Tag Archives: ITQ’s
‘Tragedy of the Commons’ Will be the Fate of Marine Environment in Atlantic Offshore Wind Farms
Like the English commons, the Atlantic waters could take just so much ‘grazing’. The Canadian government finally recognized the cod fishery had crashed and closed it;,, Recognizing that fish could not be owned until they were caught, government regulators attempted to at least partially privatize fishing rights. So too, the waters in which they swim (Hague Line dividing CN and US waters in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank.) It was that bottom and those waters that wind farm builders wanted “rights”.,,, So, the question arises “why don’t the fishing interests move to protect these sensitive marine habitats?” They have tried without much success. >click to read< 18:43
South Australia West Coast fishers reeling from priority species quota ITQ
Fishers on South Australia’s West Coast fishers who have invested hundreds of thousands in boats and licences since 2016 say they have received new quotas that only allow them to catch 87 kilograms of priority species annually. The State Government is rolling out what it calls individual transferable quotas (ITQs), part of its controversial Marine Scalefish Fishery,, for those with a catch history prior to 2016, particularly West Coast fishers where the average age was between 55 and 60, the formula was effectively a “golden handshake” to sell their quota and exit the industry. But he said it was anything but for younger fishers who bought into the industry after mid-2016,, Mr Schmucker said the industry would be “divided” as young operators scrambled to find another $150,000 to buy more quota while simultaneously competing with investors who were snapping up relinquished ITQs. >click to read< 09:10
Study investigates shortcoming of ITQ systems for fisheries
Individual transferable quota systems for fisheries around the world may be ideal for some fisheries, but they can exclude rural, indigenous, low-income and next-generation fishermen from the industry, according to a new paper co-authored by a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor. “ITQs are being advocated across the board without much reflection on what individual fisheries need,” said College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences professor Courtney Carothers. “ITQs might work well for some big industrial fisheries, but, for small-scale fisheries, they’ve had lots of negative consequences.”>click to read< 21:52
Offshore ‘slipper skippers’ and local monopolies target of new fishing industry study
If you have ever purchased fish at Fisherman’s Wharf, there’s a 50/50 chance the bulk of your money will make its way into the pockets of an investor, who may not even be able to pinpoint Steveston on a map. Such investors, both foreign and domestic, own government-issued quotas and licenses and lease them to fishers for a cut of the catch. Because profit margins for fishers are already razer thin, the extra costs of the quotas and licenses means young, new and independent fishers find it difficult to get a foothold in the industry. This regulatory system is being called into question by Fleetwood Port Kells Liberal MP Ken Hardie. Fishers have long complained about the ownership structure of licences and individual transferable quotas (ITQs), or catch shares,,>click to read< 20:08
Graying of Alaska’s Fishing Fleet Puts Key Industry in Peril
Once known for its young guns, Alaska’s commercial fishing fleet is now full of graybeards. The average Alaska fisher is now older than 50, according to the University of Alaska’s Sea Grant program. That is a big change from 1975, when fishers under 40 held half of commercial fishing permits in rural Alaska.,,, At the heart of the problem, experts have concluded, is “rationalization,” the system that has transformed Alaska fisheries from an open-access free-for-all into tightly managed harvests governed by quota shares and “limited-entry” permits that must be inherited or purchased – with prices that can soar well above $100,000. >click to read< 09:00
Seeking an elusive, expensive catch: quotas
Dan Edwards was raised in a British Columbia household of eight kids, supported by fishing – as the family had been for generations. “It was never an easy life,” Mr. Edwards says. “My father and grandfather worked hard. But they made a living – fishing.”,,, But what really makes fishing unprofitable for many Pacific fishermen is that about 70 per cent of the landed value (or gross revenue) of their catch can go to pay the owner of the fish. And the owner is not the province, the country, the Queen nor Njoror, the Norse god of the sea. The effective owner of B.C.’s fish is the holder of the individual transferable quota for catching them. >click to read< 22:14
Fish feud: ITQ’s – Will changes to the West Coast salmon industry hurt or help independent fishermen?
