When Congress reauthorized the nation's main fishing law in 2006, it directed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to end overfishing by 2010. That's a tough goal, but one promising tool is a type of management called catch shares. Earlier this week, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco put her weight behind this approach.
With catch shares, individual fishers own rights to catch fish. They can trade or sell these rights, which makes fishing more efficient and provides a market-based incentive not to overfish. The system has been shown to lower the chance of a fish stock collapsing.
Speaking to a top committee of fishery management councils—the regional bodies that set fishing policies—in Boston on Tuesday, Lubchenco made her case:
Recent scientific analyses show us that fisheries managed with catch share programs perform better than fisheries managed with traditional tools. Even in the first years after implementation, catch share fisheries are stable, and even increase their productivity. The scientific evidence is compelling that catch shares can also help restore the health of ecosystems and get fisheries on a path to profitability and sustainability. These results, … these scientific analyses, … are why moving forward to implement more catch share programs is a high priority for me. I see catch shares as the best way for many fisheries to both meet the Magnuson mandates and have healthy, profitable fisheries that are sustainable.
Lubchenco noted that the agency's budget request for FY 2010 included $18.6 million to help the struggling New England groundfish fishery implement a catch-share program. She also announced a new task force that will figure out how the agency can make sure that councils consider this type of program when they update their management plans and how NOAA can provide technical support.
Although Lubchenco has a reasonably big stick—she recommends to the secretary of commerce whether to approve the council's plans—she's starting out with encouragement and incentives. Experts say it's the right approach. "Make it easy, grease the skids with some money, and celebrate the successes," as David Festa of the Environmental Defense Fund puts it.
Fisheries scientist Andy Rosenberg of the University of New Hampshire, Durham, is also a fan, but he cautions that tricky issues remain to be resolved, such as how recreational fishing might be dealt with under a catch-shares plan.
—Erik Stokstad
Catch-share systems grant harvesting privileges that are permanent, exclusive, and tradable. From here it is a slippery slope towards consolidation and corporate control of 'public' fish resources. Society need not alienate 'our' public trust property to individual entities to enjoy the benefits of a market system.
Government should develop a fish resource allocation framework that asserts public ownership. Government should lease access to fish stocks - akin to other natural resources such as oil and gas. These leases can be structured to favor small eco-friendly fishermen working independently or in community-based associations. Funds generated from leasing can be funneled back into better management and habitat improvement - say restoring salmon rivers.
The Environmental Defense Fund (doublespeak title for a corporate privatization lobby group) has lead the push for catch-shares. In sync with the World Bank, Wal-mart and other likely suspect their agenda is clear - corporate enclosure of the ocean for private profit.
To be clear, wild fish stocks of the United States are a public trust resource - basically you part-own them. Government manages this 'public trust' resource on your behalf. Their role is to determine ecologically sustainable harvest levels, and then allocate fish harvesting privileges - "share the fish' - in a fair and equitable manner.
Unfortunately, when it come to 'sharing the fish' broad community values and expectations of good management are very rarely front and centre. Self-interest and expediency - regularly papered over with bogus economic analysis - too often displace the common good.
NOAA and those that are push catch-shares present the public with a disingenuous characterization of fishery management problems and the solutions available.
These elements have forced the notion that a policy dichotomy exists: a choice between completely fictitious unregulated fisheries (all U.S. fisheries are now heavily regulated) leading to a "tragedy of the unmanaged commons" situation, or a quasi-private property regime = catch-shares.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has not challenged or attempted to clarify this inaccurate characterization, nor developed guidelines to guide the design of catch-share programs to minimize harm to coastal communities and marine ecosystems.
Catch-shares (also titled individual fishing quota programs IFQs) are an economic allocation tool not a conservation tool. It is the total allowable catch (TAC) - the harvest cap - that is responsible for ending over-fishing, not the way the TAC is divided and allocated. If a TAC is set above biological limits, over-fishing will still occur - even under an catch-share program.
This critical distinction was pointed out in the National Research Council (1999) report Sharing the Fish: '...IFQs are not primarily a biological conservation tool; the TAC and other management measures are the main conservation tools in IFQ-managed fisheries.''
Lubchencho should be looking at ways to 'share the fish' in a fair and equitable manner. Unfortunately, as a former EDF board member it is no surprise that she favors corporate control of a public asset rather than a management regime that operates in the public interest. We must demand public control of public resources such as fish - for food security, for the health of coastal economies, and for the future of a healthy ocean environment. Lubchencho must stop using her new role to dish out the EDF cool-aid.