GULF GROUPER IFQ – THE LARGEST PUBLIC FISHERY GIVEAWAY IN FLORIDA’S HISTORY
The Federal Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) are expediting the implementation of an IFQ (Individual Fishing Quota) program for exclusive access privileges for Gulf grouper. The Gulf Council’s Grouper IFQ program will allocate and grant exclusive right of access to more than 65 percent of all the Gulf red and gag grouper to a limited number of commercial interests.
The NMFS says that an IFQ does not convey title, or ownership of the resource, to the commercial fishers. However, the commercial fishers will be allowed to take, sell, lease, broker, and even bequeath these grouper quota shares.
The NMFS also claims that the IFQ program can be ended anytime. However, once the commercial interests are given the individual rights to millions of dollars of grouper and they sell, lease, buy or broker those millions of dollars of grouper, it is clear that the public, the true owners of the resource may never get any of those fish back. There has never been an IFQ program that has been discontinued.
While the NMFS also says the grouper allocation in the IFQ can be reallocated to other commercial and recreational fishers in the future; that may never happen after shares have been bought, sold and leased. There has never been any reallocation in any existing IFQ, and the Council has thus far refused to include a provision for future reallocation in the plan.
The NMFS maintains the IFQ grouper allocation as fair and equitable. However, these allocations are based on prior catch records biased towards commercial interests. A prime example of inequitable allocation is Gulf red grouper where the federal process in 2005 had determined that up to 81% of the take should be commercial. CCA filed a lawsuit in 2005 against NMFS when it attempted to enact Interim Rules to close the entire Gulf of Mexico to all recreational take, for all groupers, for three months. Information discovered during the lawsuit revealed that just 25 commercial longline boats took more red grouper than what was allocated to all the recreational fishers in the entire Gulf of Mexico!
The IFQ debate is not about conservation. It is about the allocation and the access to public resources. CCA has a proven history of supporting conservation measures to protect and restore fisheries. We are supporting additional recreational restrictions on Gulf grouper. However, CCA is opposed to locking up access to a public resource in a small number of individuals until there is a reallocation of the resource that truly fairly and equitably distributes the benefits of the fishery. CCA has challenged the Gulf Council and NMFS to prepare the economic impact analysis as required by law. Without information on the direct and indirect economic impacts of allocations and other decisions, the Council cannot proceed to take any action on the proposed grouper IFQ.
There is no federal or state law which requires the establishment of an IFQ for Gulf grouper or any other fishery.
IFQ’s are, of course, strongly endorsed by commercial quota share holders. NMFS supports IFQ’s and has a national directive from the Administration to establish as many as they can. National environmental groups are using million dollar foundation grants to promote and establish IFQ’s.
Federal law specifically requires collection of economic information and descriptions of all sectors of the fishery, “including economic impact,” to allocate harvest restrictions in a fair and equitable fashion across all sectors of a fishery. The Gulf Council added a short discussion regarding “Recreational and Commercial Economic Impacts” at the final hearing for Grouper Amendment 30b, apparently in response to CCA’s recent letter to the Council, that an economic impact analysis is required by law. The information added is not a complete economic impact analysis but it does, for the first time, compare estimates of economic output for the commercial and recreational fisheries. The total economic impacts were clearly larger in the recreational fishery. No economic impact analysis was provided to quantify the effects of the proposed IFQ plan.
Based on information produced by the Council, the total 2006 output (sales) impacts of the commercial grouper and tilefish fishery on the Florida economy is approximately $88.2 million. The total output (sales) impacts of the recreational red and gag grouper fishery is approximately $119.5 million. However, that recreational value is greatly underestimated. In 2005, a NMFS document estimated income lost from closing recreational grouper take for various months. The total income lost (forgone expenditures from season closures) from just four months was estimated to be $310 million. This is nearly three times the $119.5 million impact submitted in the Council’s recent document. Clearly the recreational fishery economic impacts are much greater than that of the commercial fishery. Why then does the commercial fishery receive a much greater allocation of the resource?
Establishing IFQ’s will only benefit large operators in the commercial fishery while the recreational fishery will not be allowed to expand because reallocation of grouper take from the IFQ will never occur. In the future, as more people try to fish for grouper the bag limits and seasons will be even more restrictive until the recreational fishery is no longer viable.
Ted Forsgren – Executive Director – CCA Florida
(850)224-3474