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When the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) convened in Millbrae, California for its April, 2009, meeting, the biggest story from the week-long meeting went unreported. All of those reporters were there to cover the Council's final recommendation to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to close most of the West Coast to commercial and recreational salmon fishing for the second straight year. While the salmon decision stole the headlines, it was hardly unexpected. Most salmon fishermen had already braced themselves for another likely closure.
The big unreported story from the Council meeting was in the groundfish fishery -- to be precise, the ongoing "trawl rationalization" process, including the reallocation of fish between different sectors. Various industry and NGO types attempted to pique the interest of reporters on this issue. These attempts resulted mostly in glazed over expressions on the faces of reporters, and one cursory mention of "community fishing associations" buried within a single article about the salmon closure.
But who can really blame the press for their lack of interest? They were there to cover the splashy salmon story. Many of the old newshounds there had been on the salmon beat for years. Their readers are interested in the iconic salmon fishery. The groundfish fishery with its 82 decidedly non-headline grabbing species is something of a mystery to most reporters and their readers.
Frankly, the intricate details of a complex mixed stock individual fishing quota program woven into three separate amendments to a fishery management plan is beyond the ken of most reporters not in the employ of a fishing trade journal. To make matters worse, the proceedings during the groundfish portions of the Council meeting were, as usual, extraordinarily long, tedious, spread out over a few days, complex, and ridden with jargon and acronyms. There were even points during the proceedings when it was clear that Council members themselves had no idea what was going on, and were just as confused as the hapless observers and reporters in the audience.
Despite a lack of interest from the media at this Council meeting in groundfish, the groundfish fishery has nevertheless recently garnered some attention from the media. As noted in the March, 2009, PCFFA FN article about Community Fishing Associations and the West Coast groundfish fishery (see www.pcffa.org/fn-mar09.htm), there was a spate of coverage, mostly in the op-ed sections of newspapers, on "catch shares" and the West Coast groundfish fishery.
Unfortunately, these recent articles and op-ed pieces betrayed that conspicuous sheen of a partially regurgitated EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) press release. They presented catch shares and the trawl rationalization in the West Coast groundfish fishery in the most simplistic and disingenuous terms imaginable (i.e., the Catch Shares vs. No-Management-at-all canard).
The articles and op-ed pieces on catch shares also spared readers the gory details that are anticipated in the "trawl rationalization" program, such as widespread fleet consolidation and job losses, ports left without groundfish boats, and a few fishermen (and processors) getting rich at the expense of all the rest. Nor did they bother to mention that individual fishing quotas remain controversial in the fishing industry, not to mention among resource economists and fisheries biologists generally.
The PR-inflected coverage and the absence of depth on the issue leaves many questions unanswered for both the general public and the fishing community. For instance, what exactly happened at the last Council meeting? What do these decisions mean to fishermen and fishing communities?
It's important to parse the details of these recent decisions and impending decisions since, as mentioned above, many of the final decisions that will be made by the PFMC in the next few months on this issue will shape the makeup and character of the West Coast fishing industry for many years, even decades, to come. This is the big story.
Although not on the schedule for the April Pacific Council meeting in Millbrae, Amendment 22: Open Access License Limitation nearly reappeared. At the March PFMC meeting in Seattle, the Council voted 7-5 against the preferred alternative and adopted a plan that would require open access fishermen to register at the beginning of each year for a small fee. The preferred alternative that did not pass would have converted the entire currently open access fishery into a limited access fishery based on control dates that would have left most fishermen without a permit.
In an unprecedented action, the NMFS representative was considering asking the Council to rescind the motion made at the March 2009 Seattle meeting that preserved the open access groundfish fishery with the new registration requirement. However, open access fishermen from the San Francisco Bay Area were there to give public comment in support of saving the open access fishery yet again. On the final day of the Council meeting, the NMFS representative stated that based on public comment from fishermen he would not ask the Council to rescind that decision at the upcoming June 2009 meeting.
It was a small victory for the open access small boat fleet, to be sure, but one that could be significant, especially for smaller ports that are looking to regain access to rockcod in currently closed areas.
