Report on catch shares finds consolidation, job loss

Report on catch shares finds consolidation, job loss

by Dan Bacher

The BP Horizon oil spill of 2010 is apparently not the only environmental and economic disaster that the Obama administration has presided over in the Gulf of Mexico.

On Wednesday, the national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch released a report on the dramatic effects of the "catch shares" program, a federal plan to privatize public trust fisheries, on Gulf of Mexico fisheries. You can read the report at: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/catch-shares-gulf-of-mexico/.

"Analyzing brand new federal government data, the report, entitled A Closer Look at Catch Shares in the United States: The Gulf of Mexico, reveals that Gulf fisheries managed under one controversial program have seen significant industry consolidation and job losses and that certain catch shares programs have failed to meet ecological goals,” according to a November 16 news release from Food & Water Watch.

The report comes a day after congressional sponsors of a bill to continue a recently enacted ban on new catch share programs along the east coast and Gulf of Mexico confirmed that Congress had reached an agreement to kill the vote.

The report also was released a time when the Occupy movement is spreading throughout the nation and world in an unprecedented grassroots effort by the 99 percent to stop the 1 percent from plundering and privatizing the public trust, including the oceans.

“Under catch share programs, fishermen are assigned a certain amount of fish, or ’shares,” stated Food & Water Watch. "This allotment is typically based on how much they have caught in the past. Fishermen who fish the fastest and hardest often receive more shares, with smaller fishermen receiving less or none at all. Like shares in the stock market, these shares can be bought or sold for profit by corporations and banks.”

Once fish are turned into commodities under catch shares, the added costs of buying shares can push fishermen out of the fishery, either into bankruptcy or into other fisheries that aren’t under such a program.

In 2007, red snapper was the first fish to fall under a catch share program in the Gulf. According to Food & Water Watch’s report, this fishery has seen up to a 44 percent decrease in the number of participants due to its catch share program, resulting in a loss of as many as 1,017 and 1,695 jobs.

“Sadly, the traditional ‘ma and pop’ fishing operations that were once the backbone of Gulf Coast communities are a dying breed. The new costs of doing business under catch shares represent an increasing and untenable burden on small to mid-sized fishing operations,” said Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food & Water Watch.

Revenue for fishermen under the Gulf catch shares program at one time was predicted to increase as much as 48 percent. In reality, prices for selling fish, at their highest, increased by approximately 3 percent by 2008 while prices for purchasing shares have increased steadily every year, according to the report. This means that smaller-scale fishermen with the least shares were harmed the most.

Catch shares are bad for the environment

The catch shares programs are not only bad for fishermen and fishing communities, but bad for fish and the environment. According to the report, the red snapper catch share program has also failed to meet its stated ecological goals. A government analysis of 66 red snapper fishing trips in 2009 found that more than half of the total fish caught were discarded. In 2010, the rates decreased slightly, with 40 percent of the catch discarded. This discard rate was still far higher than in 2007 or 2008 at catch shares program’s inception.

“Catch share systems are rigid and wasteful. Whereas before a fisherman could catch a red snapper and sell it to consumers, now that fisherman may be required to throw it back, dead or dying, because he doesn’t have enough shares,” Hauter said.

The Food & Water Watch report also exposed the organizations that are financially backing catch shares in the Gulf. The Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholder’s Alliance (the Alliance), a group composed primarily of the remaining, larger fishing operations that have benefitted from catch shares, is a major proponent.

The Alliance received a significant portion of its funding in grants from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a group that advocates internationally for catch shares as a “market-based” solution to fisheries management, according to the report. EDF has estimated that the total project expenses of its work in the Gulf are over $1.6 million.

In addition, the Alliance received a $200,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a non-profit created by Congress and funded by corporate partners, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell and foundations including the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable foundation of Walmart.

“It looks like big business may have a financial incentive in the success of catch shares,” Hauter said. “While they are not actually buying up all the fish in our oceans, it appears as if that’s the direction we’re going in with catch shares, which increase our reliance on corporate food production and make the smaller-scale family fishermen a relic of the past.”

The report concludes, "There is no question that our nation’s fisheries require responsible management systems to ensure their long-term health and profitability. Catch share systems, as implemented throughout the Gulf of Mexico and the world, have typically resulted in an unfair giveaway of public resources to private entities. The gains in economic efficiency hailed by supporters of catch shares have come at the expense of the livelihoods of thousands of smaller-scale, traditional fishermen and their communities, and the claims of increased fishery sustainability and safety are often overblown."

Backroom deal prevents vote on renewal of catch shares ban

Last April, amid national concern over wasteful government spending, Congress voted to defund catch shares for fiscal year 2011. This week, Congress was expected to vote on extending this measure. Yesterday, the amendment’s sponsors confirmed to Food & Water Watch that the amendment is dead after a deal was reached on Monday excluding it for fiscal year 2012 and denying it a vote.

“It’s shameful that Congress ignored the voices of thousands of fishermen and their allies by cutting a smoky backroom deal to deny a vote that would have continued to ban wasteful government spending on new catch shares programs in 2012,” Hauter said.

Food & Water Watch is calling on members of Congress to add their names to the growing list of cosponsors of two new bills, introduced by New Jersey Representative Jon Runyan and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte. The bills create a safety valve for catch share programs, terminating them if they reduce local employment by 15 percent or more.

MLPA Initiative: another privatized "conservation" process

On the West Coast, fishermen are not only challenging the catch shares program but California's privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative initiated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, in 2004. The "marine protected areas" created under the MLPA Initiative, in a disgusting example of corporate greenwashing, fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wave and wind projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.

The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversee the designation of "marine protected areas" are overseen by an oil industry lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interests. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, was chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, as well as "serving" on the North Coast and North Central Coast panels.

Reheis Boyd is a strong supporter of oil drilling off the California coast and tar sands extraction in Canada - a strange kind of marine "guardian" indeed. While MLPA Initiative advocates constantly gush that the initiative is an "open, transparent and inclusive" process, the process is anything but, especially when you consider the alarming presence of big business interests on the MLPA task forces.

Just like the catch shares program is funded by private corporations including the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable foundation of Walmart, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation funds the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative process in a highly controversial state-private "partnership." For more information about the MLPA's private funding, go to: http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/21/tracing-the-big-money-behind-calis-questionable-marine-protection-program/

The privatization of ocean "conservation," whether it occurs in the creation of questionable "marine protected areas" or the Obama administration's catch shares fiasco, must be challenged by all of those who care about environmental justice, the public trust and the future of the oceans. I applaud Food & Water Watch for releasing their latest report - and standing up for fish, fishing communities, the environment and the public trust.

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.

For more information: Lauren Wright, lwright [at] fwwatch.org, 202 683-4929