A new day for fishing in New England

It's an August morning before sunup.

Captain Chris Brown steers his 45-foot trawler, Proud Mary, out of Port Galilee, RI, past Pt. Judith Light and into Rhode Island Sound. It’s a journey he’s made thousands of times.

Commercial fishing was once the economic engine of the New England colonies, but generations of overfishing and faulty management proved devastating for fish and coastal communities.

Now, Brown is among trailblazing fishermen who are embracing a market solution that could put the 400-year-old fishery on the path to recovery.

Brown was just eight years old when he first went to sea in the 1960s, fishing with his grandfather. He was allowed to pilot the boat home while his grandfather made sketches of the Block Island shoreline. “It was a thrill to feel the power of the boat,” he says.

The New England fishery has fallen hard since those days. Revenues have dropped 50% just in the past decade and many of the groundfish stocks have declined to dangerously low levels. And Brown, 53, is taking a risk to preserve his industry and his family’s way of life.

“Fishing with my grandfather, I got to see the ocean as healthy as we’ve seen it,” he says. “That gives me an incentive to get it back to that. I don’t want to leave it broken.”

By the numbers: Oceans in crisis

Since last year, Brown has been operating his boat, named for his wife, under new regulations that could save the troubled 400-year-old New England fishery. With EDF’s help, New England is one of several regions that have implemented catch shares, a management tool that is proven to restore depleted fish stocks and fishermen’s livelihoods.

Working with EDF, scientists and other fishermen, Brown has become a leader in a region—and an industry—that traditionally resisted change. “Catch shares will put more fish on the table and more money in fishermen’s pockets,” he says.

Fishing smarter, not harder

In 2008, Brown developed a pilot catch-share program for fluke, or summer flounder, in Rhode Island waters. In exchange for accepting a strict and verifiable limit on their catch and more accountability, fishermen were granted flexibility to fish whenever they wanted. The success of that effort inspired Brown to participate in a similar federal program, which EDF helped implement and design, for 13 species of groundfish, including the iconic Atlantic cod and haddock.

Says Captain Chris Brown, "I’m a very good fisherman, but I can’t outsmart a closure or a failed fishery."

Photo credit: John Rae

The new catch-share program, which began last year, gave New England’s commercial groundfishermen a choice: continue with the old system or join fishing cooperative groups called “sectors.” Sectors work by allotting a percentage of a scientifically determined allowable catch, revised annually, to groups based on their catch history. More than half of commercial fishing permit holders—representing 98% of the fish harvested—joined the program.

Unlike other fishery management tools, catch shares reward fishermen for conservation. “First, a catch limit is set that allows a fishery to recover,” says EDF project manager Emilie Litsinger. “Then, as the fishery revives, managers can raise the total annual catch limit and each fisherman’s percentage share grows in value.”

Data for the first year in New England shows that revenue remained stable even though landings were down slightly. Boats in the program made 70% more money per trip than previously, and bycatch, the accidental killing of unwanted fish, was only about one-fourth that of other boats.

“We’re making more money selling the same number of fish—and burning less fuel doing it,” says Brown.

With catch shares, fishermen have the option to trade their quota with other boats if the need arises. For example, if Brown catches more than his allotted share—or a species other than the one targeted—he can buy shares from someone else, still keeping the total catch within the limits. The result: less waste and more profit.

“My grandfather said ‘You only kill ’em once, make sure you sell ’em when you do,’” recalls Brown. “Catch shares allow me to do that.”

Challenges remain

Over the last five years, catch shares have compiled a solid record of success around the nation, including programs EDF helped implement for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and groundfish in the Pacific. A 2008 study in Nature showed that globally fish populations with catch shares increased 400% over a 17-year period, while many other fisheries were plummeting.

We have to remember that this is a major transformation and there are so many years of mismanagement to correct. Change takes time.

Emilie Litsinger Fisheries Project Manager

Still, challenges remain as New England’s fishing industry goes through the difficult process of adjustment. Fishermen are struggling under low annual quotas, put in place to reverse the long-term damage to stocks caused by overfishing. At the same time, they are adapting to a dramatically different management system—one that requires them to change the way they do business day to day.

“We have to remember that this is a major transformation and there are so many years of mismanagement to correct,” says Litsinger. “Change takes time.”

With the New England program entering its second year, EDF and its partners are continuing to refine and improve it. We are committed to ensuring that this innovative management system provides a real future for the fishing industry and for the fish it depends on.

EDF is equally committed to New England’s individual fishermen, and to seeing that they have the support they need to reap the benefits of catch shares management. Among other things, we are working on innovative ways to help small-boat operators financially, and we’re strengthening the catch monitoring system to ensure that it is more cost effective and accurate.

We’re also leading the fight to defeat a wrongheaded measure on Capitol Hill, introduced by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), to amend the 2012 budget in ways that would restrict the use of federal funds to implement new catch-share programs.

“In New England, sectors are proving that fishermen can be good managers if given the chance,” says Brown. “Since I was a kid, I’ve been taught to leave no trace. Our fishing patterns should be the same. If we want to make this right, we all have to pull together and start acting like a community again.”