On Tuesday, 7 April, the Council heard reports from its staff and the various groundfish subcommittees and subpanels on Intersector Allocation. While the Groundfish Allocation Committee recommended some allocations for certain species that were more favorable to the open access and fixed gear limited entry sectors, the lion's share of the allocation in the Council's preferred alternative for most species went to the trawl sector. Following the reports, the Council took public comment.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argued that Amendment 21, in its current form, may violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and elements of the MSA, since it did not adequately analyze whether or not allocations between sectors could have a positive environmental impact. Zeke Grader, Executive Director of PCFFA, testified in support of greater allocations of rockfish, particularly chilipeppers, to the open access and fixed gear limited entry sectors. He admonished the Council for failing to develop a vision of what they wanted the fishery to look like. Several hook-and-line fishermen also spoke in support of greater allocations to the non-trawl sector for species that they traditionally targeted before the closures of these fisheries because of alleged overfishing by the trawl fleet.
After public comment Marija Vojkovich, who represents the California Department of Fish & Game on the Council, made a motion to increase the allocation of chilipeppers to non-trawl from 20% to 25%. The list of the splits between trawl and non-trawl for each species are available at the Council's website (www.pcouncil.org). The motion to approve the preferred alternative with a few adjustments including the increased allocation of chilipeppers to the non-trawl sector passed despite the objections of Council member Rod Moore.
"What is the point of saving the open access fishery if there aren't any fish for it?" many small boat open access fishermen asked themselves and the Council in regard to Amendment 21. Intersector allocation was probably the most important topic that the Council heard at the April meeting. The splits between the sectors will decide if the West Coast groundfish fishery is dominated by 30 to 60 trawl vessels (depending how much that fleet consolidates) with a few token small boat fleets based out of a few select ports or whether the groundfish fishery will have a diverse fleet of large and small boats.
The decision that the Council made at the April meeting seemed to be more of a small concession to the open access fishery than a compromise allocation that would benefit all of the sectors on a more equal basis. The only substantial change to the preferred alternative was that the Council decided to move 5% more of the chilipepper quota to the open access sector.
The question that remains regarding the current allocation that the Council adopted is whether there will be enough fish in the open access sector to provide for a meaningful fishery. The trip limits are so low right now for certain species in the open access sector that it often does not make economic sense to untie the boat. Is a 25% allocation of chilipepper rockcod enough to revive the hook and line fishery? Will there be an adequate allocation of rockfish species, such as yellowtail, bocaccio, and widow that swim with chilipeppers to enable to fishermen to access the chilipepper allocation? As the proliferation of eco-labels and the growing consumer awareness of sustainability attests, there is certainly no shortage of demand for these fish. But as everyone knows, demand isn't the problem. It is a problem of allocation and access.
Despite an allocation that heavily favored the trawl sector, one bit of good news for the open access and fixed gear sectors is that more selective gears should have an advantage in accessing more of their optimum yields (OYs) than the trawl sector. The OYs of all species are expected to increase dramatically in the next few years after several years of stringent conservation measures. If hook and line and other non-trawl gears can more effectively avoid their constraining species (e.g., canary and yellow eye), they should be able to make good use of relatively small allocations.
Open access fishermen in California are currently putting together an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) to submit to the Council in order to prove that they can selectively target chilipeppers while avoiding canaries, yellow eyes, and other constraining species. If they are successful (assuming, of course, they are granted the EFP) they would then be able to regain access to areas that are currently closed to fishing. As Josh Churchman, a fisherman from Bolinas, asked the Council in his public comment in April, "What good is it to have an allocation of fish if you can't fish where they live?"
The sector allocation that the Council adopted for right now indicates that the groundfish fishery is moving in the direction predicted by the Amendment 20 Environment Impact Statement: namely consolidation of the trawl fleet to 30 to 60 boats. The trawl fleet consolidation will have indirect impacts on adjacent fisheries that depend, in part, on the trawl fleet to maintain infrastructure -- particularly in smaller ports. So while it is in the interests of the open access sector to demand a larger share of fish that they can access more effectively (such as rockcod), it is also in their interest not to take a knee-jerk anti-trawl stance.
Most open access fishermen realize the importance of the trawl fleet to help support local port infrastructure (as the example of The Nature Conservancy buyout of the Morro Bay trawl fleet makes abundantly clear) and also to target fish that hook-and-line gear cannot (flatfish). One flaw that has become apparent in the Council's approach to overhauling the groundfish fishery is that they have dealt with each sector in a compartmentalized fashion, as if each sector has no relation to any other. "What is your vision for this fishery? So far I haven't seen that you have one," Zeke Grader asked the Council during testimony.
The demand that Community Fishing Associations (CFAs) become part of the trawl rationalization program came rather late in the process. Once the Amendment 20 EIS laid bare just how badly the trawl rationalization program would effect smaller fishermen and smaller ports, groups such as PCFFA, Ecotrust, and Food & Water Watch began to push for added protections within the trawl rationalization program. It is quite clear that the Adaptive Management Program (more on that below) is wholly inadequate to address the numerous impacts predicted in that EIS.
