This article is reprinted with permission of Commercial Fisheries News, the Northeast's fishing newspaper for over 30 years, ©2003 Compass Publications Inc. Commercial Fisheries News is published monthly; annual subscriptions are $21.95. To subscribe or request a sample issue: call (877) 263-4496; fax (207) 367-2490; e-mail (cfoster@fish-news.com); or click on the hot link.
by Lorelei Stevens
PROVINCETOWN, MA - The answer to the complex discard and overfishing dilemmas facing fisheries managers and the industry lies with fishermen themselves.
That is one of the messages that Provincetown fisherman Luis Ribas is trying hard to get across to everyone he can get to listen -- especially as work intensifies on Framework 36 and Amendment 13 to the groundfish plan.
A native of Portugal, Ribas has been a fisherman since the mid-'70s. He currently owns the 62' Blue Skies and is a partner in the 62' Blue Ocean. He also has formal training in net building and is a marine mechanic.
This varied background is at the root of his belief in the potential for gear-based alternatives to the heavy-handed regulations that have been squeezing the life out of his community for the last decade.
"After 23 years of fishing, I'm tired of all these regulations. I know they're needed, but I believe Framework 36 and Amendment 13 will affect (seriously) small boats and small communities," he said.
Net project
Instead of simply accepting more closures and limits on Provincetown as inevitable, Ribas decided to help investigate the use of modified nets that release or avoid the species managers are trying to protect, while allowing fishermen to keep fishing within reason.
Last year, Ribas began working with Arne Carr and Mike Pol at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) on a Northeast Consortium-funded project to test two nets:
> The DMF-dubbed Ribas net, which calls for a minimum of 8" mesh laid on the square for most of the top portion of the net; and
> The DMF-built "topless" net based on a European design that sharply lays back the headrope deep into the net.
According to DMF, other than these modifications, the nets were made to the basic specifications of a flatfish net, which was used as a control.
Provincetown, MA fisherman Luis Ribas believes that modifying fishing nets can
be the answer to reducing cod discards while harvesting targeted flatfish. He has
developed a net, below, which can meet fish conservation goals while fishing
efficiently and retaining enough catch for a day's pay.
Lorelei Stevens photo
|
Impressive results
The purpose of the project was to demonstrate how effective these nets are at retaining legal-sized flatfish while letting cod and undersize flats go. The project goal was to "reduce cod as a bycatch 75%-90%."
Preliminary results from tests comparing the modified nets to standard nets indicate that both project-built nets did the job, but with different trade-offs.
Ribas said he believes fishermen will find his version more acceptable in terms of reduced cod bycatch and flatfish escapes.
According to a preliminary report by DMF, the topless net reduced cod catches by a whopping 93%-plus, but let go more than 41% of the yellowtail compared to the standard net.
Reductions in cod bycatch in the Ribas net were lower -- but still impressive -- at 76%-plus, and the percentage of lost yellowtail was just 28%. Another important finding, according to Ribas, is that about 15% of the yellowtails not retained by the net were undersized and would have had to be discarded anyway.
Background experience
Born one of 12 children to a Portuguese bus driver, it may not have seemed likely that Luis Ribas would wind up doing such work. As a young man in Portugal, he trained to be a mechanic, repairing electrical systems in automobiles.
But one of his brothers urged him to join a German fishing company, where the money was better. Ribas did in 1977.
"While I was waiting for a place on the boat, I asked the German company about learning about nets. They gave me a place," he said.
He spent time attending classes on building and repairing nets and splicing wires.
"I like learning everything. That's my way. Everything I like, I need to know how it works and why," he said.
Later, he made several three-month trips onboard a 300' factory ship and eventually was offered a site as a deck manager, responsible for six crewmen and the vessel's nets and doors.
But Ribas decided instead to return to Portugal to wrap up a military service obligation.
Coming to the US
In 1985, his wife Maria's sister encouraged the family to come to see what was happening in the US.
"I stayed in Provincetown for two months. It's funny that the first trip I made was on the Suzi and Sandra, which is the boat I own now, Blue Skies," Ribas said.
But the family soon settled in New Bedford, although for years Maria endured a daily four-hour round-trip commute to a good job at an outer Cape Cod resort.
While trip fishing on New Bedford boats, Ribas suffered two serious accidents, one involving an injury to the foot, the other to his head. He recovered and kept fishing.
In 1994, his own dragger, the Alentejo, caught fire and sank. Ribas and his three crewmen spent four hours in a life raft in 10'-15' seas before being rescued.
While that experience was hard enough, the worst was yet to come.
"I had made all my investments in that boat. The insurance basically covered only the mortgage. I lost everything," he said. "That was the bad part of my life."
Settling in Provincetown
Maria's sister helped once again, lending the money to enable Ribas to buy the Blue Skies, an eastern-rigged wooden boat.
