Copyright © 2011 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Brewer, J. F. 2011. Paper fish and policy conflict: catch shares and ecosystem-based management in Maine’s groundfishery. Ecology and Society 16(1): 15. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/ vol16/iss1/art15/ Research Paper Fish and Policy Conflict: Catch Shares and Ecosystem-Based Management in Maine’s Groundfishery Jennifer F. Brewer 1 ABSTRACT. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration professes support for ecosystem- based fisheries management, as mandated by Congress in the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and as endorsed by the Obama Administration’s national ocean policy. Nonetheless, driving agency policies, including catch shares and fishing quotas, focus principally on individual species, diverting attention from ecosystem considerations such as habitat, migratory patterns, trophic relationships, fishing gear, and firm- level decision making. Environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO) agendas manifest similar inconsistencies. A case study of Maine’s groundfishery demonstrates implications of this policy conflict at the local level. There, multigenerational fishing villages have historically pursued diversified and adaptive livelihood strategies, supported by local ecological knowledge. This tradition is increasingly eroded by regulatory constraints, including catch shares. Field observation, interviews, survey data, and archival review reveal that industry-supported, ecosystem-focused proposals have been rejected by the New England Fishery Management Council, despite the apparent failure of single-species approaches to sustain fish populations, fished ecosystems, and fishing-dependent communities. The creation of groundfishery catch share sectors is likely to perpetuate industry consolidation and political entrenchment under more mobile capital, following precedent set by days-at-sea, and making area protections and gear restrictions less likely. Pending marine spatial planning efforts could enhance social–ecological resilience by creating new opportunities for transdisciplinary decision support, and broader public participation and accountability. Key Words: catch shares; ecosystem-based management; fisheries; Fishery Management Council; groundfish; ITQs; Maine; New England; NOAA; quotas INTRODUCTION embedded in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (FCMA)— On 19 July 2010, President Obama signed a National particularly its amendments in 1996 and 2006—and Ocean Policy executive order endorsing findings of by reports from bodies such as the National the Administration’s Interagency Ocean Policy Academy of Sciences, U.S. Oceans Commission, Task Force, including “ecosystem-based” and and Pew Oceans Commission (National Research “adaptive” marine resource management (Interagency Council 1999, 2006, Pew Oceans Commission Ocean Policy Task Force 2009). Meanwhile, the 2003, U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy 2004, National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Joint Oceans Commission Initiative 2009). Despite Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this breadth of input, public discussion appears not was finalizing a national policy encouraging the use to consider the possibility that ecosystem-based of fishery catch shares. Catch shares include limited management and catch shares are at odds: access privileges, individual fishing quotas (ITQs), historically intertwined, but conceptually divergent. and quotas held by groups such as harvest cooperatives or fleet sectors (NOAA 2009). Both Although policy conflict is nothing new, this policies were informed by years of environmental particular divergence provides entrée to more non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) lobbying empirically robust conversations about the future of of NOAA and the White House Council on marine resource management. Evidence from the Environmental Quality, by Congressional mandates nation’s oldest commercial fishery, the New 1East Carolina University Ecology and Society 16(1): 15 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art15/ England groundfishery (which includes bottom- Ecosystem-Based Management dwelling species, such as cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), winter Ecosystem-oriented decision support for resource flounder (Pleuronectes americanus), dabs management originates at least as early as the 1930s (Hippoglossoides platessoides), grey sole (Glyptocephalus and 1940s when biologists began advocating the cynoglossus), pollock (Pollachius virens), whiting protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services (Merluccius bilinearis), red hake (Urophycis using politically adaptive strategies (Grumbine chuss), and redfish (Sebastes fasciatus)) and, 1994, Scheiber 1997). Despite profound differences especially, case material from the state of Maine in conceptual and normative orientation, this history suggest that catch shares may deter the development runs parallel to the evolution of fisheries yield of ecosystem-based management. Catch shares shift models, which originated earlier in the 20th century, the attention of managers, fishermen, and the public and flourished in the 1930s through 1970s (Larkin away from integrated understandings of fished 1977). Yield models grew out of agricultural and ecosystems and fishing practices, and toward paper industrial production models developed to fish. The term “paper fish” was coined by fishermen maximize economic output–input ratios, paired to refer to federal permits allowing fishing activities with increasing biological knowledge about species based on single-species stock assessments, population dynamics, and more-or-less nuanced implying that the assessments are detached from the conceptions of carrying capacity (Baranov 1918, complexities of real-world fishing practice and Ricker 1948, Schaefer 1954, Beverton and Holt fished ecosystems. (The few fisherwomen in New 1957). England self-identify as “fishermen,” so that term is used here.) Although principles of ecosystem management gained traction more rapidly in government The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agencies responsible for terrestrial resources, such now boasts 14 catch share programs in the United as forests and wildlife, 1996 and 2006 States. Although some fishermen have implemented reauthorizations of the FCMA include language catch shares with relative enthusiasm, others are intended to advance a more ecosystemic orientation deeply concerned about long-term social– in fisheries policy (McLeod and Leslie 2009). In the ecological damage. Public comments collected by last decade, a veritable cottage industry of papers, NOAA in 2010 and summarized in Appendix 1 reports, and special journal issues has produced revealed a strong opposition to catch shares among proposals for more ecosystem-based fisheries both commercial and recreational fishermen, management (Ecological Society of America 1998, reaching 83% and 90% respectively. Maine’s Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1999, Link fishing communities have long been among the 2002, United Nations Food and Agriculture most resistant to catch shares. Opposition grows Organization 2002, Pikitch et al. 2004, Browman principally from socioeconomic considerations, and Stergiou 2005, Cury and Christensen 2005, specifically the concern that catch shares McLeod et al. 2005, National Research Council consolidate fishery access and decision making in 2006, Murawski 2007, Varjopuro et al. 2008, the hands of fewer, larger, and less locally Rosenberg 2009, Tallis et al. 2010). committed firms, but it also reflects concerns about ecosystem impacts. Similar objections are raised by Central principles found in many of these fishermen in other locales, but often with less frameworks include: unanimity. 1. Future provision of ecosystem goods and Pursuant to this argument, this paper briefly services. summarizes scholarship on ecosystem- and catch share-based fisheries policy in the U.S. context, 2. Adaptability and resilience to accommodate presents the groundfish case study and discusses its change and surprise in complex systems. implications, and concludes with a glance toward possible futures. 3. Interconnectedness of human and environmental variables. Ecology and Society 16(1): 15 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art15/ 4. Broad social learning despite uncertainties. fisheries found that individual quotas reduce or reverse rates of fishery decline (Costello et al. 2008). 5. Place-based understanding of cumulative The study estimated fishery status by comparing impacts and cross-scalar interactions. historical harvest levels, however, not living fish populations or other ecosystem variables, and did 6. Public accountability for management trade- not control for differences among fisheries or offs (Ecological Society of America 1998, management mechanisms that might be implemented Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1999, simultaneously with quotas. Even examining the United Nations Food and Agriculture single case of British Columbia halibut ITQs, two Organization 2002, Tallis et al. 2010). recent papers found evidence supporting rather different arguments. One found that market Although some fisheries scholars and managers distortions around capital and information access question the feasibility of ecosystem-based necessary for quota leasing undermine broad management, especially given current legal distribution of public goods (Pinkerton and Edwards constraints and limited financial, human, and 2009).