However, the Council, perhaps because Community Fishing Associations were something of an afterthought in this process, made no provision to include Community Fishing Associations in an initial allocation of fish. This is odd, given that in 2004 the Government Accountability Office found in its study of quota programs that "[s]everal methods are available for protecting the economic viability of fishing communities under an IFQ program. The easiest and most direct way is to allow communities to hold harvesting quota and decide how this quota is to be used."
Ecotrust, a group that has worked to help fishing communities in the north Pacific regain fishing rights, has found that buying quota for small communities after initial allocations ignore them is a prohibitively expensive "tail-pipe" solution. It is much easier to protect fishing communities before the allocations are made.
Given that the Council had not even considered Community Fishing Associations in the "trawl rationalization" program, despite their legal obligation to do so under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and in violation of Congressional intent, they first had to define what these entities are at their April meeting. Community Fishing Associations are entities that are allowed to hold quota under the Limited Access Privilege Programs provision in the MSA -- the same provision that allows for Individual Fishing Quotas. A Community Fishing Association is an entity that could hold quota in a fishery managed as a LAPP on behalf of a geographically fixed community. PCFFA, fishermen, and some environmental and consumer groups had requested that the Council develop more specific criteria for these entities at the March Council meeting in Seattle.
The Council staff presented a cursory report on Community Fishing Associations entitled "Outline of Potential Elements for Community Fishing Associations." The Council had to make a few initial decisions regarding CFAs at this meeting. The first was whether or not CFAs would qualify for initial allocation of quota share. The second was what the structure of these entities would be (including fishermen, processors, community members, local government, etc.). The third decision, which will be taken up at the June 2009 meeting, is whether or not these entities can hold quota share in excess of what is allowed for an individual to hold.
PCFFA, Ecotrust, and Food & Water Watch all called on the Council to allow for the creation of these entities pursuant to the LAPPs section of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and also to fund CFAs with "pockets" of fish. Without initial allocation of fish, these groups argued, CFAs would not be able to afford fish on the open market for quota. Additionally, Senator Barbara Boxer sent a strongly worded letter to the Council in support of CFAs.
Astrid Scholz of Ecotrust argued in public comment that smaller communities should be granted initial quota share in order for fishing communities to maintain access to their own resources. She briefed the Council about an Ecotrust initiative in Alaska to buy quota and anchor it in fishing communities. All three groups identified three sources or "pockets" of fish that could fund CFAs. The first is from the difference between the historical catch levels of the trawl sector and the soon to be expanded OYs. The second would be from fish that would be divested from permit holders who would exceed the level of quota share allowed for an individual. The third source would come from the publicly funded portion of the trawl fishery buyback program ($10 million or roughly 22% of the buyback fish).
The three groups argued that the Council is not obligated to give these fish to the trawl fleet and that these fish could provide a meaningful amount of fish to give directly to fishing communities. Despite these arguments, the Council did not vote to give an initial allocation of fish to CFAs, although through an amendment to the main motion Marija Vojkovich did make it possible for CFAs to have priority in receiving fish from divestiture. It is unclear whether or not CFAs would have to pay for these fish quotas, but at least they will be first in line to access divestiture fish.
In regard to the composition of CFAs, the PFMC punted the issue to its June meeting in Spokane. The Council debated the structure but did not reach a consensus.
Similarly, the Council did not take up the issue of whether or not a CFA can exceed accumulation limits of quota share that would apply to an individual. The Nature Conservancy has been the loudest voice pushing for higher accumulation limits for CFAs since they currently own several permits and would undoubtedly exceed accumulation limits when the permits are converted to quota share. Although the representatives from TNC did not dwell on accumulation limits in their public testimony, they did note that a CFA without a higher accumulation limit than an individual would be a meaningless entity.
At this point it is unclear what role Community Fishing Associations will play in the "rationalized" groundfish fishery. However, it is unlikely that they will receive initial allocation of quota share unless they receive quota share through divestiture fish. This means that any CFA that forms would likely have to purchase quota on the open market -- an expensive proposition, as the Alaskan example has shown. Fishing communities that want to regain access to their own local fishing grounds will have to raise capital through foundations, government grants, or private capital. The Nature Conservancy Community Fishing Association could be the only functioning CFA (i.e. one with fish) at the outset of the program.
