Quote:
|
Those with the largest catch history "had" to join a sector or be relegated to the common pool. Impact on fishing communities is ignored and the assistance available to small boat fisherman, especially hook fisherman, is a boot out the door.
|
This is exactly what is happening in RI with summer fluke, i.e., Sector Allocation Pilot Program initiated by RIDEM. The bigger boats that fish all year (offshore for wintering summer flounder,i.e., bigger quota for less boats operating) are the major players in the fluke industry...the day draggers, R&R guys, gillnetters (fluke), are all relegated to that common pool, and the percent of total quota is dwindling every year as the bigger boats are all jockeying to join a sector. The problem is that sector catch is based on historical catch data. In the past (last 25 years or so), a lot of small time commercial guys would fish for different species during the season, dependent on availability...maybe lobster pots, scup/sea bass pots, inshore dragging, etc, in other words, they would not accumulate a lot of specific catch history-it would be spread out over multi-species (and very weather dependent). If fluking was slow, they would concentrate on other species, etc. The last few years, because of the major collapse of the lobster fishery, quite a few have been rod and reeling for fluke...because they don't have a lot of historical catch of fluke, they would be left out, (not) if but when the catch share program becomes more than a pilot program (in fact, word has it that RIDEM has federal money and is advertising for a sector catch coordinator).
Whenever the Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council (or roundtable mtgs with RI Senate people) holds hearing on this topic, the halls are full...it is a very controversial topic that a lot of Industry heavies are dead set against...and not because of greed/overfishing, hot-button emotional innuendo, etc, but because this could cause a major shift of who actually fishes, i.e., corporate stake holders who buy out shares and control the industry and displace the small-time historical day boat guy.
And don't think that each state doesn't have a stake in this...I would think that RI would love to see all the problems/cost associated with Galilee, would go away with a much, much smaller footprint....and that real estate would look very appealing to any developer with big bucks (condo's, seaside mall, etc).
Threaded Mode