Tag Archives: catch share
US Coastal Communities Fight for Space for Small-scale Fishermen
U.S. coastal waters are a public good increasingly at risk of privatization, threatening local economies that have depended on the sea for generations, fishermen and environmental advocates warned. Critics point to efforts to open up waters to industrial-scale fish farms, (offshore wind farms), a federal permit system they say is stacked against small or new operators, and even coastal real estate development squeezing out independent businesses. “There is another real estate grab, but it’s in the ocean,” said Jason Jarvis, a commercial fisherman in Rhode Island who has been fishing for three decades and also sits on the board of the North American Marine Alliance (NAMA), a national network that seeks to boost fishing communities. “This is a gold rush,” said Crystal Canney, executive director of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, which has worked on model legislation to help towns push back. The efforts are prompting inquiries from concerned communities in other coastal states, she said. “The questions are really, do we have any rights?” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:30
Hooked Up!!! Catch Share Politics – ‘Sea Lords’ hook a congressional reformer
Steve Southerland agrees: He was something of a threat to some commercial fishermen. The former Florida congressman led the effort to change a federal program (catch shares) – unknown to most taxpayers – that allows a handful of businesses and fishermen to make millions off a government resource, creating what some fisherman call “lords of the sea.” The government essentially decides who will be a successful commercial fisherman and who will not.” And it doesn’t matter how hard you work,” Southerland says. “It doesn’t matter, you know, how much money you have to… That you’ve borrowed. It’s all based on a philosophy. And if you believed in that philosophy, then you win.” Southerland took to the floor of Congress, trying to make changes. In response, the same commercial fishermen profiting off this government resource poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign account of Southerland’s congressional opponent. Those same fishermen contributed additional money to a political action committee called Ocean Champions that also went after Southerland. “I think that it was a group of fishermen that worked towards that,” says Galveston, Texas commercial fisherman Buddy Guindon. “Mostly guys out of Florida. I didn’t have much to do with it. I contributed a little money to them.” Video, Read the story here 08:25
Catch share threat is back
As we enter 2017, the biggest threat to commercial and recreational fishermen in the South Atlantic is back: private ownership of the snapper-grouper fishery through a catch share program. Fishery stakeholders have year after year overwhelmingly rejected any form of catch shares. Most recently, 97 percent of the comments on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s long-range snapper-grouper management plan opposed catch shares — a plan the council promised would be “stakeholder-driven.” Yet, SAFMC Vice Chair Charlie Phillips has revealed that he, SAFMC member Chris Conklin and former SAFMC member Jack Cox, all commercial snapper-grouper fleet owners and dealers, are leading an effort to get a voluntary “pilot” catch share program in place this year using an “Exempted Fishing Permit,” which is a back door way to avoid the normal fishery regulation approval process. In a recent article in the Charleston, SC Post & Courier, Vice Chair Phillips touts that the permit would “allow them to catch all year.” The article also reveals that the Seafood Harvesters of America, which has been funded with over $300,000 from the radical Environmental Defense Fund, is supporting the EFP application. The Seafood Harvesters represent some of the biggest catch share owners in the nation. Read the post here 11:06
Opinion: State, council fail to help Kodiak trawl fisheries
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has a record for successful fishery management, built on principles known as the Alaska Model. Recently, the council abandoned the Alaska Model and its solid reputation for progressive fishery management. In doing so, the council failed the Gulf of Alaska trawl groundfish fisheries and our community of Kodiak. Led by the state of Alaska, the council voted at its December meeting in Anchorage to “postpone indefinitely” any further work to address the goal of bycatch reduction through a cooperative management program for Gulf of Alaska trawl fisheries. Instead, the Council ended a four-year public process to develop a program to achieve this goal. By their action, the state and the council put politics first, and the health of our fisheries and coastal communities came in dead last. Read the op-ed here 17:46
Queensland Government extends fishers “Catch Share” buyout period