Another source of confusion is whether or not fish from the Adaptive Management Program would be available to fund CFAs. Several Council members seemed confused on this point and this will be something that will have to be clarified at the June 2009 Council meeting. Despite the confusion, it seems as if the Council is leaning towards keeping the two programs separate. The Adaptive Management Program will most likely be used for just about everything under the sun (again more on that below) except for CFAs.
The Council only considered miscellaneous items related to the Amendment 20: Trawl Rationalization process at the April meeting. At the March meeting the Council finally put to rest any questions on whether or not there would be any owner on board requirement to hold quota or utilize quota share. The Council decided that there would be no requirements except that the holder is an American citizen eligible to own a U.S. documented vessel.
PCFFA and other groups asked the Council to require that holders of quota share participate in the fishery as either captain, crew, or through a Community Fishing Association. PCFFA argued that ownership requirements are the easiest way to protect fishing communities and assure that the value of a fishery remains in the communities that depend on them. The Council did not take up the ownership issue at the April meeting.
In addition to an absence of ownership requirements for quota share, the accumulation caps that the Council is considering adopting remain troubling. Some species' accumulation limits are near 10%, far above the 1% that seems prudent to prevent excessive consolidation in a LAPPs fishery.
With the accumulation limits that the Council is currently considering, the fleet could easily contract down to 40 to 60 boats. Should the fleet shrink to that size, it is expected that the remaining boats will move to the larger ports, according to the Council's own economic analysis in its Amendment 20 EIS. Some "vulnerable" ports could be left without any trawl vessels at all. Where exactly this fits into anyone's vision of the future of the industry is unclear. But given this prediction it seems imperative to form Community Fishing Associations in smaller ports to maintain access to local fish and fishing grounds.
The Adaptive Management Program (AMP) seems to mean everything to everyone. The environmental groups think it is for conservation. The processors think it is to help processors transition to the new quota program and particularly to compensate them for any stranded capital (i.e., processing facilities in smaller ports that go under). Some trawlers think it is for them only and were emphatic in public comment on the point that only those with trawl permits should access this pool of fish. Some smaller fishermen think it is to help them adapt to the quota program. Others think it should be used for Community Fishing Associations.
Whatever it is, it isn't much. It is a 10 percent holdback of all quota share of all species in the trawl sector that can be distributed on an annual basis in the form of quota pounds to fishermen and possibly processors. It is meant to achieve social, economic, and conservation goals. It is unclear whether there would be any conservation conditions attached to the quota pounds (an NRDC and Ocean Conservancy idea) such as gear switching. It isn't even clear if the AMP program will be a holdback of quota share or quota pounds, and the Council was, yet again, confused on this point.
What does seem clear is that the much touted Adaptive Management Program seems to be becoming little more than an Extra Credit Program -- a small reward for fishing cleaner (think of the gold stars that your teacher gave you in 2nd grade). It is quite clear that the 10% of quota share is inadequate to solve all of the problems that are expected to crop up as a result of the implementation of the trawl rationalization plan. So many questions remain unanswered. Can 10% of quota share address all of the vulnerable smaller ports that will be left high and dry in the rationalization program? And if so, for how long?
How will permitted trawl fishermen who are having trouble making ends meet with limited quota gain access to additional quota through the AMP? Will these fishermen have to show up at Council meetings and plead their case? Is the AMP program really the proper place to address conservation issues? And if so, will this extra credit program really be enough incentive to switch gears or somehow avoid bycatch with trawls?
How can we assure that the marginal processors and marginal fishermen get the AMP quota share and not those who don't need it? It seems that the political Council process is uniquely ill-suited to delivering for the needs of smaller fishermen, processors, and communities. There is a danger that this program could become little more than 10% extra credit for whoever can show up to the most Council meetings. It doesn't appear that anyone has thought through the AMP program and how it will work in practice.
Given the way that the trawl "rationalization" (or "irrationalization," depending upon your perspective) process has gone so far, it seems safe to assume that Community Fishing Associations will have to play a large role in maintaining small fishing communities' access to their fishing grounds.
The future of the open access fleet remains up in the air and too many questions remain unanswered to give a good prediction of how it will all shake out. But the next few months and the next few Council meetings and subcommittee meetings will be critical for shaping the future of the West Coast fishing industry. There are still decisions that the Council will be making that will have an extraordinary influence on the makeup and character of fishing ports all along the West Coast.
This is the biggest story for the future of the industry.
Nate Grader is a staff member of the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR) working primarily on sustainable fisheries policy issues. IFR is separate from but closely affiliated with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA). The author can be reached at IFR's San Francisco Office at (415)561-3437, x 227 or by email to: ngrader@ifrfish.org. IFR's web site is at www.ifrfish.org.