According to the Obama administration cap-and-trade regulatory scheme for fisheries is a major overhaul in fishery management and a bid to halt the decline of wild fish stocks. In its fiscal 2010 budget request, the administration is asking for $18.6 million for “catch-share programs.” This allocation is just 2 percent of the $921 million budget proposal for the National Marine Fisheries Service. It is triple the NMFS’s request for catch shares in its 2009 budget and a ninefold increase over the $2 million it allocated for catch shares in 2008.
Experts believe that this request is a major push from the administration to advance the management systems, which are still in the minority but have started to appear in fisheries across the United States since a federal moratorium expired five years ago. NMFS told that presently there are 12 catch-share programs in operation, up from seven two years ago. It further said that four more are in the implementation or development phase.
David Miller, spokesman for NMFS’s parent agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, expressed that the request for budget is intended to finance development of new catch-share programs. It is informed that catch-share management is a new regime for fisheries, where mangers set strict limits and give fishers some ownership in the catch.
It is explained that these programs halt the “race for fish.” Under a traditional system, fishery managers set a total allowable catch, and boats rush to get the most that they can, as quickly as they can, before everyone in the fishery reaches the limit. There is no doubt that cap-and-trade programs distribute shares of a total catch to commercial fishers, based on either their historical catch or an auction. Fishers can buy and sell their shares easily.
