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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 9
May 2005
Who gets what
NE council to debate allocation policy at June meeting
NEWPORT, RI – Like it or not, “who gets what” has become a core part of fishery management, and the New England Fishery Management Council is proposing to establish a policy that makes its allocation decisions more clear – and more public.
At its March 29-31 meeting here, the council acknowledged that many of its past actions have had allocation implications with immense impacts on human beings.
“We’ve had winners and losers, but we’re never saying that,” said council member Tom Hill of Massachusetts. “There’s no methodology to it, no comprehensive look, and from my perspective, it’s dangerous. I don’t know whether we need a policy, but I think we need to be more transparent in our allocation decisions and not do them de facto.”
The council began debating this issue after Executive Director Paul Howard, at the direction of the council’s executive committee, pulled together a “draft conservation and management policy” for council consideration.
“We’ve gone down that road of allocating quota,” Howard said. “Now I think we need a policy to guide us.”
The executive director listed numerous examples of how the council had already allocated quota: a yellowtail allocation to the scallop access area program; cod bycatch allocations for special access programs in the groundfish fishery; hard total allowable catch (TAC) limits for cod, haddock, and yellowtail in the US/Canada management area; a cod allocation to the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association; and more.
Hill said, “This is where the rubber meets the road in fishery management. It’s one of the most controversial things you can talk about. But as politically charged as it is, I believe doing it upfront is better. That says to everyone, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re doing. We want your input.’”
Draft policy
The draft policy, which was only two paragraphs long, plainly stated that the council “recognizes that conservation and allocation are its two primary functions.”
It also stated that conservation measures established by the council would have “a high level of certainty that insures they will prevent overfishing, end overfishing, and rebuild stocks.”
Massachusetts council member Rip Cunningham said he applauded the effort to develop the policy. However, he believed the council should be forthright in asserting that the measures necessary to establish this “high level of certainty” would entail hard TACs.
On a different front, New Hampshire council member David Goethel said the policy should include a statement about capacity to acknowledge the council’s ongoing attempt to match fleet capacity with sustainability of the resource.
Industry concerns
Before the council got too deep into the debate, Jim O’Malley, executive director of the East Coast Fisheries Federation, expressed grave concern about how this discussion has progressed.
He said the way the council’s executive committee, which meets in relative isolation even though the meetings are open to the public, agreed to pursue a conservation and management policy and then charged its executive director with independently developing a draft.
Although a draft was circulated with little fanfare during the council’s February meeting, O’Malley said the issue was far too big for quick action. He asked the council not to vote on the policy at the March meeting.
“What we’re talking about here is much more than a mesh size regulation and it deserves a lot more attention,” he said.
Hill didn’t oppose broadcasting the policy further, but he emphasized that the topic wasn’t new.
“As an individual council member, I’ve been talking about this subject for three or four years,” he said.
Pat Kurkul, the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Northeast regional administrator, added, “I don’t see why this should be so controversial. I see this more like when a company adopts a mission statement and it tries to get into a few paragraphs what it’s doing. The council’s real mandate is set by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.”
Council looks to advisers
Several council members, however, expressed their own discomfort with the move until Howard suggested the council ask its various industry advisers to meet and develop recommendations about allocation procedures, with the understanding that the full council would consider the recommendations and have a full debate about the policy at its late-June meeting in Portland, ME.
Council member Sally McGee of Connecticut supported this course of action but also asked that advisers directly address issues related to capacity and hard quotas during their allocation debates.
Maine council member John Williamson wondered whether it was time for the council to view itself more as an executive overseer of decisions made by stakeholders.
“It may be we want to take on the role of setting up those negotiations and being the overseer of them,” he said.
As for the idea of establishing a conservation and management policy regarding the council’s allocation functions, Williamson said, “This can be very frightening when we discuss it in light of how we’ve done business in the past.”
Janice M. Plante
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