The state government has extended applications for fishing business buyout payments until September 2 2016 following strong interest from commercial fishers. Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Lands and Water, Niall Blair, said the decision follows feedback from the industry. “Over the last few weeks, there has been a steady increase in applications by fishers for the $20,000 fishing business buyouts available under the Commercial Fisheries Business Adjustment Program,” the minister said. “This extension will now give fishers more time to consider their options under the Commercial Fisheries Business Adjustment Program and if they wish, apply for a $20,000 fishing business buyout. Laurieton-based commercial fisher Paul Moody says this latest decision only exemplifies how ‘ridiculous this scheme really is’. “I don’t know why they are doing it (extending the application period). It appears that the government is making it up as they go along,” he said. Read the rest here 09:45
Opinion: Red Snapper recreational fishermen— Allow Reallocation Among Fishermen, want shift to state management
Many Gulf Coast anglers have been asking themselves what the world is coming to lately, when they can fish federal waters for red snapper for only a few days this year while commercial boats can take sport fishermen out anytime to catch snapper for the boat to sell. I sure wondered how that could be when, in April, I first heard about Texas captain Scott Hickman’s trips,” which — quite legally — allow him to take sport fishermen along to fill his fish boxes per the commercial catch shares he owns. He accepts no payment from these anglers, just as by law he can accept no tips. The anglers cannot legally keep any fish nor buy fish from Hickman. But they can buy fish caught that day from the fish house back at the dock — for a premium price (at least a few bucks more per pound than the usual market price). At first, this scheme seemed outrageous to me, as it apparently did to many in the recreational-fishing community. Then I started trying to put my finger on why it pissed me off, and mostly I came up with reasons why it shouldn’t, especially when considered within the context of our bizarro snapper-management regime. Read the rest here 10:30
Moe Van Doren, Larry Adler, and Curly Stewart – Saving New England’s Cod Fishery
On Friday, the New York Times ran an op-ed by University of New Hampshire historian W. Jeffrey Bolster describing the long history of the decline of the stock of cod off the coast of New England. Van Doren then sites Jonathan Adler and Nathaniel Stewart’s Tragedy of the Commons dogma, that would save the day! Wait till you read his recommendation to save New England!! Read it here 22:28
Morro Bay group makes move to help mend fisheries
The Nature Conservancy has transferred its Central Coast commercial fishing quotas to a Morro Bay nonprofit group. The Morro Bay Community Quota Fund will now manage the city’s fishing quota and five fishing permits and lease them to local fishermen. The transfer marks the latest development in an effort to rebuild Morro Bay’s fishing industry after the West Coast’s fisheries collapsed a decade ago. Read more here 09:57
Fight to Stop Privatization of US Fisheries Continues
US – In the face of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) request for increased spending of $2,000,000 to develop and implement new catch share – or Individual Fishing Quota – programmes, a bipartisan group of 22 Members of Congress have made a stand for the nation’s small-scale fishermen. Read more here thefishsite 10:54
There is no Sharing in Catch Shares Food and Water Watch Read more here
Maine Voices: A catch share system would be better than canceling the shrimp season
The recent cancellation of the 2014 shrimp fishing season has been a devastating blow to Maine fishermen, many of whom rely heavily on the short yet profitable season. While the shrimp industry decides where to go from here, many of us find ourselves looking back and wondering: Could we have prevented this? Let me offer a presumably controversial answer: yes. The Maine shrimping industry could have been saved if it had switched to a privatized fishery years ago. more@portlandpress 21:02
Letter to theEditor: Catch share aid corporations, not fishermen – Meredith Moore, Senior Policy Analyst, Food & Water Watch, Washington, D.C.
Once again, representatives in Congress are being attacked for suggesting common-sense precautions to slow the spread of catch shares management in our nation’s federal fisheries. And once again, those attacks are based in,
at best, deep misunderstandings and, at worst, deliberate obfuscations, about the effects of catch shares. continued
New federal plan in works for reduction in trawler bycatch by Laine Welch
A new plan is being crafted by federal managers for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries that will reduce bycatch by trawlers, and it will very likely result in a catch share plan. Now is the time for fishing residents to make sure the new program protects their access to local resources and sustains, instead of drains, their coastal communities. continued
Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund shows boat’s debt up 700%
Over the first two years of catch share fishing, through 2011, debt to the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund for the lease of the allocation of fish from the permits acquired by the fund to help keep Gloucester boats active climbed almost 700 percent to nearly $800,000, according to the fund’s 2011 filings with the Internal Revenue Service and the state attorney general. continued