Ribas is proud to say he has not only repaid the debt, but almost completely rebuilt the Blue Skies, replacing the hydraulics system, rebuilding the engine, and "safely" covering the deck.
The ups and downs were worth it to get him back to Provincetown.
"There are many things that are hard, but the fishermen here have a good life," he said. "In Provincetown, I can go out in the morning and be home in the afternoon. Now almost every day, I see my family. It's not too much money, but a better life with my family."
In addition to Maria, his family includes 16-year-old daughter Andreia Cidalina and 20-year-old Bruno Alexandre.
Ribas net works
Ribas's own experience on the Blue Skies, which he fishes with Bruno, has convinced him that using the Ribas net makes sense for fishermen.
The DMF preliminary report concurs. Small, it saves fuel. Selective, it saves the work of culling out undersized and over-limit bycatch. Efficient, it retains most of the flatfish that the boats are targeting in the first place.
And, because it releases the cod and juvenile flats managers are trying to protect, the Ribas net works for conservation, too, which is good for meeting management targets and for rebuilding stocks -- a benefit for everyone.
Conservation pluses
The fish on my boat are all for sale, not for discard," Ribas said.
He spoke of all the fish that would be saved on a daily basis if others used the net as well.
"One million pounds a day of yellowtails, blackbacks, codfish. All those fish spawning, multiplying," he continued. "I believe that if everyone started to work with nets like that, in five years all the stocks would come back. The fishing boats would lose 15% at first, but then it would go down to 5%, then zero and 15%-20% (of the fish retained) would be bigger fish."
Big boats, little boats, it doesn't matter, Ribas insisted, while acknowledging that it's hard to convince many fishermen who work on larger vessels to try his net.
"Everybody can use this net. It's flexible," he said. "The big boats can efficiently tow the smaller net. It's better and saves fuel."
And, he predicted that the net will also help fishermen avoid dogfish.
"It catches flats without catching codfish or dogfish, either," Ribas said. "I believe dogfish will be a big problem. It will be hard for us to go fishing."
Promise
While more testing will likely be required on both nets to fully document their capabilities, Ribas won't mind.
"Arne Carr and all the guys at DMF are real good guys," he said. "Fishermen don't always understand that they work on both sides. Their job is to protect the fish, but also to help the fishermen."
The work they've done cooperatively so far has inspired Ribas to campaign for serious consideration of the modified gear as part of the fix for the codfish discard problem.
Overcoming his fears that people will have trouble understanding his words through his thick Portuguese accent, Ribas has attended New England Fishery Management Council and other meetings.
"I started to follow all of these things because of my experiences," he said.
He also has observed that when industry groups have come together to participate in research and lobby -- in the way the scallop industry did through the Fisheries Survival Fund -- "They got everything they wanted."
Within reason, Ribas believes fisheries management can work for fishermen. For example, he said he fully supports the existing Western Gulf of Maine Closed Area.
"Before the closures, there were no fish out there. After three years closed, every day we find 1,000 pounds of flatfish easy. It rebuilds the stock," he said.
But that doesn't mean he wants any expansion of the area.
"I hope it will stay closed forever," he said. "But if they push it further to the south, it will kill Provincetown."
Incentives
Ribas has keyed in on the idea of incentives as being central to dealing with fisheries management problems. Closely involved with his community in Provincetown as not only a fisherman but the assistant harbor master and president of the fledgling Provincetown Fishermen's Association, Ribas is in tight with the people who have to try to live with management restrictions.
He seems to be trying to bridge the gap between these fishermen and fisheries managers, and to convince managers that fishermen must believe there's something for them to gain out of all the sacrifices they have made to save the fish.
In this case, Ribas is not talking about stock recovery targets that are years in the future and offer some vague hope for better times. He wants the council to give fishermen an incentive to use his net, or others like it that are tested and proven to do the job.
"Fishermen are smart," he said. "If the council gives them a choice, what will they choose? More closures, more cuts in days-at-sea, more regulations, or to use this net? Give them 10 days more fishing or 1,000 pounds of cod to use the net. The point is, fishermen want something."
Fishermen hold key
At the same time, Ribas would like fishermen to understand that they don't have to wait for the council to tell them what to do.
"It's time for fishermen to think about this, come together, and tell the council that the people who can save the most are the fishermen."
Although fishing people have a difficult time staying unified behind anyone or anything, Ribas dreams of bringing everyone in Provincetown -- lobstermen, scallopers, tuna fishermen, draggers, and others -- together under the Provincetown Fishermen's Association to help each other.
"So we can show people that we can deal with the regulations and that we can fish," he said. "So we can find something to help these people, like the lobstermen and the gillnetters with the whale problem.
"The message is," Ribas concluded, "If you want to go fishing in the future, you have to show the managers that you can save the fish."
