The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has created a task force to advance the use of cap-and-trade regulatory schemes for fisheries.

The "Catch Share Task Force," announced yesterday, includes 16 NOAA advisers and fisheries experts to shape a system for setting strict catch limits and distributing total catch shares to commercial fishers, usually based on their historical catch. Fishers can then buy and sell their shares.

The 2006 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act authorized catch shares for the first time and added some safeguards for the environment and commercial fishers in the program. There are currently 12 catch-share programs, up from seven two years ago. Four more are in the implementation or development phase, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Cap-and-trade advocates say such programs halt the "race for fish" -- when fishery managers set total allowable catches and fishers race to get the most they can before the fishery reaches the catch limit.

The new task force indicates an increased commitment from the Obama administration to advance fisheries cap-and-trade. The administration also requested significant new funding for fiscal 2010 budget for the effort. The House approved a NOAA spending bill last week with $18.6 million for "catch share" fisheries. A Senate panel will take up its version of the bill today.

The task force's goals include developing a new NOAA policy to ensure catch-shares are "fully considered" whenever fishery-management councils reconsider management plans. The group is also supposed to make sure there is enough support for councils that want to move forward with catch-share plans.

Monica Medina, a senior advisor to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, will lead the task force. The executive director is Mark Holliday, director of policy for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

The task force includes six other NMFS officials: Jim Balsiger, the service's acting administrator; John Oliver, deputy assistant administrator for operations; Alan Risenhoover, director of the sustainable fisheries office; Pat Kurkul, Northeast regional administrator; Roy Crabtree, Southeast regional administrator; and Sam Pooley, director of the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center.

Other task force members: John Pappalardo, chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council; Lee Anderson, vice chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council; Eric Olson, chairman of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council; George Geiger, member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council; Robert Gill, member of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council; David Hanson, member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council; and Sean Martin, chairman of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

5 Comments

1. 1. eco-steve 05:52 AM 6/25/09

   The oceans are said to belong to no-one, so anybody can fish as much as they like. Therefore there is no police, policy or logic in international fishing, which is chaotic.
   Human evolution occurred without communities having to have pieces of paper proving they had bought foraging rights. This is a clear precedent for the planet belonging to everyone who inhabits it. Therefore ressources should be shared equitably, policed internationally and so-called private ownership be reassessed in function of the prior precedent.
   Maybe this way we will have good international husbandry and an end to certain humanitarian catastrophes caused by aggravated possession.

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2. 2. rwilliston 01:17 PM 6/25/09

   This is the best idea I have heard of in a long time. I'd start the cap at half the current level of fishing activity and see if stocks can start to recover. If they don't, cut it further. I'd start each country's quota proportional to the amount of coastline each has and let them trade up from there. Then, for individual species, any single one that is declining should be capped at zero, with only stable, non-endangered stocks being harvested. And it goes without saying that the whales would be off-limits, which means Japan would fight this tooth and nail.

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3. 3. Chryses in reply to eco-steve 02:02 PM 6/25/09

   "The oceans are said to belong to no-one, so anybody can fish as much as they like. Therefore there is no police, policy or logic in international fishing, which is chaotic. ..."
   
   I believe that this is referred to as "The Tragedy of the Commons". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
   

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4. 4. freddo4102 06:17 AM 6/29/09

   Some years ago I visited Monterey and went to the sardine fishing museum, I was somewhat disgusted when I discovered that the bulk of sardines where converted into fertiliser to grow corn in Oklahoma as feed for cattle so that they could be sent to Chicago and Omaha to be slaughtered as protein (meat) Why wasn't the fish considered as the primary source of the protein instead of wasting so much energy in transport, application to farm lands, harvesting etc. more transport, feeding cattle, more transport and then slaughtering and more transport. Corn has no use for omega 3. Maybe the capitalist system should carry a lot of the blame for the current situation.
   Long liners and drift netters should be sunk on sight by the sensible folk of the world, the rapists of the oceans treasures don't deserve clemency, those that destroy bycatch even by ignorance should not be given succor by any market in the world, every shrimp kills a fish because there is nothing in a net to differentiate between species.

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5. 5. ebach 04:30 PM 7/21/09

   
   Catch-share systems or individual fishing quotas (IFQs), know in this case as cap-and-trade regulatory schemes, are not a panacea to the problem of overfishing. While it is true that catch-share systems do not encourage the historic approach of racing to catch quota, this fact does not negate overfishing practices and general ecological degradation.
   
   Catch shares, as currently designed, privatize fisheries by granting harvesting privileges that are permanent, exclusive, and tradable. Such privatization often leads to the consolidation and corporate control of publicly owned fish resources.
   
   Consolidation often abandons those smaller fishing operations that pride themselves on environmentally friendly practices like hook and line fishing (a practice in which little, if any, bycatch is produced). Instead, huge floating fish-processing boats are left on the water. These larger vessels not only negatively impact critical habitats, like the ocean floor, but also often practice high grading where by only the biggest and best quality fish are landed while the rest are discarded as dead carcasses back into the ocean. In this case both the local fishing community and local ecosystem lose.
   
   Thus, before pushing catch shares on all regional fisheries management plans, Dr. Lubchenco and the Catch Shares Task Force must put careful thought into both management tools and management vision. There are a number of details that must critically be thought through in terms of tools: the limits on how many shares any entity can possess, limits on transferability (ensuring that local fishermen can control shares), limits on the duration of shares, and how to capture royalties for funding better fishery management. In terms of a greater management vision, there are two visions for the future of fisheries management. One vision is of concentrated wealth - industrial fishing fleets and corporate ownership of access. The other is of shared wealth - small-scale eco-friendly fleets and public ownership of access. The critical policy choice here is between privatization (where an industrial model will result) or robust public management (where an eco-friendly model will result).
   
   For more information on catch shares, visit: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fish/oceans-policy/ifqs
   

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