According to a news report New England fishermen gained more flexibility to fish in ways that make business sense while allowing our ocean ecosystems to recover. To make this new system work better the federal managers need to take critical steps. The New England Fishery Management Council has voted last year to adopt a promising fisheries management system called sector allocation.
It is true that every year, each sector agrees to catch only a certain allocation of groundfish, such as cod, haddock and flounder. The annual catch limit ensures that overfishing does not occur, so stocks can rebuild.
NMFS is considering some measures that should be taken to ensure that fishermen who don’t join sectors, known as the common pool, stay within annual catch limits. If the common pool overfishes, fewer fish will be available for the sectors, causing the new program to fail. Finally, NMFS should quickly employ current fish stock information. Today, it takes far too long from data collection to actual adoption of a plan for management.