The B.C. salmon fishery keeps resisting a market-based management system. Critics accuse the feds of pitting independent fishermen against corporate giants, but what if this new approach gives the little guy some much-needed financial clout?,,, Thorkelson gets furious thinking about how fishing rights and control, thanks to what she considers a concerted effort by the DFO to impose ITQs, have migrated up the food chain to the likes of Canadian Fishing Co. Part of the Jim Pattison Group, Canfisco is a vertically integrated company that owns licences, quota and fishing vessels in most fisheries on the coast, plus processing facilities in B.C. and Alaska that together handle some 20,000 tonnes of salmon annually. click here to read the story 09:03
Catch Shares – New Zealand’s fisheries quota management system: on an undeserved pedestal
In popular imagination, New Zealand’s fisheries management system is a globally recognised story of sustainability, reflecting a “clean and green” environmental ethos. Indeed, New Zealand’s fisheries have been ranked among the best managed in the world – an accolade based on the early and wholehearted adoption of a Quota Management System (QMS). This perception is echoed in a recently published article, but we take issue with the methodology and its conclusions. Claims that New Zealand’s QMS is an unmitigated success simply do not match the facts. click here to read the story 18:32
Brexit Allows Us To Solve This Haddock Conservation Problem By Leaving The CFP
It would be terribly wrong to compare the European Union to any of the mid-20th century unpleasantnesses in Europe like fascism and the rise of the Nazis but it is true that that peaceful economic arrangement has managed something that total war did not, the rationing of fish and chips in Britain. For it is actually true that said fish and chips never was rationed. Even when the Kreigsmarine was trying to sink everything larger than a canoe which issued from Britain’s ports we still had that haddock, cod and plaice. Give it 45 years of that ever closer European union and the bureaucratic management of the Common Fisheries Policy and we’re being told that we must indeed ration our consumption:,,, It’s all there in Garret Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. Where there’s an open access, what Hardin calls Marxian, resource, then that is just fine. If the regeneration capacity is greater than the annual demand, then all who want can have simply by taking. (See where this is going?) continue reading the article here 14:50
Powerless spectators to the hungry tuna ranchers: the demise of artisanal fishermen
Artisanal fishermen in Malta have become ‘powerless spectators’ to the way the Bluefin tuna fishery industry has been taken over by the large purse seiners and foreign interests in tuna ranching. A long-standing tradition of small-scale fishers that existed since the 1700s, which used hook-and-line methods baited with mackerel, has now given way to the tuna giants, intensive technology and their tuna fattening ranches, commanding prices that can only force small fishers out of business. But this rapid transformation into industrialised fishing was also carried out with the direct blessing of the government in 2001, and since then, the tuna ranching industry has suffocated artisanal fishers. In a field study carried out by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, social scientists met with Maltese fishermen whose livelihoods were irrevocably changed by the advent of industrialised tuna fishing. Read the story here 11:43
The Sea Lords – Kingpins of the Gulf make millions off red snapper harvest without ever going fishing
A little-known federal program has turned dozens of Gulf of Mexico fishermen into the lords of the sea — able to earn millions annually without even going fishing — and transformed dozens more into modern-day serfs who must pay the lords for the right to harvest red snapper. A four-month probe by AL.com has found that roughly $60 million has been earned since 2007 by this small number of fishermen whose boats never left port. That money was collected from the labor of fishermen who have no choice but to hand over more than half of the price that their catch brings at the dock. As it stands today, the right to catch 77 percent of the annual red snapper harvest is controlled by just 55 people, according to an AL.com analysis of hundreds of pages of federal documents, reports and websites. Read the article here 09:39
ITQ’s – You Thought We Canadians Controlled Our Fisheries? Think Again
Wild fisheries are humankind’s greatest single source of protein. They are fully renewable, we don’t have to till soil, plant seeds, apply fertilizer or pesticide, water them or feed them; we just have to manage the harvest. As global populations continue to grow, much is at stake as we determine who benefits from the greatest renewable food resource. At home who benefits from fish harvested in B.C.’s waters? You’d be logical in thinking the answer is mostly people who make the B.C. coast their home and who fish for a living. And you’d be wrong. Read the article here 11:02
Captain Paul Cohan, Gloucester: NOAA’s latest data doesn’t pass smell test
I smell a rat,,,, NOAA and its National Marine Fisheries Service stinks to high heaven,,,, If there was ever any doubt about the catastrophic effects of “catch shares” it should now be dismissed. Sectors, ITQ’s, Closures, and Consolidation, have not created conservation — instead devastation of all, well most, involved, both fish and fishermen, as well as those who depend upon them. As much at fault, perhaps more so are the environmental non-government organization — or ENGO’s. For it was their infiltration of NOAA at the highest levels that facilitated this debacle. GDT letter <Read more here> 07:28
ITQ’s: Changes to salmon fishery causing concern among Prince Rupert fishermen
Prince Rupert’s United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union (UFAWU) representative is concerned with changes the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is considering to the BC salmon fishery. The DFO is planning to change the salmon fishery from an open fishery model to individual transferable quotas (ITQ), which Joy Thorkelson said could put the fishery at a conservation risk and could leave fishermen on the North Coast holding the short end of the stick. Read more@thenorthernview 14:24
