A fisheries task force mandated to examine professionalizing commercial fishing licensing in NC and address the problems created by part-timers and recs abusing commercial gear instead appears to be zeroing in on forcing fishing guides to buy commercial licenses and hold commercial liability insurance.
The Commercial License Review Task Force was created by the Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) with noble goals of reform in mind and is the first real attempt to study commercial licensing in the state since a similar committee met over a decade ago and recommended much of what became the mammoth 1997 Fisheries Reform Act.
In a written charge read to the task force at their first meeting earlier this month, MFC Chairman Rob Bizzell stated his hopes for the group:
“We keep hearing from both users groups the need to make commercial fishing more of a profession so those that do it on a full-time basis will have a better chance at making a decent living. If we make it and treat it as more of a profession the professionals will take better care of the resource and encourage proper regulation.”
Both Bizzell’s statement and comments made by commercial fishermen and dealers during the first meeting show that the members of the task force clearly know where these problems lie. In fact, there was quite a bit of discussion early on in the meeting about the long-overdue elimination of the Recreational Commercial Gear License (RCGL) and of reigning in part-timers who abuse the commercial licensing system to simply exceed rec limits to keep more fish or sell them off the books.
The task force touched on possible reforms which could finally reverse what have been some awful years recently professionally and publicly for full-time commercial fishermen in NC. By using a percentage of income or the number of reported fish catches the state would be able to narrowly define who could hold a commercial license and take advantage of commercial gear and limits, eliminating those now abusing the resource through systematic loopholes.
At the same time, this approach would give full-time commercial fishermen a much needed victory and an assurance by the state that they are an important part of the economy.
Unfortunately, none of that is likely to happen as old opponents of commercial reform are intent on reshaping (or simply ending) the task force which Bizzell and the MFC created and stopping the idea of restructuring commercial licensing dead in its tracks. Not only that, but it appears they might actually seek to use the task force in attempt to punish fishing guides for their longtime calls for commercial reform by making guides purchase commercial licenses and buy expensive commercial liability insurance.
Chief among those guiding the committee against Bizzell’s vision of professionalism are Jerry Schill and Anna Beckwith. Beckwith is an MFC member while Schill is a former executive director of NC’s largest commercial fishing lobby group who claimed at the meeting that he doesn’t represent anyone now.
Yet, Schill was the first person allowed to address the task force in a strange “public comment” period where Schill and two other commercial fishermen basically implied to the task force that it shouldn’t exist. Schill recalled dealing with these issues many years ago and seemed to suggest to the task force that they were so controversial that they shouldn’t be addressed now.
Beckwith spoke out forcefully against any attempts to stop recs and part-timers from using commercial gear.
“That’s not why I’m here,” she said at one point.
“If we leave the definition of commercial fishing right where it is—anyone who holds a valid license—that’s fine,” Beckwith said.
Instead of eliminating the RCGL, Beckwith suggested moving many part-time commercial fishermen into an even larger RCGL system allowing those “who are fishing the resource for some particular reason but aren’t true professional fishermen” to continue using commercial gear through endorsements.
Beckwith later suggested that any money lost by moving fishermen from commercial licenses to the RCGL could be offset by forcing NC’s fishing guides to purchase commercial licenses, an idea enthusiastically supported by several others. Beckwith also suggested that making fishing guides purchase costly liability insurance would “start turning these guys into professionals as well.”
As for the larger issue of commercial licensing that the task force was intended to address, there were quite a few comments that the group couldn’t recommend real changes to weed out non-professionals from the ranks because any final changes would have to come from the legislature. That’s an amazingly dishonest reason for not recommending real changes, since the 1990’s licensing committee faced the same problem and yet proceed to see many of its proposals go through the legislature in the Fisheries Reform Act.
Clearly, Bizzell had a strong vision for this task force, one that could finally make some real and needed changes to commercial fishing in-state instead of having them forced upon us by the feds. Coming from a task force made up of mainly commercial interests this could have been real progress. Sadly, however, it looks as though that’s not going to happen.
Nothing is decided yet, but Beckwith went as far as to suggest the next meeting could be the last. Not all the members of the task force voiced agreement with Schill and Beckwith, but by meeting’s end it sure didn’t sound like a group that wanted to push anything meaningful through the system, unless it was making fishing guides buy comm licenses and insurance.
It’s a disappointing situation, because as chairman of the MFC Bizzell seems to have a clear grasp on what those of us in the recreational sector have long known—commercial reform generated by the commercial sector itself could finally temper the longstanding user conflicts between recs and comms and help get the environmentalists off our backs.
Instead, the same forces that pushed the state into the problems with environmental groups and the feds we have now are, amazingly, still pushing—so that a task force intended to stir up real reform might do nothing but up ramp up the conflicts between user groups, if they decide to do anything at all.
NOTE: The Commercial License Task Force consists of MFC members Joe Smith, Anna Beckwith, and B.J. Copeland, as well as commercial fishermen David Hilton from Ocracoke, Tom Burgess from Sneads Ferry, and Ronnie McArthur from Beaufort. A recording of the July 12 task force meeting was obtained from the DMF in preparation for this article and can be accessed here.
For more fisheries articles as well as other fishing links see my blog A Dash of Salty
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