Crab Rationalization after Five Years – Innovation Becoming the Norm

In 2004 the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) adopted a comprehensive catch share program for several crab fisheries occurring in waters of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. This program, known as crab rationalization (CR Program), was the culmination of a 12-year debate on how to best rectify a suite of issues plaguing the Alaska crab fishing industry, notably resource conservation, utilization, and management difficulties resulting from the race for fish; high bycatch rates and associated mortality; excess harvesting and processing capacity relative to resource availability; low economic returns for fishery participants; lack of economic stability for harvesters, processors, and coastal communities; and high levels of occupational loss of life and injury. To address these long standing management concerns the Council developed a complex three-pie voluntary cooperative catch share program allocating BSAI crab harvesting and processing rights among harvesters, processors, and coastal communities. Quota share allocations to harvesters and processors, together with the ability to form harvesting cooperatives have promoted efficiencies, ended the race for fish, provided economic stability, and facilitated compensated reduction of excess capacity in the harvesting and processing sectors. Community interests are protected by Community Development Quota allocations and regional landing requirements that allocate a certain percentage of crab landing and processing activity to discrete geographic regions to preserve historic regional interests in the fisheries. Controversy associated with novel provisions of the CR Program compelled the Council to implement safeguards, including binding arbitration for the resolution of price disputes, extensive economic data collection and reporting requirements, and a commitment to periodically review and assess effects of the program. The CR Program is in its sixth year and has achieved many of the Council’s original crab management objectives, but efficiencies achieved through the use of quota shares and cooperatives has caused some stakeholders to believe they have been disenfranchised, several crab stocks remain overfished, and debate continues over the net benefits of fleet consolidation and allocation of quota shares to processors. Despite these concerns major modifications to the CR Program do not seem likely in the near term. Experience with the CR Program has, however, influenced agency, stakeholder, and Council perceptions in shaping new catch share programs for the North Pacific.