O P I N I O N

Amendment 7 – A Disaster for
Northeast Tuna Fishermen?

“The windfall profits on this new quota for the PLL only will come directly from the pockets of mostly small boat traditional Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod groundfish and tuna boat fleet of New England. Groundfish fishermen and lobstermen have historically been well represented among the top highline bluefin tuna hand gear producers.” – Rich Ruais, ABTA.

Since 2011 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been working on Amendment 7 to the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan (HMS FMP). The public comment period ended on January 10 and full implementation is expected by early 2015. The “preferred alternatives” of this amendment will be an economic disaster for traditional New England small boat, family dependent commercial hand-gear fishermen and the coastal economy relied on by East Coast charter boats, private recreational boats and purse seine activity. The disaster will be caused by two major Amendment 7 “preferred alternatives.”

The first is a massive total reallocation of historical quota share from the General, Harpoon, Angling and Seine categories to the controversial distant water, high seas Pelagic Longline (PLL) fishery to account for its phenomenal explosion of dead bluefin tuna discards of all sizes. The second measure is titled E1c which will allow NMFS to annually reallocate additional traditional small boat, small family businesses General quota on the inadequate basis of a simple single season of not achieving its quota. The combination of these two measures could lead to a wholesale gutting of the 60 year historical “heart and soul” of the Summer and Fall U.S. traditional handgear fishery for bluefin tuna.

There are several NMFS preferred reallocation alternatives including: a so called “Codified Reallocation” of General, Harpoon, Angling, Purse Seine, Trap and Reserve to take 62 metric tons (MT) proportionally from each category and give the quota to the PLL category permanently to cover dead discards not expected to be reduced by small modifications to the Gulf of Mexico closure and more limited PLL access to coastal fishing grounds in the Mid-Atlantic region. Another “Annual Reallocation” of 75% of the purse seine quota will be transferred to the PLL through the Reserve where this 128.8 mt might be increased by any prior year underages from all other categories.

One only has to look at the January 10, 2014 almost giddy comments of the PLL lobbying group, Blue Water Fishermen’s Association (BWFA), praising NMFS Amendment 7 given the additional windfall profit from the massive reallocation awaiting the PLL fleet. The comments state that “…BWFA is impressed with the proposal and believes that it has real potential” and that “we believe that the overall framework of the proposal is promising, progressive, and a long-overdue step forward….” But not to sound too happy with the proposal, BWFA does sound the preposterous alarm that their share of the U.S. quota “…is not sound fishery management practice to constrain the U.S. tuna longline (TLL) category to 8.1% of the quota….

Even though BWFA points out that in 2012 they landed almost $49 million in pelagics and that bluefin only accounts for less than $2 million of the 2012 value, they apparently want a category name change to the “Tuna LongLine” instead of the historic “PLL” which only averaged a reported 23 mt of bluefin catch per year over the 22 years of the U.S. formative quota period from 1961 to 1983. This was the historical period on which quota shares were established in the early 1980’s and reconfirmed in the original formal 1999 Atlantic Tunas FMP prepared by NMFS and approved by the Secretary of Commerce.

What Amendment 7 will do, in essence, is to reward the historical practice of unreported and misreported dead discards with a totally undeserved quota increase from 74.8 mt to 235.9 or more annually depending on prior year underages. On top of that another alternative would allow PLL’s to participate directly in the General category by allowing some permits for PLL’s achieving their discard cap. The U.S can rollover a limited 10% of its annual 923 mt quota from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The windfall profits on this new quota for the PLL only will come directly from the pockets of mostly small boat traditional Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod groundfish and tuna boat fleet of New England. Groundfish fishermen and lobstermen have historically been well represented among the top highline bluefin tuna handgear producers.

Given the patented and obvious inequity of the NMFS “preferred alternatives”, the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA) sought assurances from our Congressional Representatives in Washington that such unfair policies would not be tolerated. The result of these efforts were two letters submitted to NMFS well before the final comment deadline. The first Congressional letter to Samuel Rauch III dated November 26 was signed by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Susan Collins (ME), Angus King (ME), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and by Representatives Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.), Michael H. Michaud (ME), Chellie Pingree (ME), and James R. Langevin (R.I.). The letter concludes with the following statement:

“Finally, we strongly oppose NMFS’s proposal to reallocate existing quotas that could unfairly disadvantage our traditional fleet and shore-side business infrastructure. Instead, we request the agency maintain existing quotas to protect dependent regional fisheries and establish incentives to encourage more selective fishing.”

The second Congressional letter to Samuel Rauch dated December 5, 2013 and presents an almost identical letter of opposition to NMFS proposed reallocations. This letter was signed by Massachusetts’ Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Edward Markey and Representatives James P. McGovern, John H. Tierney, Michael E. Capuano, Stephen F. Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William R. Keating, Joseph P. Kennedy III and Richard Neal.

“Finally, we strongly oppose NMFS’s proposal to reallocate existing quotas that could unfairly disadvantage our traditional Massachusetts fleet and shore-side business infrastructure. Instead, we request the agency maintain existing quotas to protect dependent regional fisheries and establish incentives to encourage more selective fishing.”

A last minute emotional, non-substantive “Hail Mary” request that the letters not be sent by BWFA Washington lobbyist Glenn Delaney failed to stop the strong and unified Congressional protest of the NMFS reallocation measures. In sum, 7 United States Senators and 12 Congressional Representatives called on NMFS to drop the reallocation “preferred alternatives”. As of late January, 2014 we have not seen any response from NMFS or NOAA leadership to these influential and exceptionally knowledgeable Congressional fishery policy leaders.

Amendment 7 also proposed a second “preferred alternative” targeted specifically at the General category in Alternative E1c. This alternative would result in a shift in the distribution of quota to the winter Mid-Atlantic fishery based primarily on the performance of the General category in the previous year. This alternative would make a major concession towards the North Carolina demand for 12 equal monthly quotas for the General category and reject the traditional summer/fall fishery’s dominance.

Again, the greatest impact would be on Northeast fishermen and coastal fishery infrastructure already greatly stressed under declaration of economic disaster by NMFS and the Congressional funding of $75 million (half of the funds requested) to sustain fishermen and coastal businesses through the current crisis.

Alternative E1c. would also take advantage and betray a trust developed when the East Coast Tuna Association and the General Category Association voluntarily developed and agreed to seasonal and monthly quotas. The agreement, initiated by New England fishermen, was to provide fishing opportunities throughout the traditional June through November period, thereby maintaining historical temporal and spacial distribution and later extended to include a December and January sub-quota to allow a new “winter fishery” opportunity for mostly Mid-Atlantic fishermen. NMFS allowed this concession to become a reality despite past agreements/resolutions at ICCAT strongly suggesting no new fisheries or transfer of fishing effort while rebuilding efforts were underway. E1c also makes a travestry of Magnuson Stevens, National Standard 8 by jeopardizing “sustained participation” of the New England fishing community.

For more information on Amendment 7 and how you can still make your views known, please visit www.theabta.com or call ABTA Officers Ralph Pratt at (781) 589-0815 and Steve Weiner at (978) 764-3637 or the ABTA office at (603) 898-tuna (8862).

Rich Ruais, Executive Director
Ralph Pratt, Co-President
Steve Weiner, Co-President
American Bluefin Tuna Association