Fishing about and about fishing
OBAMA, LUBCHENKO AND CATCH SHARES: WHO BENEFITS?
New broom sweeps clean. According to official announcement of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in June 2009 President Obama committed his administration to ”integrated and comprehensive national ocean policy, incorporating programs to help rebuild fisheries and sustain fishermen, communities and vibrant working waterfronts, including the cultural and resource access traditions”. This strategy comprises the introduction of “well-designed catch shares”, and since “catch shares may not be the best management option for every fishery or sector, NOAA will not require their use in any particular fishery or sector, but it will promote and encourage the careful consideration of catch shares as a means to achieve the conservation, social and economic goals, etc”.
Fair enough, but in reality the catch shares system has been since busily promoted by the NOAA chief, Prof. Jane Lubchenko and the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). This, because, allegedly, “catch share programs can… ensure they (fisheries) are a prosperous and sustainable element of a national strategy for healthy and resilient ecosystems for present and future generations”. According to Ms. Lubchenco "One of the reasons we are actively promoting catch share is the knowledge that business as usual with traditional fishery management tools has not really accomplished what we need”
The background is that the U.S. Congress gave NOAA until 2010 to end overfishing on unhealthy stocks, and till 2011 on all stocks in U.S. ocean waters. But, can the catch share system do the job? And at what price?
Although according to NOAA’s language, the term catch shares includes several programmes, in practice it boils down to the ageing and to some - notorious individual fishing quotas (IFQ and ITQ). So why the new language? Does it represent an innovation, or is it just a euphemism?
A controversy awakened. The push for introduction of catch shares has added fire to the ongoing dispute over the pros and contras of the individual quota systems. The main argument against these systems consists in the evidence from almost everywhere they’ve been implemented that management by quotas inevitably leads to accumulation of fishing rights and benefits in the hands of large-scale operators. This, because anytime when the total allowable catch (TAC), and consequently the individual quotas shrink, some of the small owners find themselves in financial situations that force them to rent out or sell their quotas and boats to bigwigs and corporate interests, thus turning fishermen-owners into pensioners, hired hands, and even paupers. Article in Gloucester Times (Gloucester is one of the major fishing ports and industry centres in the U.S.A.) warns that “catch shares in fisheries could become attractive investments for speculators that would force many fishermen off the water and turn the remaining fishermen into sharecroppers”. (www.gloucestertimes.com/archivesearch/local_story_181090419.html).
Such criticism is coming not only from the U.S. East Coast. While Lee Crockett of the Pew Environment Group, cautioned that catch shares should be so designed that they keep small-scale operators in business, without allowing the biggest players to take over – a tall order, in view of the past history, Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), called the plan “a massive give-away of public trust fisheries resources under the guise of conservation.” This strong opinion didn’t prevent Mr. Grader from admitting Prof. Lubchenko’s positive role in the struggle for the conservation of Pacific salmons.
In some cases quota systems, according to reports from Iceland and Australia, have displaced communities and affected coastal cultures. Another claim, stemming from European experience, is that with quotas too small and with large bycatch of non-quota species, massive discards take place, while honest fishing often deteriorates into all sorts of illicit activities, and honest fishermen are made into “criminals”, because they find themselves in “cheat or quit” situation.
Arguments in favour of catch shares
The system now proposed by NOAA apportions TAC to “sectors” – groups of fishermen – voluntary joiners. On the basis of their fishing history, each sector divides it’s portion among the participants in form of individual quotas, which can later be sold on the market. The question is whether a free-market-based system of such transferable quotas that is privatisation in disguise, or even quite undisguised, indeed carries solutions to environmental problems, stocks conservation benefits and the end to overfishing. On this the jury is still out, for the evidence from different parts of the world is rather contradictory.
One argument, which is relevant mainly on the American scene, is that quota system did away with the “catch as you can” fishing when the halibut season was characterized, according to Gregg Easterbrook’s August article in The Atlantic, by “a few chaotic days marred by colliding boats and overlapping lines, followed by freezing of the fish and a price bust as everything hits the market at once”. No doubt, where there’s such ridiculous overcapacity, as it used to be in the halibut fishery, any other system, quotas including, must bring some improvement. This, however, doesn’t prove a thing with respect to fisheries where capture capacity in terms of number, size and power of vessels is reasonable respective their fish resources.
Perhaps Prof. Lubchenko and her advisers should consult their European counterparts, who after decades of quota-based Common Fisheries Policy seem to be admitting its conceptual failure. Quite recently, Mr. Joe Borg, the EU Fisheries Commissioner, in a big shift suggested replacing annual quotas by a Days-At-Sea system (DAS), which can effectively reduce many negative quota features, such as, e.g., massive discards. His example of how to go is the DAS and area control system applied for years and with good results to the Faroese fisheries. In fact, the government of the Faroe Islands left the European Union, because it disagreed with its management’s CFP. Would EU find enough political will needed for such a big shift?
And would NOAA stick to concepts, which the Europeans are still making their mind how to get rid of?