New England Fishery Management Council has approved catch share system worth $64 million for gourdfishery and named it ‘sectors’. The council is also writing a catch share system designed to restructure the uniquely successful $372 million scallop fishery that has made New Bedford the nation’s No. 1 sales value port for a delicacy that federal officials concede is fully recovered and well managed.
Converting fisheries to catch shares implies turning commonly held wealth into tradeable private harvesting quotas. It is said that when quota becomes a mobile asset, it may be well and good for the asset’s value. But that’s not so good for the community where the asset had been based.
Merrick Burden, a government economist, developed models to put smaller boats into co-ops and larger vessels into a quota system. He said that market efficiencies can lead to social consequences and that the fleet consolidation results in a high cost of entry into the fishery for the second generation.
The New England Council is partnering in this series of workshops with the Nicholas Institute at Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the environmental giants leading the charge for catch shares.
