Community-based Sectors for the New England Groundfish Fishery

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4.3 Balancing Catches with Allocations Under current sector regulations, sectors cannot buy, sell or trade ACE with other sectors. They must constrain their catch of all species to their annual allocations. If more sectors are authorized, substantial gains in profitability for sectors may be realized by allowing sectors to trade ACE. Gains might also be realized by allowing sectors to trade the permanent sector shares, but this may be infeasible. By altering where, when and possibly how they fish, sector members should have some ability to control and adjust the composition of their catch (over the fishing year) to match their ACE allocation. However, if a sector has only a small allocation of a stock taken incidentally (e.g. GOM or SNE windowpane flounder or SNE yellowtail), and the catch rates of that stock are low but highly variable and/or hard to control, the possibility exists that the sector will be constrained from utilizing the ACE for their primary target species due to incidental catch of these other species. If other sectors have surplus ACE, the ability to purchase additional ACE for these stocks if they become constraints would alleviate this problem and would likely increase the ability of sectors to utilize a greater percentage of their allocations of their primary target species. More substantial trades of ACE might be desirable in response to shifts in the distribution of primary target species. For example if cod stocks begin to expand into or shift to areas where they have been less prevalent, it may be beneficial for sectors in the area where cod has moved to purchase ACE from sectors in other areas. The potential gains may be sufficient to increase the profits to both sectors. If the species shifts are long-term, a shift in permits between sectors may make sense, but trades of ACE will be useful in the interim. Allowing trading of sector shares could be useful if sectors perceive long term mismatches between their share portfolios and desired catches. Under current rules sectors can effectively trade shares on an annual basis through the movement of vessels between sectors. Assuming a fixed baseline for allocation, the entire set of shares of catch history associated with a particular vessel would move with that vessel causing a reduction in the allocation to the old sector and an equal addition to the new one. However, finding a permit with the desired mix of species allocations may be difficult. Allowing the sectors to trade specific amounts of shares of particular stocks as opposed to the entire basket of allocation associated with a permit would make acquisition of the desired portfolio for the sector easier, but would have to allow fragmentation of the catch history from a particular permit. It is probably not the intent of the Council to do this and would increase the likelihood of triggering an ITQ referendum as well. It would also require a fairly complex registry to track the shares associated with particular vessels and sectors. It may however be useful to design rules that make it simpler for vessels to move between sectors. Currently the permit owner must declare into a sector several months in advance of the fishing year. With fixed baselines, it may be possible to allow these declarations to be closer to the beginning of the fishing year and to allow a permit declared into one sector to declare its intention to switch into another at the beginning of the next fishing year. However, it may still be necessary for vessels to declare into a sector well before the beginning of the fishing year if the sector if required to submit a NEPA analysis on the final operations plan which NMFS is required to review this prior to the start of fishing. If the regulatory review process can be streamlined, it may be possible to allow declaration of sector membership closer to the beginning of the fishing year. 48
4.4 Communities without Catch History There are a large number of permit holders who have little catch history in recent years. Some of these permit holders had been inactive for some time and were not granted any allocation of “A” DAS in amendment 13. Others did receive “A” DAS allocations in 2004 but have not been actively participating in the groundfish fishery since then. Some were leasing out their DAS to other vessels. Additionally there are some communities (including several in Downeast Maine) that traditionally had some involvement in the groundfish fishery, but no longer have any fishermen with permits with “A” DAS and catch history. Currently allocation to sectors is based solely on catch history. However future sector