Under a new plan approved by a federal council the Pacific Northwest commercial fishing will undergo a great deal of reorganization to create more sustainable, profitable and less-wasteful harvest. It is told that the new system is scheduled to take effect in 2011, which will vest more than 100 trawl-boat owners with individual shares for dozens of different species.
It is observed that the new plan will give fishermen the option of catching their allocation each year, selling their shares, or purchasing someone else’s fishing shares to help fill up their boat holds. Mark Cooper, a Newport, Ore., fisherman, said that this is the biggest thing that has happened in the trawl fisheries in his lifetime. The plan also vest fish processors with 20 percent of the hake catch that is delivered to plants.
Johanna Thomas, the Pacific Ocean policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, informed that this is a watershed moment for West Coast fishing. He explained that fishermen have struggled to make a living under ineffective regulations that weren’t working for the fish or the fishermen.
Conservationists also hoping the new system will greatly reduce bycatch. The new system will put federal observers on every trawler, rather than just a portion of the fleet. Pacific Northwest fish processors have argued that their investments in shore plants were key to the success of fishermen and the stability of some coastal communities, and they lobbied fiercely to gain some of the initial catch shares.
