Federal Plan May Mean Job Loss for Fishermen

Federal Plan May Mean Job Loss for Fishermen

Groups Call for Alternative Community-Based Fisheries, Fair Access to Fish Resources

San Francisco, Calif.– A coalition of fishing, environmental, and consumer groups are opposing a controversial fishery management plan being designed in Seattle this week by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), a body that helps determines how fishery resources are managed.  The plan could have negative effects for fishing communities and the environment by reducing the number of people who can fish, causing job loss, and perpetuating the use of fishing gear environmentally that is associated with ecological concerns. Groups including Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Food & Water Watch, Ecotrust, and the Crab Boat Owners Association are calling upon the PFMC to suspend decision-making on the plan until further research can be undertaken and alternative programs can be considered.

The PFMC is planning to divide up the West Coast ground fishery using a program called Individual Fishing Quotas, or IFQ. The quotas, which are similar to shares of stock, will be given away to a select group of trawl fishermen, mainly large corporations, who will then essentially own all access to the fishery.  This plan will amount to the privatization of the groundfish fishery, squeezing out many of the small fishermen.  These types of programs have had disastrous results around the world and in the U.S. 

In the current economic climate, job losses would be devastating—especially in the groundfish fishery, one of largest on the West Coast.  “This action by the Pacific regional council will give away millions of dollars of a public resource to the very fleet that overfished rockfish and other groundfish species a decade ago,” said Larry Collins, President of the Crab Boat Owners Association (San Francisco).  “Worse, this action will permit a massive consolidation and allow corporations to effectively own fish, leaving fishing communities no say about their future.”

Members of this environmental, fishing, and consumer coalition will be asking the PFMC to extend the decision deadline for the IFQ plan for at least 6 months until outstanding questions can be resolved and further analysis of alternative plans can be undertaken. Possible alternatives are already being implemented in some fisheries.  "There is a precedent for allocations to community trusts, such as the Community Development Quota corporations, promulgated by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council for rural communities in western Alaska," noted Ed Backus, Vice President of Ecotrust’s Fisheries Program.

In addition to this meeting, members of the coalition have sent a letter to Congressional leaders explaining the problems with traditional IFQs and calling upon Congress to become involved with designing a national allocation framework for fish resources.  According to Ben Bowman, a policy analyst with Food & Water Watch, “We need an equitable and durable framework for allocating access to the public’s fish resources.  Traditional IFQs privatize profit and socialize loss. They do not conserve or properly allocate our fish resources. The PFMC must extend the decision making timeline by at least 6 months to clarify questions, and Congress must become involved in order to ensure that this public resource is managed by the public, for the public.”