to respond to the current groundfish crisis.
Titled The Gloucester Bridge Plan: A Response to the New England Groundfisheries Crisis, this proposal puts forward clear and practical ideas that address the real short term needs of the New England seafood industry, and the long term transition to a different type of fishery.
This is an impressive proposal, and deserves to be taken seriously by both NOAA and Congress in Washington. It is unfortunate that Gloucester has been more known in the past for a war against NOAA. This proposal represents a sea change, and a real effort to address the full scope of the fishing crisis here.
These cod cuts of up to 77% in the Gulf of Maine threaten the economic viability and survival of not only the fishing fleets, but also of the processors, shoreside services, and fresh fish markets of the region, regardless as to why or how they happened. We know that ocean conditions are changing, and regardless of the accuracy of fisheries science, the region will have to adapt. This proposal attempts to get beyond the disputes over whether the fish are there or how many there are, and goes to the heart of the flexibility the fleet will need in the future.
Many people in Gloucester have come together, under the leadership of Mayor Carolyn Kirk, to formulate the plan, which is called the Gloucester Bridge Plan to navigate through this crisis.
The name resonates because Gloucester is tied to Cape Ann by a single bridge over the Annisquam river – and many residents go for months or even years without crossing the bridge. Also in Gloucester, there is often suspicion of ideas and proposals that come from the mainland side of the bridge. The name recognizes that the city and the industry will have to change in order to preserve itself.
The goals of the plan are both to preserve the core assets of the fleets and the ports during the groundfish recovery period and to use this crisis as an opportunity to retool the industry through investments in sustainable, innovative businesses and practices going forward.
The New England groundfisheries was declared a federal disaster area in the fall of 2012. Plan supporters want to see federal and state contributions to implement the bridge plan which include the following elements, to which we have appended our own comments:
Transition Assistance to Fishermen and Crew
Transition assistance is needed for fishermen to meet immediate financial demands while their boats are idled at the docks, including unemployment insurance, mortgage protection, SBA programs to restructure debt, dockage and fuel relief, and other measures available to declared disaster areas.
This is supported by Sen. Elisabeth Warren and other New England congressional delegates. If a large auto plant lays off workers in Detroit, they have unemployment insurance and income support, so they may return to work when the industry rebounds. When farmers lose a crop to drought or disease, they get federal disaster assistance, loans, and other income support so that they remain in place to farm the same land again in future years. The fishing industry in New England desperately needs a similar type of income support program to survive the groundfish crisis. The silence from our political leadership has been unconscionable.
Transition Assistance to Shoreside Businesses
Fishing fleets rely on support services of the regions ports, including marine railways, engine repair, ice production, and marine supplies. Transition assistance is needed to stabilize these companies during the recovery period.
Loss of infrastructure is inevitable when the number of fishing vessels declines. But if too much infrastructure is lost, the fleet can never recover because it lacks the services – ice, repair, nets, etc. that are required. Portland and Gloucester are the two primary ports in the Gulf of Maine, and if the fishery is ever to recover one of them has to survive with marine infrastructure. The fleet has made a choice to primarily work out of Gloucester, and assistance is needed to preserve the marine infrastructure there.
Having all the infrastructure concentrated in New Bedford will eventually leave the Gulf of Maine to be fished by distant water fleets – all based hundreds of miles from their target fishing grounds. It will also leave the rich coastline of the Gulf of Maine devoid of groundfish vessels.
Redeployment of Fishing Boats as Research Vessels
Chartering of fishing boats as research vessels will accomplish three goals: a dramatic enhancement in the quality and amount of data used in running stock assessment models; a redeployment source of income for fishermen during the recovery period; and the opportunity to enhance geographically-dispersed data collection for numerous other ocean research programs.
The cooperative research program of NOAA fisheries has been a vitally important tool to improve knowledge about stocks, and also to provide income and employment to vessels. Expansion of this program is a win-win for both NOAA and the industry, and its budget and resources must be protected. This program operates on all coasts of the US and is popular from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico. It must be protected and expanded in the Congressional budgeting process and targeted as part of the disaster relief for New England.
Investment in a Sustainable, Innovative Fishery
New England fleets and ports, with a long history of adaptation and innovation, have the opportunity to invest in a shift from a high-volume, low-value fisheries to a high-value, low-volume fisheries with a lighter ecosystem footprint. Examples of current proposals include retrofitting of fishing boats for high-quality and flexible, multiple-species harvesting and fuel-efficiency; partnerships of fishermen and processors in live-fish markets, freeze-dried and other value-added products; expansion of local fresh catch programs to include institutional customers; processing of chitin and other products from lobster, crab, and clamshell waste and invasive green crabs; poly-culture of shellfish, kelp, seaweed and fish habitat restoration; hatchery stock enhancements; green chemistry solutions from the ocean biomass; and others.
Some of these ideas may sound far-fetched, and may not have come from those selling seafood day to day, but the principle here of low volume high value is totally on target. The single greatest advantage New England has over Alaska is that a population of 50 to 75 million people is literally mere hours from docks where day boats land. Along the East Coast, opportunities for live fish, for the highest value fresh deliveries, and for direct partnerships with chefs and restaurants all abound. Investments in this area, and the diversity that is possible, are exactly what will provide a long term living for some of the Gloucester and other small boat fleet.
Collaborative Review of Fisheries Management
Fishing fleets and ports are buffeted by short-term shifts in allowable catches and other management measures. A multiple-stakeholder, collaborative effort to propose better management approaches is needed to support sustainable fisheries and ecosystems, fishing fleets, ports, and access by consumers to healthy local fish and other seafood products.
This point also is being taken up by NOAA, Congress and the national fishing community. At the recent Managing Our Fisheries Conference one of the key recommendations that had wide consensus was that greater year to year stability in quotas and avoiding short term radical shifts up and down in fishery status is a key management goal. To this end, some flexibility in Magnuson is needed, but also some flexibility on the part of the agency using their existing authority is needed as well. There is a process underway to revise the language of the national standards that guide the fishery management councils that does not depend on Congressional legislation. Creating the framework for multi-year management plans and avoiding a yo-yo cycle between fished and overfished, fishing and overfishing, is totally possible now that the basic stock recoveries are in place in most of the country. We need to be managing from the perspective of national abundance which we have, not the scarcity which we fear. We hope the agency is moving in this direction.
So in we can do nothing but give this plan our highest and strongest support – and hope that other stake holders in the industry, including the regional councils, agency and congressional personnel Washington, the environmental community, fishing interests on the other coasts and the academic community come together around these ideas for New England.
For years these people have watched from afar as the New England fishery crisis unfolded. This plan is a real response that is comprehensive and addresses the entire interrelated set of problems. It urgently needs your support.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.