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(301) 713-2370 7/26/95
Matt Stout
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A second round of Fishing Industry Grants (FIGs) totaling $4.5 million to assist New England fishermen and others affected by the decline of Northeast fisheries won preliminary approval today from the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service recommended funding for 35 innovative grant proposals that help develop alternative employment or new training opportunities in and outside the fisheries for more than 400 industry members.
"Through this second round of FIG grants, the Commerce Department is responding directly to those working fishermen who will shift fishing effort away from overfished species and into areas that will benefit the entire community," said Rolland Schmitten, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
This second round of FIGs is part of the Commerce Department's $30 million Northeast Fisheries Economic Assistance Program announced by Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown last year. NOAA awarded $9 million in grants in two rounds to the Northeast fishing industry that was affected by the near extinction there of the traditional fisheries of cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder. NOAA awarded the first round of $4.5 million to 28 applicants during the fall of 1994
"This effectively completes the funding for the $30 million initiative announced by Secretary Brown last year," said John Bullard, NOAA's director of sustainable development and intergovernmental affairs. "We will continue to work with fishing communities to explore other innovative ways in which we can help fishermen and develop a sustainable groundfish fishery."
In the second round of FIGs, the fisheries service received 240 grant proposals during a 60-day solicitation period that ended May 5. All applications received a technical evaluation and review by a panel of fishing industry members and state fisheries officials. The preliminarily-approved projects will receive funding after an administrative review process.
Of the 35 projects to receive preliminary approval, 13 address aquaculture, 12 focus on other new business opportunities for displaced fishermen, six involve development of fisheries and markets for underexploited species, and four projects will investigate methods to reduce bycatch in commercial fisheries.
The fisheries service sought proposals that promoted the development of commercial fishing and markets for underutilized fish species and development of methods for eliminating or reducing the catch of non-targeted species, or bycatch. Underutilized fish species in New England waters include red hake, Atlantic mackerel, Atlantic herring, butterfish and skate.
Fisheries service officials refocused the second round of FIGs to more directly assist those fishermen who have been dependent on groundfish and other traditional Northeast fishery resources and who have been hard hit by the virtual collapse of those species in New England waters.
New features for judging this round of FIG applications included the degree to which eligible fishermen were employed in projected implementation. Additional points were given to proposals that included owners or operators of fishing vessels in the groundfish fishery who agreed to cease fishing for and retain cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder for the duration of the assistance period.