Overfishing aff inherency
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Accumulation LimitsAccumulation limits solve consolidation and help small fishers- they set caps on the market share given to fishers, preventing large corporations from taking over.Matt Rand in 2012, Policy Analyst, Accumulation Limits a Critical Component of Catch Shares to Provide Benefits to Fishing Families and Communities, Environmental Defense Fund, http://blogs.edf.org/edfish/2012/10/17/accumulation-limits-a-critical-component-of-catch-shares-to-provide-benefits-to-fishing-families-and-communities/ Catch shares, a fishery management system that gives fishermen a secure share of the catch in exchange for increased monitoring and greater accountability, represent a substantial change from the way U.S. fisheries have been managed in the past. Well-designed catch shares – particularly when they include accumulation limits – can provide safeguards for small boat fishermen, their families, and their communities. Because these are the people who are hurt most when fisheries collapse, EDF believes it is imperative to ensure that management programs take the needs of both fish and fishermen into account. Catch shares are uniquely suited to do so in a number of ways that conventional fishery management plans could not. For example, conventional fishery management plans typically call for shortened seasons and even closures when overfishing or other factors deplete stocks. This unpredictability of management can endanger smaller operators more than bigger ones, since they may not have the flexibility to weather the changes. Because catch shares usually allow fishermen to operate all year long, they provide far greater job stability for fishermen, who know in advance how much fish they can catch during the season and what their needs will be at any given time. They can spread their catch out over the year, avoiding the gluts that occur when everyone brings in their catch at once and timing trips to maximize the price they’ll earn for that catch. Some fishermen are working directly with processors so they are fishing for species that are most sought-after at the most desirable times, earning the highest price per fish. With longer seasons, fishermen can also take time off for needed boat repairs, and avoid working under the most dangerous weather conditions. These are welcome changes for many fishermen, who had grown accustomed to having to work at a frenzied pace whenever regulators said they could, with no flexibility to come in during dangerous weather or stay out when the fishing was good. Industry consolidation continues to be a concern due to climate change and the fact that there simply aren’t as many fish in the sea. While fleets have been shrinking for decades, catch shares allow fishery managers to set limits on consolidation when this is a concern. Accumulation limits are designed to put reasonable caps on the control or ownership of fishing quota. Most catch share programs in North America have established accumulation limits to control fleet consolidation and to make sure that quota ownership is spread across a large enough number of participants in order to limit market power and fishing opportunity by a few individuals or companies. There is no single way to set accumulation limits, and in fact, they are typically tailored to the characteristics of individual fisheries and the management goals of that fishery. Some fisheries have set high limits in order to allow for consolidation (such as a 25 percent consolidation cap for the New Zealand shore side sector), while others are low (such as a 1 percent cap for Alaska halibut). These kinds of tools allow fishery managers to set up a system that protects fishing communities and fishing families from instability and the kind of rampant consolidation that had been going unchecked for years. Catch shares provide the framework for the future – and with the right structure and features, this system is well suited to help protect fish and fishermen. Accumulation limits prevent large fishers from pushing out small scale fishingAssociated Press 7/11/2011 Limits weighed to keep small fishing boats afloat Posted: Monday, July 11, 2011 1:00 am, http://www.stardem.com/business/article_b2c5acd8-4eb8-5d23-a0de-b6d87718e2ed.html?mode=print Rulemakers who protect the fish off New England's crooked coastline are considering ways to make sure the small-boat fishermen who chase those fish don't vanish in the meantime. The New England Fishery Management Council is beginning to devise so-called "accumulation limits" to restrict what any single fisherman or fishing business can haul home annually. The idea is to keep the wealthiest fishing interests from accumulating such a dominant share of the catch that they swallow the small, independent boat owners who've sustained New England's fishing communities for centuries. This persistent industry fear heightened last year, when a new management system was installed that allots each fisherman a transferrable share of the total catch, which they can lease or sell. Some say that makes it far easier for well-moneyed fishing interests to accrue catch shares from smaller, less profitable fishing businesses. David Goethel, a New Hampshire fisherman who owns one boat, believes the way the catch was distributed in the new system gave large boat owners an unearned advantage that could drive out small operators like him. Accumulation limits are needed to make things even, he said. "We're a seafaring family and it's a way of life, and what they're doing is taking our way of life and turning it into a commodity," Goethel said. Hundreds of jobs linked to the small boat fleet, the region's heritage and access to fresh, locally-caught fish is at stake, said Goethel, a council member who emphasized he was speaking only for himself. The council last month took the first steps toward establishing accumulation limits and said it was working to amend fishing rules to include them. Some catch shares have already been implemented- we must have federal regulation requiring accumulation limits to prevent the consolidation of the fishing industrySalemNews, November 26, 2012, Our view: Federal quota caps needed to protect small-boat fishermen, http://www.salemnews.com/opinion/x2120607353/Our-view-Federal-quota-caps-needed-to-protect-small-boat-fishermen/print Now, however, NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco and the New England Fishery Management Council have made such a mess of the New England groundfishery through Lubchenco’s and Environmental Defense’s beloved catch share management system that they have driven the industry to the point of economic “disaster” — conceded in a Commerce Department announcement in September. To their credit, NOAA regional administrator John Bullard, environmental groups, Gloucester’s Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and a number of fishermen realize at least some steps that must be taken to fix it. That’s to put so-called accumulation caps on the amount of quota or “catch shares” any fishing business can control, or perhaps take other actions, such as requiring on-board ownership presence at all times or some other limits that can keep the bigger businesses from gobbling the shares of smaller, independent boats that can no longer compete. That’s right: Given the current state of the New England groundfishery, federal officials have no choice but to put new limits, new regulations on an industry that must be rescued from itself. That should not, of course, be the usual government course of action in dealing with most businesses. And Jackie Odell, director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, makes a valid point in suggesting that the feds should essentially let the free market play out — just as it should in virtually every other field. But there’s a catch. In this case, the runaway economic system that’s now killing waterfront jobs, driving out small businesses, and consolidating more and more fishing quota and fishermen’s “catch shares” in the hands of fewer and bigger fishing corporations didn’t evolve as a free market on its own. It was created by the government itself thanks to Lubchenco’s catch share policies drawn from her work with EDF, the same folks who brought us the corporately driven “cap and trade” approach to confronting air pollution. Beyond that, let’s also remember that, in setting up this monopoly-building commodities trade system, NOAA also controls the available “product,” as well, setting tight limits on fishermen’s total allowable catch, so that even when smaller, family-run boats do try to remain competitive, their share of the quota and the allowable catch is undercut by the bigger, more dominant boats and corporations — up to and including the big boats reportedly swooping in to scoop up inshore cod on Stellwagen Bank, a venue heretofore left to the smaller boats and businesses. It’s those scenarios that make it clear that NOAA’s and the New England Council’s Amendment 16 and catch share system — while clearly working for Lubchenco and her shameful recessionary goal of fleet consolidation — are indeed creating a disaster for fishermen and New England’s fishing communities. And NOAA and Commerce officials owe it to those communities — including Gloucester — to undo the damage. Over a longer haul, that should mean the abolition and abandonment of the catch share system as we know it. But in the short term, that must mean clamping accumulation limits on the amount of quota any company can control, or taking other steps to ensure that smaller, independent fishermen are not driven out of business by their own government. Each day the status quo remains in place is another step in a path to an even deeper economic fishery disaster. 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