allocation may be based on factors other than catch history. For example, allocation of a proportion of TACs to sectors could be based on the physical characteristics of the vessels and their DAS allocations. This would provide some allocation to vessels with little or no catch history, but, it is not clear whether that allocation would be provided to vessels without “A” DAS. Therefore it may still be necessary for communities without current access to the groundfish fishery to buy their way back into the fishery through acquisition of permits. Sectors in conjunction with permit banks could provide an opportunity for permit owners and communities without “A” DAS and catch history to reenter the groundfish fishery. Individuals that hold groundfish permits with only “C” DAS could enter a sector without purchasing a new permit and could have access to that sector’s allocation. A sector could be created with a permit bank to acquire catch history for this purpose. However, in order to provide communities or groups of fishermen with sufficient security to make an investment in a permit bank and to acquire financing, it would be necessary to provide greater assurance of the longevity of allocations associated with fishing permits held by the permit bank and clarity on the legality of a community-based entity holding permits. 5.0 Conclusions The current management system based on individual effort (DAS) limits, year-round and seasonal closures and trip limits has undermined the economic viability of many fishing operations and the efficiency of the overall fleet. Trip limits result in substantial discarding and waste of marketable fish. Increasingly restrictive DAS limits and trip limits appear to have reduced fishing mortality on stocks of concern to a below-overfishing thresholds, but they constrain the fleet from catching a substantial proportion of the sustainable yield of other species. The current system has also created safety concerns by causing vessels to fish in unsafe conditions in order to maximize revenues from their limited DAS. Although the inefficiencies of the current management system have affected nearly all active groundfish permit holders, the impacts may have been greater in some areas as evidenced by a shift of landings toward a few larger ports in Massachusetts. This shift is mainly a result of vessels moving to or landing at ports closer to the most productive fishing grounds. However, groundfish boats in Maine face additional disadvantages, including a prohibition on landings lobsters caught by trawl gear and the state tax on marine fuel which have contributed to a shift of activity away from Maine. Groundfish landings in Downeast Maine have been essentially 49
Page 1 and 2: Community-based Sectors for the New
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Executive Summary
Page 5 and 6: Community leaders in Portland and P
Page 7 and 8: of community-based permit banks. Th
Page 9 and 10: 1.0 Introduction The groundfish fis
Page 11 and 12: Although Amendment 13 effectively e
Page 13 and 14: somewhat vague on how the allocatio
Page 15 and 16: 2.2 Experience with Existing Sector
Page 17 and 18: me to explore the idea further and
Page 19 and 20: period is that which was used to de
Page 21 and 22: shown above in Table 2. Revenue pro
Page 23 and 24: Table 3a: Port Clyde Sector Revenue
Page 25 and 26: ecruitment and could be either high
Page 27 and 28: increased. They also have caught a
Page 29 and 30: 3.2.1 Strawman Sector Structure and
Page 31 and 32: Table 8: Portland Sectors A and B V
Page 33 and 34: discussed earlier these price proje
Page 35 and 36: Table 9b: Portland Sector A Revenue
Page 37 and 38: Table 9d: Portland Sector B Revenue
Page 39 and 40: Table 10b: Portland Sector A Revenu
Page 41 and 42: Table 11b: Portland Sector B Specie
Page 43 and 44: vessels would be leased to sector v
Page 45 and 46: is ostensibly to reduce excess capa
Page 47 and 48: Table 15: Projected Total Revenue,
Page 49: later. However, rolling baselines c
Page 53 and 54: opportunities for consolidation of
Page 55 and 56: References Alexander, Yvette 2006.M
Page 57 and 58: Appendix A: Landings and revenue pr
Page 59 and 60: Appendix B: Groundfish Price Model
Page 61 and 62: Appendix C: Sector Proposals Submit
Page 63 and 64: Port Clyde Community Sector Glen Li
Page 65 and 66: Full Retention All fish caught 1. e
Page 67 and 68: Reasons for Existence: 1. end overf
Page 69 and 70: Gloucester Fixed Gear Sector Peter
Page 71 and 72: New Bedford Channel Trawl Sector Ri
Page 73 and 74: Point Judith / Southern New England
Page 75: Pier 6 Initiative Michael Walsh Req

Community-based Sectors for the New England Groundfish Fishery

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