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Feature Articles
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Another alternative for groundfish Amendment 13
More gear changes, fewer closed areas/less days-at-sea cuts
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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 Janice M. Plante
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"The intent is for us to use gear that does not target various problematic species and does not have bycatch of various species."
-John Nelson (Peter K. Prybot Photo)
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PORTLAND, ME - Concerned over the huge days-at-sea cuts and massive area closures being proposed in several of the groundfish Amendment 13 alternatives, the New England state marine agencies got together and modified one of the existing proposals to have the "extra" required measures rely more heavily on gear changes.
This new alternative (see related story page 15A of Commercial Fisheries News, September 2002, for specifics) was presented to the New England Fishery Management Council by council member John Nelson of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department during a July 23-25 meeting here.
"We really felt there should be another alternative for the public to comment on that doesn't rely on large area closures and large cuts in days-at-sea," said Nelson.
After making a few revisions, the council agreed to include the proposal in the public hearing document. According to groundfish plan coordinator Tom Nies, public hearings most likely will be held in December and January.
The new alternative uses the negotiated settlement agreement as a starting point - as do almost all of the proposals in Amendment 13 - and then incorporates additional measures so that the package as a whole can meet the amendment's fishing mortality objectives.
The additional measures focus on mobile gear net specifications, hook limits, and gillnet limits, as well as tougher trip limits for selected species, namely Georges Bank cod and Cape Cod yellowtail flounder.
The negotiated settlement agreement itself contains the stinging new restrictions put in place on May 1 and Aug. 1 as ordered by US District Judge Gladys Kessler in the Framework 33 groundfish lawsuit, known as Conservation Law Foundation et al. vs. Evans et al.
While the groundfish plan development team (PDT) has yet to issue a formal verdict on the matter, several members of the PDT have indicated that the settlement agreement alone doesn't go far enough to meet Amendment 13's stated fishing mortality reductions.
State agencies' representatives to the council from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut worked on the alternative. According to Nelson, they tried to add measures to the settlement agreement that would meet the biological objectives but still provide some ability for the fleet to fish.
Meeting the biological objectives is a standing order from Judge Kessler.
Broad responsibilities
New England's state directors have an enormous stake in the outcome of Amendment 13. Not only are they stewards of the public resource, but they are responsible for the economic and social well-being of their commercial and recreational fishing industries and the supporting infrastructure.
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"We're trying to strike a reasonable compromise between the conservation requirements and the survival of the fishing industries in our states."
-George Lapointe
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"We're trying to strike a reasonable compromise between the conservation requirements and the survival of the fishing industries in our states," said Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe, who was involved in drafting the new alternative.
Nelson said the group took into account all of the comments they had heard over the past several months from all segments of the public, including conservation groups, concerned citizens, fishermen, and scientists.
And in the end, they reached a consensus to embrace gear technology.
"The intent is for us to use gear that does not target various problematic species and does not have bycatch of various species," said Nelson.
Opposition
Not everyone was pleased with the proposal when Nelson first unveiled it in July.
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"A cod trip limit of 500 pounds would put an end to the hook fishery on Georges Bank." -Paul Parker (Melissa Roberts Weidman Photo)
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The first to speak out was Paul Parker, executive director of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association.
"A cod trip limit of 500 pounds would put an end to the hook fishery on Georges Bank," said Parker. "This is illogical. It is selectively eliminating a group of fishermen."
While all fishermen on Georges Bank would be bound by the 500-pound per day/4,000-pound-per-trip limit specified under the proposal, hook fishermen also would be restricted to 1,000 hooks.
According to Parker, the two measures combined are unworkable.
Maine council member Bud Fernandes was sympathetic to the argument, but he also said, "There are a lot of things that are hard to swallow in this document for a lot of sectors."
Scientist Anthony Chatwin of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) had problems with the new proposal on a different count. He flatly opposed the Georges Bank cod "backstop" measure, which would reduce the cod trip limit to 100 pounds per day with a 1,000-pound-per-trip cap when 75% of the total allowable catch (TAC) is harvested.
"I think there's a lesson to be learned from what happened in the Gulf of Maine," he said. "We have to find a different way to deal with these problems. If we have a stock that's in trouble, the way to deal with it is not with low trip limits."
The Georges Bank cod situation was difficult for the states to address since fishing mortality on the stock needs to be reduced by 65% - a tough target to achieve after more closures and more days-at-sea cuts are taken off the table.
Another aspect of this proposal that surely will be hard for some fishermen to swallow is that it likely will include a "hard TAC" component.
Gear changes are difficult for the PDT to measure, so some council members say that a hard TAC backstop will be necessary to ensure that the mortality objectives are met - and for the proposal to be approvable.
None of the alternatives in Amendment 13 are very palatable to fishermen, so whether this new one is any better than the others remains to be seen.
Nelson said, " People may not like it, but we wanted a greater range of alternatives in the document."
A brief rundown of the other alternatives can be found in the August issue of CFN.
There's also more information on the council's web site at:
http://www.nefmc.org.
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