Tag Archives: IFQ’s
Bering Sea cod conflict brewing between on and offshore buyers
“Cod Alley” is getting crowded, and some fishermen want to limit the boats in the narrow congested fishing area in the Bering Sea. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking at changes, including restricting flatfish factory trawlers from buying cod offshore. The Pacific Seafood Processors Association is pushing for restrictions on factory trawlers to protect its members’ shore plants in Unalaska, Akutan, King Cove and Sand Point. According to the PSPA’s Nicole Kimball, seven factory trawlers bought cod from 17 catcher boats in 2017,,, click here to read the story 21:23
Craig Medred: Fish fight end?
The North Pacific Fisheries Council has taken an unprecedented step to try to increase the value of halibut to the Alaska economy by allowing a yet-to-be-created, charter-boat fishing entity to buy fish from willing commercial fishing interests in order to boost sport harvests. Efforts to shift some of the halibut harvest back toward tourism businesses comes in the wake of a study indicating that “individual fishery quotas” created for the commercial halibut fishery in the early 1990s have not worked out quite as planned. A well-intentioned idea, IFQs (Eye-F-Cues) as everyone in the fishing industry calls them, were intended to shift halibut harvests away from big-boat operations toward individual fishermen working as owner-operators of fishing businesses hopefully based in Alaska. But that isn’t exactly how things turned out. Read the rest of the story here 10:58
Groundswell – Opposing Catch Share Embezzlements for the Gulf of Alaska
Gulf of Alaska groundfish trawl bycatch amendments for analysis top this week’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Kodiak. First up is the 10-year review of the Crab privatization quota system. It put roughly 1,350 fishermen out of work and shifted roughly $800 million of labor’s surplus to some sealords — embezzled from captains and crew. Into today’s capital flight torrent enters 40 groundfish trawlers, also wanting a mixed economy of brutish capitalism combined with another socialistic program of government giveaways. That’s Alternative 2 in the analysis outline, an IFQ proposal. It will result in more capital fleeing Alaska, robbing our communities of the labor surplus that drives rounds of respending that stimulate coastal economies. Greed and lazy are common economic bedfellows. They’ll embezzle 70% off the top, too. IFQs are euphemistically called “catch shares,” while those who do fish get less of a share than before. Since they saw trawl IFQs as inevitable politically, a splinter group of weak feeling local fishermen came up with a nonsensical idea to at least get one piece of the giveaway trawl pie, in something misnamed a Community Fishing Association. Read the op-ed here 20:51
Greg Fulcher betting on scallop permit consolidation to recoup $7m
Greg Fulcher — who has just bought the scallop vessel Alaska, and fishing permit, for a record-high sum of $7 million — believes sector consolidation will bring management changes in the US. It’s the potential for these changes that makes the amount he paid, to Oceans Fleet Fisheries, worth while. “With the amount of money coming into the industry at the moment; the players and the consolidations; I expect individual quotas are on the way,” he said, referring to a quota system based on allowing individuals to fish their allocated amounts as they see fit, including using fewer, larger vessels. Sadly, Read the rest here 10:12
Djúpivogur and the fight for the livelihood in small communities all over the world
The Icelandic fisheries policy, built on transferable quotas that follow the vessels, has secured that fishing is a thriving business in Iceland and at the same time it has helped secure sustainable fishing. Or that is the official story. Video, Read more here 08:42
Gulf Grouper Group Gropes for Stable Sustainable Quota
Madera Beach is home to some of the whitest sand along the Gulf Coast. It is also home to some of the best fishing, both recreational and commercial, especially Gulf Grouper. Read more here 12:48
Maine tribe resists same-rules-for-all elvers plan that caps individual catches
Under the bill, tribal fishermen would be subject to the same individual catch limits as other Maine fishermen. But the Passamaquoddies contend the tribe has made numerous other concessions, limiting itself to just one type of gear and agreeing to a decrease in its overall share of the elver harvest. Passamaquoddy officials say choosing who can fish is cultural, not just a matter of conservation. Read more here 21:35
Is there an alternative to IFQ’s, catch shares, and privatized fishing? Alaska Fish Radio
This is Fish Radio. I’m Stephanie Mangini. Is there an alternative to IFQ’s, catch shares, and privatized fishing? More after this … .continued@fishradio
