New tool to save ocean life: Buy out the fishermen
By Paul Rogers
Mercury News
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Two environmental groups working to reduce an often-harmful kind of commercial fishing that drags nets along the ocean bottom off the California coast have decided to fight it with a novel new weapon -- cold cash.At a scientific conference Tuesday in San Jose, the Nature Conservancy announced it has purchased six federal bottom trawling permits and four commercial trawling boats from fishermen based in Monterey and Morro Bay in a deal that was also structured by the group Environmental Defense.
Although exact terms were not announced, they said the total cost was between $1 million and $3 million.
The arrangement is the first time in Pacific waters that private groups have bought out commercial fishermen to protect ocean resources.
More important, both groups say they hope to expand the concept northward, and are negotiating with the 17 other fishing boat owners with bottom trawling permits based in Half Moon Bay, Moss Landing and Monterey.
For California fishing crews the buyouts offer a clean break. They have seen their profit margins slashed in recent years by rising fuel costs and tougher regulations designed to restore depleted fish populations. With checks that total several hundred thousand dollars each, boat owners can take up other types of fishing or other careers.
As part of the deal, the Morro Bay fishermen agreed to work with the Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense on a plan to identify large sections of ocean between Half Moon Bay and Santa Barbara where bottom trawling should be banned.
The coalition took those maps to federal fishing regulators, and in May, the U.S. Commerce Department approved them. The new areas that are off-limits to bottom trawling total 3.8 million acres -- an area five times the size of Yosemite National Park.
All are located in federal waters more than three miles from the California coast. They include Monterey Bay Canyon and other rich underwater regions of rocky reefs and kelp forests, as well as large sections off Big Sur and Arguello Canyon off Lompoc.
``There are too many boats chasing too few fish,'' said Rod Fujita, a marine ecologist with Environmental Defense in Oakland. ``People respond to economic incentives. The solution is not to blame or punish them but to provide incentives for stewardship, not exploitation.''
The groups said the four boats will be used for marine research or law enforcement, but if no buyer can be found, they will be destroyed.
William Hogarth, head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, called the deal ``a surprising and effective new way of using private money to conserve a public resource.''
For environmentalists, the arrangement offers an alternative to begging federal regulators to clamp down on fishing rules -- or suing them when they won't.
``Our idea was to buy permits and vessels as a quid pro quo to protect the seafloor,'' said Chuck Cook, director of the Nature Conservancy's Coastal and Marine Program.
Bottom trawling dates back to 12th-century England. Crews draw large, weighted nets along the sea bottom, scooping up fish as deep as 5,000 feet. But the practice also kills millions of tons of sharks, rays, skates and other non-targeted fish and can harm kelp beds and rocky reefs.
The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit group with state headquarters in San Francisco that normally buys land and development rights to protect open space, put up the money, all of which came from private donations.
There are 180 more bottom-trawling permits in Washington, Oregon and California. That number is down from six years ago, when there were 266. Scientists at the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Portland have estimated that years of fishing have depleted some species so much that the ocean can sustain only about 106 bottom trawlers.
The program is not without potential pitfalls.
A federal buyback program in the Pacific Northwest and New England between 1995 and 1998 removed 79 vessels at a cost of about $23 million. The boats were destroyed. But in a June 2000 report, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said many of the benefits were lost because some fishermen used the money to buy bigger boats.
There are also concerns about how buybacks affect shore-based businesses such as fish processing plants, ice houses and bait shops.
``When you talk about competence, some of these fisheries agencies make FEMA look good,'' said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Federation of Fishermen's Associations, based in San Francisco.
``It's a mixed bag,'' he said. ``I think it is well-intended and it will help some of the fishermen. But the question mark is, will others just move into this area?''
The Nature Conservancy says it thinks not.
Cook noted that under the buyouts, fishermen sign a legally binding contract agreeing not to re-enter the bottom-trawling fishery for at least five years. Unlike earlier federal buyouts, he added, this time the government agreed to permanently put large areas off limits for bottom trawling for all fishermen.
Contact Paul Rogers at progers@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5045.
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