After years of sound research a federal fishery council is to vote on a plan to try to create a more profitable, sustainable and safer West Coast fishery. The plan would vest the region’s trawl-boat owners with shares of the public seafood resource that can be sold like private stock.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council with fishermen opposed to a proposal to allocate at least 20 percent of the initial catch shares to shore-based processors. Phil Anderson, who disclosed his plan Tuesday, proposes no one be granted individual shares to catch Pacific whiting, the biggest volume of the West Coast fisheries. According to the plan the fleet that catches whiting for delivery to shoreside processors would be encouraged to develop cooperatives. The vessels could then divide up the harvest but would not gain control of specific catch shares that could be sold to the highest bidder.
Anderson said it spawned “a frenzy of activity” among industry representatives attending the weeklong council meeting. The harvest overhaul is the most complicated yet attempted by any U.S. fishery and has been promoted by conservation groups hoping to see similar changes elsewhere to help revive overfished stocks. Richard Carroll, a vice president of Ocean Gold Seafoods, which operates the Westport plant, said that the share systems assure fishermen a fixed portion of catch, which they can catch themselves or sell to the highest bidder.
Johanna Thomas of the Environmental Defense Fund, told that proponents say the share system gives powerful incentives to slow down the harvest, avoid depressed stocks and reduce the waste. He added that safety might also be improved, with fishermen facing less pressure to drop their nets in bad weather, according to Coast Guard officials. Anderson, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife official, has been widely considered a key swing vote on the 14-voting member council.
