According to the authority a new initiative that buys up fishing permits and leases them back to fishermen at an affordable rate hopes to counter the trend that has Cape ports rapidly losing their fishing licenses, their fishermen, and their fleets. Under this scheme fishermen are allowed to sell their federal fishing permits, and with nearly every New England fishery closed to new entrants, they’ve been getting good money for doing so.
It is told that the average price to buy a federal groundfish permit, required to catch cod, haddock and flounder, has gone up by 20 percent a year since 2002, and could double in the next five years. Surveys of fishermen done by the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association revealed that with the cost of entering the fishery so high, the fear in small ports like Chatham, Harwich, Provincetown and others along the Atlantic coast, is that even more fishermen will get priced out of the market and their permits will go to vessels and corporations with deeper pockets in larger ports like New Bedford.
The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, along with fishermen’s associations in other ports, is raising money and buying up fishing permits with a mission of creating a stockpile of permits. The permits would then be leased to local fishermen, keeping them fishing in their communities even after it’s no longer in their price range. Paul Parker, executive director for the hook association, informed that this new initiative would support owner/operator businesses.
Experts said that with the scallop permit plus earnings from other fisheries and bull raking quahogs, fishermen are staying afloat though just barely. Still, the scallop resource is relatively healthy and the prices are good. The loss of permits has hit off-Cape fishing communities as well, and similar trusts have sprung up in Maine and Gloucester.
