• Adaptive Management: Fostering adaptive, locally-based decision-making.
• Balance/Integration: Encouraging greater stewardship of the resource by fishermen.

• Sustain a viable hook fishery on Georges Bank.
• Sustain a viable commercial groundfish fleet in Chatham and Harwich.
• Assure that the hook fleet will not overfish the Georges Bank cod stock through utilization of a hard total-allowable-catch.
• Create new opportunities for the Georges Bank hook fleet, such as opportunities to pursue healthy or rebuilding groundfish stocks instead of Georges Bank cod.
• Retain access for small boat fishermen to Georges Bank.
• Promote stewardship of Georges Bank cod resource.
• Implement community-based management in New England.
• Create a working model for future development, submission and implementation of other sectors in the New England groundfish fishery.

Initiator

• Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association

Regulator

• New England Fishery Management Council

Annual Operations Plan

The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA), which was established in 1991, develops an annual operations plan with sector members for review by the New England Fishery Management Council.

CCCHFA Manager

The CCCHFA employs a manager that oversees the day-to-day operations of the sector. Under the consolidated rules for the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector, members pay an entrance fee, and an annual operations fee based on a percentage of their gross landings after deductions for fuel and ice.

CCCHFA Board of Directors

The CCCHFA is overseen by a board of directors, which has included fishermen, a fish buyer, an organic farmer and a coastal resource manager.

More stringent regulatory controls on the New England fisheries prompted small-boat, hook and line Cape Cod fishermen based in Chatham and Harwich to band together to seek a sector allocation through the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association. The concept is similar to the use of sectors elsewhere in United States fisheries.

The Georges Bank Hook Sector emerged as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the implementation of Amendment 13 to the New England Multispecies Fishery Management Plan in 2004, which described the benefits of fishermen voluntary forming sectors in its environmental impact statement.

The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) had developed the amendment, which included more stringent restrictions on fishermen in an attempt to end overfishing of groundfish stocks and rebuild them.

A legal framework had been adopted calling for the end of overfishing. Environmental organizations had pressed for the full and timely implementation of the framework, described in the1997 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which had been modified by the Sustainable Fisheries Act.

As a result, resource managers were required to end overfishing by 2010 through the adoption of several measures, including reductions on bycatch, implementation of new data collection efforts, and the establishment of annual total allowable catch standards for certain species. For species that met a regulatory definition of being overfished, such as cod, the total annual catch had to be low enough to allow stocks to rebuild within a decade.

Frustrated with the pace of compliance with the legislation, the Conservation Law Foundation of New England and other organizations sued in 2001, claiming the NEFMC’s fishery stock rebuilding plans were not consistent with the definitions on overfishing. The response, negotiated with the plaintiffs, was Amendment 13.

Among its provisions, Amendment 13 limited the amount of fish that could be caught per trip, and greatly reduced the number of days fishermen could go out to sea. For hook and line fishermen, it limited the number of hooks that could be in use.

The small boat fishermen believed they would not be able to sustain their businesses unless they operated under a different regulatory strategy.

The Ecosystem

Georges Bankis a shallow coastal plateau that slopes from north to south. It is a dynamic environment where strong currents keep the water column well mixed vertically and has a variety of temperature, salinity and nutrient concentrations.

Georges Bank is an extension of the continental shelf, where the waters historically had been highly productive areas for groundfish. Overfishing, however, has occurred for years and altered the balance of the ecosystem.

Threats

Early in the 20^th Century, the New England groundfish industry moved to the use of larger boats and newer types of equipment that could catch greater numbers of fish, but were more exploitative, increasing the number of non-targeted species, referred to as bycatch, that are caught and thrown back. Fish mortality is high.

Some of the coastal communities of Cape Cod, such as Chatham and Harwich, held onto the small-boat, hook and line fishing tradition, which has a lesser impact on the environment than the operation of trawl and gillnet vessels. For years, the fish caught from boats based in Chatham fetched a higher price on the market as the product had a reputation as being fresher and caught closer to shore.

A 1998 survey found that of 321 hook vessels in New England, 125 were based out of Chatham, where fishing contributes significantly to the economy, factors into the way of life, and serves as an important backdrop for the tourism industry.

Most ports in New England, however, have seen a rapid decline in total landings as groundfish populations dropped due to overfishing and the tightening of fishing regulations. In Chatham and Harwich, for instance, groundfish landings in fiscal year 2004 had dropped 59 percent from fiscal year 2001.

Sector Management

Under sector management by the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCFHA):

• The sector receives a percentage of the total allowable catch for the Georges Bank fishery that is based on members’ historical performance.
• Sector members must use only gear allowed by the sector, and fish only within the sector. Once the total allowable catch has been reached, members must agree to stop fishing for the remainder of the year. All legal-sized fish must be retained to minimize bycatch.
• Sector management gives members greater flexibility and control over the management of the resource. Each member receives a day-at-sea allocation, but members can request a redistribution through the CCCFHA. Members may transfer or lease portions of their day-at-sea allocation with approval of the sector manager.
• Members are also freed from certain regulations, including a seasonal May closure, a limit on the number of hooks in use, and a pounds per trip limit.
• The total allowable catch is divided among the months of the year, ensuring there is year-round fishing. Members have greater freedom to decide when to fish to respond to market prices. For instance, members can decide to minimize price spikes and crashes associated with derby-stale fishing.
• Economic equity among members also is maintained.
• Membership in the sector is voluntary, and may change each year.

Cape Cod Fisheries Trust

The CCCFHA is purchasing groundfish and scallop permits that can be leased to qualifying Cape Cod fishermen in an effort to reinvigorate the small-boat fishing business and manage the resource in a sustainable manner.

The program began in 2008. In order to lease the permits, fishermen must sign legal agreements that support an end to overfishing, and contain provisions to minimize bycatch and disruption to habitat.

Members of the Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector, and its successor, the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector, agree to certain monitoring provisions to evaluate the success of the program and its impact on the fishery.

Members must land fish only in designated ports, and provide the sector manager with a copy of the trip report within 48 hours of off-loading. Dealers who purchase the fish also must provide a report to the sector manager on a weekly basis.

The New England Fishery Management Council receives aggregate catch and discard data for the sector from the sector manager each month.

Additional data is collected and verified by using human observers or video cameras on vessels to monitor all fishing activity, including the capture of bycatch.

The real-time data ensures compliance with the total allowable catch standard.

Modeling Sustainable Fishing

The Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector and its successor, the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector, have succeeded in providing a model for the creation of a sustainable fishery that led to the implementation of new management rules in New England.

According to reports by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the sectors have not caught their maximum share of fish. Therefore, they did not engage in overfishing. For instance, the fixed gear sector in 2008 only caught 41 percent of its quota.

Fewer fish are discarded. The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Association (CCCFA) states that sector members in 2009 landed 400,000 pounds of cod they would have been forced to waste under the previous management rules.

A Special Access Program created by CCCFA and regulators has allowed members to access areas that were previously closed to groundfishing. Members targeted haddock, which is not considered overfished, without impacting populations of cod. Such programs could generate support among fishermen for the closure of other areas that are more environmentally damaged.

Fostering Greater Stewardship of the Ecosystem

Self-governance of the resource provides members with an incentive to practice good stewardship, and ensure that other members are complying with the rules of the operations plan.

Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Association: http://www.ccchfa.org/default.htm

New England Fishery Management Council: http://www.nefmc.org/