The Common Pool is a Loser!
The following thoughts were sent by email and I must say they need to be considered.
Another issue that is really pissing me off is this the common pool approach with MAYBE the option to lease commercial quota?? Has anyone thought about WHO is going to be leasing quota? It will be every long standing, fully operational and developed companies that has a full calendar on a regular basis!! Is this where you want to be? The less than fully developed charters can freely fish within the GHL (common pool) for several years of the interim with no care of where the common pool becomes constraining on the full operators, because it will be them causing the need to lease, but it will be the fully developed charter doing the leasing. They can EXPAND and it won’t cost them anything, but for some of you that have a full marketing plan that keeps your calendars full, guess what, it will be you who will be leasing this supplemental quota to continue in each year the common pool is used up. Why are we so happy with this? Do you think you owe the less than developed charters this extra burden on your businesses?We should be looking at holding every charter at the level of harvest based on their moratorium qualifying level through the interim. THEN if we need to lease more quota cause the common pool is exhausted then EVERY charter begins leasing at the same time. I don’t look forward to having to lease so I can continue to operate at my regular level for several years knowing some (new kids) are happily growing each year until their portion of the common pool forces me to lease extra just so I can continue as I have been for many years. THIS sounds like Affirmative Action to me and it stinks.
2 comments:
Where do we go from here? The council is going to reign down what ever is good for the commercials. There is no hope of a fair consideration of our position because they are not mandated to do so. They will do what ever it takes to protect their riches without regard for their supposed opposition.
They were given a natural resource that belonged to all of us and there is no way in hell they will give any of it back. Therefore asking for more fish is equivalent to standing on the street corner with your hand out. We have no right to increase our share or ask for more fish because we were left out of the IFQ equation. NMFS screwed the charter industry by sitting on the original IFQ motion and now the whole industry is in peril. Our only hope is that the council does what it will with the allocation and then implements an IFQ type of “historic catch” limited entry. Anything less will spell eventual doom to all the established small operators. The guy with the biggest boat wins again. The size of the boats will increase and the price of a charter will decrease and the length of season will shrink.
Perhaps lawsuits are the only recourse. A suit against NMFS for inaction and a suit against the "council process" as being the tool of the commercials to eliminate any competition. It is easier to eliminate charters than to fight for a reduction in bycatch. That sounds like another lawsuit waiting to be filed.
I will be absolutely stunned if any good comes of April’s council meeting.
I saw this from the time that Rasmus, Tony Knowles, Ted Stevens ( by turning a blind eye for fricked up Penny and his old employee in Seward ), and the ACA all screwed us in '05. Perhaps that's why I was bitter sooner than most.
If there's one good thing to come from this, it will be to watch the new guys lose everything right along side the rest of us. I can't wait to hear who they're going to cry to when I don't tip them for pouring my damn coffee. (sounds like you have issues, Gary)
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