SFA 6 Quota Cut by 42 Per Cent – Inshore Harvesters Get 70 Per Cent
The LIFO policy may be out but inshore fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador who fought to maintain a right to fish Northern shrimp were not claiming victory quite yet until they see what exactly will replace the Last In, First Out policy on shrimp quota sharing between the inshore and offshore sectors – they did not have to wait long.
On July 6, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced he was accepting the recommendation of the Ministerial Advisory Panel Report to scrap the LIFO policy in favour of a system of proportional sharing between the inshore and offshore fleets in the future.
LeBlanc said that applying a principled approach of proportional sharing means that the inshore and offshore fleets, as well as indigenous peoples, will continue to share in the economic benefits of the Northern shrimp resource.
Sharing arrangements, he said, must also respect land claims agreements and the interests of indigenous groups as well as the interests of adjacent coastal communities.
“I have asked departmental officials to provide advice in the specific application of this way forward in keeping with our precautionary approach as well as the sustainability and long-term conservation of the fishery given the declines in the stock,” LeBlanc said in making the announcement.
“This input will include consideration of community impacts and Indigenous commitments and obligations.”
In the meantime, the minister set an interim quota for the main area in contention — Shrimp Fishing Area (SFA) 6 — to allow the fishery to begin this summer. The fishery had been on hold awaiting a decision on LIFO.
The interim quota allocates 4,500 tonnes offshore harvesters and 4,500 tonnes of inshore harvesters. There is also an allocation of 500 tonnes for an existing special allocation holder in SFA 6.
Then, late Thursday, July 14, DFO officially announced want many were speculating – quota cuts to Northern shrimp.
As part of the management plan for 2016/17, DFO announced that in Northern Shrimp Fishing Area (SFA) 6, the total allowable catch will be reduced by 42.3 per cent from 2015/16 level of 48,196 tonnes to 27,825 tonnes.
The proportional shares going forward and the associated allocation for 2016/17 are as follows:
The inshore fishermen, represented by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW-Unifor), applauded the abolishment of the LIFO policy, but remained apprehensive. It feared that if a proper decision on proportional sharing is not made, the viability of the inshore fishery will be in doubt and many who invested heavily to gear up for shrimp fishing years ago will see their fishing enterprises suffer.
“Proportional sharing does not mean anything if principles like adjacency are not upheld,” said FFAW-Unifor president Keith Sullivan. “Coastal communities require at least the 70 per cent share of the resource that was recommended by the panel.”
The offshore fleet, represented by the Canadian Association of Prawn Producers, was deeply disappointed with both the panel’s recommendation and the minister’s acceptance of it. It stated the decision unfairly harms the offshore fleet and the people who work in it.
It told the panel in its written submission that the offshore, year-round fishery has a strong historical attachment and economic dependence on the shrimp resource and that it shared the surplus resource with the inshore fleet when the shrimp stock was on the increase.
It said the LIFO policy was deemed fair, time and time again over the years by government.
“Stable, predictable and transparent quota-allocation policy is essential to enable businesses to invest and lenders to lend. The rules for how quota-sharing would occur during the temporary increase and the subsequent (anticipated) decrease in the shrimp resource were set and known and investments were made accordingly. It is patently unfair to penalize businesses and lenders who made their investments in accordance with the established rules.
“A change to the existing quota-allocation policy would have a devastating impact on Newfoundland and Labrador businesses, on well-paying, year-round jobs and on the local economy, especially in Labrador. The era of a high-volume supply of shrimp that supported a badly structured, bloated and inefficient seasonal industry is coming to a close.”
The panel noted the LIFO policy was introduced as a means of managing new entrants to the Northern shrimp fishery when the stock began to increase following the 1992 Northern cod moratorium. Temporary inshore licenses were introduced for the under 65-foot fleet and Aboriginal groups in 1997.
In 2007, DFO announced a three-year management plan under which both the offshore and inshore fleet sectors received significant quota increases. In that same year, in an effort to promote stability, temporary inshore fleet licenses were converted to regular licences.
Public consultations had taken place that year to obtain views on sharing principles and the majority of responses indicated that the quota increases should be used to provide new access to fishermen adjacent to the resource.
To ensure that the viability of the traditional offshore fleet was not jeopardized, the 1996 quota levels in each SFA were set as thresholds. Sharing would only take place in a particular SFA if the quota rose above the 1996 threshold. If future quotas declined back down to the thresholds, then the sharing would end and the temporary entrants would leave the fishery.
The LIFO policy was first applied in 2010. Both reductions and increases in SFA 6 were applied based on 90 per cent for the inshore fleet and 10 per cent for the offshore fleet.
Since 2010, the quota for the inshore fleet in SFA 6 has been reduced from 59,613 tonnes in 2009 to 31,637 tonnes in 2015.
Since 2010, the quota for the offshore fleet in SFA 6 has been reduced from 16,612 tonnes to 13,559 tonnes in 2015.
In February of this year, DFO released a Northern shrimp stock status update that revealed a sharp decline in the shrimp fishing biomass, particularly in SFA 6, and major quota cuts were expected.
The result was an urgent need to settle the LIFO issue and the Ministerial Advisory Panel was struck. In addition, the department announced it would conduct a full stock status report before this year’s TAC was set.
After weeks of consultations and written submissions the panel addressed the key issue of LIFO in its report — recommending its abolishment in favour of a regime of proportional sharing:
“After careful deliberation of the options and informed by a principle-based review, our panel is of the opinion that LIFO is not a sustainable instrument of public policy. It is unrealistic to expect that government can indefinitely reserve the option to remove dependent and adjacent interests from a fishery to support those that had the privilege to enter the fishery first, no matter how long ago that occurred.
“LIFO does not provide the basis for all sectors of the industry to plan and adjust to changing realities and does not promote sufficient ownership and stewardship of the resource by all involved.”
“In the case of Northern shrimp, LIFO also fails to satisfy the principles of adjacency, economic viability and equity. We are also of the view that fully removing the offshore sector from SFA 6 would similarly not satisfy the principles of economic viability and equity, and would fail to respect the principle of historical dependence. Lastly, we are satisfied that any replacement to LIFO will meet the conservation principle given the continuing commitment to the precautionary approach and sustainable fisheries management. We have concluded only a balanced approach can satisfy all of the key principles of resource allocation.”
