Study To Help Workshop On Groundfish Management

NOAA is presenting the findings from the report at the New England Fishery Management Councils lessons learned workshop this week in Portland, Maine. The workshop is expected to yield important new recommendations for the groundfish fishery that NOAA and the Council can work to put in place.

These actions, coupled with other actions underway at NOAA and through the Council, will help fishermen and fishing communities operate successfully despite low quotas required by Congress to end overfishing and rebuild stocks.

NOAA is committed to working with the Council to allow fishermen to take full advantage of available quotas. Sector management is part of that effort, as well as actions taken in the 2011 fishing year to improve the industrys access to fish.

Over the last year, NOAA moved quickly to increase catch levels based on new science on fish stocks and allowed fishermen to fish in some previously closed areas, in particular areas close to the shore where smaller vessels fish. NOAA and the Council are considering additional actions, such as allowing fishing in previously closed areas and rolling over unused quota to the following fishing year.

Recognising the continuing financial challenges in the fishery, NOAA Administrator Dr Jane Lubchenco announced on 19 October, 2011 that NOAA would fund at-sea monitoring through the end of the 2012 fishing year which ends on 13 April, 2013.

The report, and related economic information, makes clear that the fishery is not yet in position to assume these costs. The report found that if sector vessels paid for monitoring in 2010, trip costs as a per cent of revenue would rise by 38 to 42 per cent for vessels in the 30 to 50 foot size, for example.

The report shows that groundfish revenues decreased in 2010 compared to 2009. But overall revenues to groundfish vessels, including revenues from non-groundfish species, increased. Despite lower catch limits required to end overfishing and rebuild stocks, the groundfish industry obtained more value from fewer fish landed and less fishing effort expended.

Estimates of the average vessel owners net and gross revenues increased for groundfish vessels in all size classes, owing largely to higher prices for fish. Overall vessel trip costs increased for many vessels in comparison to 2009. The study also showed the continuation of trends begun during the past decade of fewer, more efficient fishing operations and declining numbers of active boats.

The trend of consolidation of revenues on fewer vessels that began during the last decade continued in 2010. In 2007-2009, 20 per cent of vessels captured about 60 per cent of gross revenues and just over 68 per cent of groundfish gross revenues.

In 2010, 20 per cent of vessels captured just over 65 per cent of gross revenues and nearly 80 per cent of groundfish gross revenues. Knowing the likelihood these trends would continue, NOAA urged the New England Fishery Management Council to reconsider current limits on accumulation of catch shares. In response, the Council is working on an amendment to reduce the likelihood that groundfish permit holders will control excessive shares of the resource.

The long-term trend of consolidation in the New England groundfish industry continues and the impact it is having on individual fishermen and fishing communities concerns us, especially in these hard economic times, said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

We are releasing this study for stakeholders to help us identify ways to improve the management of the fishery. NOAA will use feedback from the workshop to develop a series of regulatory and non-regulatory reforms that we will bring to the Council for review and action at its November meeting.

As reported earlier this year, the groundfish fleet caught 38 per cent of the fish allocated for catch in 2010. This is an increase in the percentage of allowable catch captured compared to recent years and an indication that sector management is helping the industry increase use and take full advantage of available quotas.

There are many possible reasons for this 38 percent figure, including lack of availability of fish in certain local areas, difficulties in balancing annual catch allocations, lack of capital to purchase annual catch allocations, and the inability to target certain species while avoiding others, said Andrew Kitts, an economist and one of the studys authors.

NOAA will continue to work with the industry on regulatory and non-regulatory action to increase this per cent in the future.