Monday, November 21, 2011

More from Begich on halibut catch sharing plan

Here's an interesting letter from Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, to Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Commercial charter operators need to buy commercial quota, period.

Anonymous said...

Amen!

Anonymous said...

Commercials should be able to buy it back from charters too. That way it's not a one way valve.

Anonymous said...

Common pool approach with quota share to the whole recreational sector is a much better approach for the issue of compensated reallocation.

Takes legislative change, but so what - let's get it done.

IFQs work fine on the seafood side, but just doesn't work on an individual basis on the recreational side.

Set up a state non-profit to manage the charter quota for the whole sector and be done with it, delegate authority to the state and the non-profit to manage that quota with traditional sport fish bag limits. Works just fine that way in SE with Chinook salmon.

Same bag limits for every charter angler - been the basis of sport fish management throughout the country for about a century.

Simple solution - should have be done fifteen years ago.

But no, let's keep trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.

Anonymous said...

Nice of Senator Mark to ride the fence. Picket or barbwire, it must be a little uncomfortable. Bottom line is most charter guys are Johnny Come Latelys and don't have much credibility.

Anonymous said...

Halibut IFQ holders should take a look at their own credibility before throwing stones. They have a revokable license to catch fish, not some god given right.

Straight from the horses mouth, the MSA:

"(b) NO CREATION OF RIGHT, TITLE, OR INTEREST.—Limited access privilege, quota share, or other limited access system authorization established, implemented, or managed under
this Act—
(1) shall be considered a permit for the purposes of sections 307, 308, and 309;
(2) may be revoked, limited, or modified at any time in accordance with this Act,
including revocation if the system is found to have jeopardized the sustainability of the stock
or the safety of fishermen;
(3) shall not confer any right of compensation to the holder of such limited access
privilege, quota share, or other such limited access system authorization if it is revoked,
limited, or modified;
(4) shall not create, or be construed to create, any right, title, or interest in or to any fish
before the fish is harvested by the holder; and
(5) shall be considered a grant of permission to the holder of the limited access privilege
or quota share to engage in activities permitted by such limited access privilege or quota
share.

Anonymous said...

You are right...the government can take IFQs at ANYTIME. That is why many of us NEVER went out and got loans for Q's, we understood that. The commercial fleet has played by the rules. The charter fleet was offered a chance to get in on the ground floor BUT they refused. Everytime ANYONE comes up with a workable solution the charters file a lawsuit. By this INACTION the harm that is being done is affecting the stock and EVERYONE.
The commercial fleet has been ran thru the ringer. We have enforcement fees, observers, cameras and rules that would choke a horse. Bring on all you have to impede us it will not change the fact that ALL commercial (for profit) fishers and charters need to play by the same rules. Or in the charters case any rules at all!
I have fished 44 years in this industry and in the next 2 years I will have no halibut Q's left. There is a problem and it needs to be fixed so charters quit prolonging the pain, roll up your sleeves, put your big boy pants on and work with EVERYONE else who have already made the sacrifices and shown concern for the resource.

Anonymous said...

AMEN!

Anonymous said...

And the Fair Land

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.

His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.

How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places—only to find those men as frail as any others.

So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?

Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

Printed in the Wall Street Journal every year today since 1961

Anonymous said...

The Desolate Wilderness
A chronicle of the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton.

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton , keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford , sometime governor thereof:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

Anonymous said...

PTLFH

Anonymous said...

Sure seems like the real problems
are between the Longliners and the
Draggers when it comes to Halibut.
It's like pointing and saying look
over there and stealing a kids
ice cream. The Draggers are sitting
back laughing their asses off.