2011
ANNUAL
REPORT

Bringing people together to solve tough problems is what excites me. And it’s working with a great bunch of fishermen to improve fishery management that challenges us. The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association believes that more effective fishery management will be rooted in our community and rely on an expanded role for the private sector. Our vision includes better data, more timely population assessments and a greater reliance on the expertise of fishing professionals.

CCCHFA is the leading voice for commercial fishermen on Cape Cod. We began in 1991 as a group of hook fishermen, and now we work with over 120 independent fishing businesses and more than 300 local fishing families that use all fishing gear types to harvest day-boat seafood.

Last season we brought to market more than 7 million pounds of fresh catch, including 2.2 million pounds of groundfish such as cod, haddock, and flounder, 2.5 million pounds of skate, 1.2 million pounds of dogfish, 500,000 pounds of monkfish, 400,000 pounds of sea scallops and over 227,000 pounds of lobsters. It takes more than hooks to build that kind of resume. Our fleet uses pots, hooks, gillnets and dredges.

Today’s fishermen face tough environmental, economic and regulatory pressures in addition to the age-old risks that they encounter on the water. CCCHFA is a place where fishermen can come together and build creative solutions to modern challenges.

One such innovation is the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust, which buys fishing quota to make sure that our local fleet can stay active on the water. Allowing fishermen to lease fish quota at reduced rates keeps fish, dollars and jobs on Cape Cod. All of this is critical to Cape Cod’s economic future and sense of place.

CCCHFA has spent 15 years building this type of capacity within our local fishing community, and we are moving to expand this strategy to additional fleets and communities on Cape Cod.

John Pappalardo
CEO, Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association

The Community Development Partnership is pleased to be part of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust team and to present this annual report of the Trust’s impact and value in our community.

When we were first approached in 2008 by the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association to become involved in this project, we immediately understood the importance of protecting a portion of private assets in community trust. While we didn’t have deep knowledge and capacity in the fishing industry at that time, we had served as a steward of community assets in the areas of housing and finance for almost 20 years. We were experts in developing processes and procedures to ensure the fair and transparent allocation of community resources. We also understood the importance of retaining fishing rights in community trust in order to stabilize the current generation of fishermen and ensure the long-term viability of the industry on Cape Cod.

This program has become a key strategy for fulfilling our mission to nurture a vibrant Lower Cape region by promoting environmental and economic sustainability, expanding opportunities for low- and moderate-income residents, and preserving our unique cultural and historic character. During the last few years, we’ve spent many hours learning from fishermen during conversations in the office and on the water so we could experience – up close – the day-to-day challenges facing fishermen. These conversations and lessons learned have manifested in the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust program design and in the quality of the relationships between the staff and the fishermen we are here to support. As we look ahead to the future, we envision that support deepening with robust business planning tools designed exclusively for fishermen that will help sharpen their financial management skills and be better prepared to access capital and resources needed to grow. We are also excited to be able to share our story with other communities across New England and beyond.

Elizabeth Bridgewater
Executive Director, Community Development Partnership

Community Development Partnership (CDP)

CDP manages, underwrites and services the Trust’s scallop leasing program and advises on groundfish processes. With CCCHFA, CDP develops lease approval and allocation policies, procedures and criteria. It educates fishermen about the program, provides them with technical assistance through the application process, and offers support services to fishing businesses to become more efficient and profitable, with a special focus on business process improvement and retaining local crew. CDP also collects data for the Trust’s monitoring and evaluation efforts.

CDP has a 20-year history of successful strategic partnerships to manage community owned assets such as affordable housing rehab loans, microloans and more recently fishing quota. It is a results-driven organization that has developed a number of award-winning and nationally recognized sustainable projects within the Lower Cape region of Cape Cod. CDP brings to the Trust expertise in community economic development, nurturing small businesses, and community-backed financing. The organization has played a major role in evolving the Trust’s vision and programming.

www.capecdp.org

Amplifier Strategies

From an initial engagement in 2009 to create a financial model for the Trust, Amplifier’s role has grown to encompass evaluation, business strategy and management consulting, and most recently technology and communications.

Amplifier Strategies is a consultancy dedicated to increasing triple bottom line impact in communities. Its expertise includes program impact assessment, public/private partnerships and large-scale program strategy. Amplifier works closely with organizations and their stakeholders to define success, develop strategic priorities, and create implementation plans and the necessary innovations in finance, communication and technology to make it happen.

Amplifier’s sister company, AmplifierCatalyst, is a product design and technology firm specializing in custom technology solutions for collaborations. The company manages all aspects of software development from conducting user needs assessments, to developing a design plan for how the technology will deliver direct value to users, through managing the development process from requirements gathering to final release.

www.amplifierstrategies.com

The Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector (Sector)

An independent 501(c)5, the Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector was established in 2010 from the merger of two CCCHFA-sponsored sectors. The Sector allows local fishermen to work collectively to harvest a combined quota of fish, increasing flexibility and profit for fishing businesses and making it easier for fishermen to stay within annual limits.

The Trust’s groundfish leasing program leverages the Sector’s organizational framework for coordinating, monitoring and educating local fisherman. The Sector is also a key groundfish data partner, providing catch data and business information (on a consent basis) as well as an avenue to government data sources such as the National Marine Fisheries Services. The Sector manager is a valuable ear-to-the-ground advisor on groundfish program policies and processes.

www.ccchfa.org/about/about_fixed-gear.htm

Our role is to help alleviate that burden by providing access to the latest tools, approaches and experts to increase their efficiency, bankability and profitability. We provide education not on how to do what they already do best, but on how to get the most out of the resources available to them.

The Trust deploys CDP’s expertise to help fishermen improve their business planning and processes. In 2011, CDP used the program application process to work one-on-one with fishermen to prepare business plans that lay out their business goals, assets, annual harvest plan, risks and opportunities, sales and marketing strategies, and business and vessel operations. These plans are the blueprint for CDP to provide technical assistance and business supports to participants throughout the fishing season, and a benchmark for fishermen to assess the stabilization and growth of their businesses over time.

The education has never been one way. Our application workshops proved a lively forum for fishermen to learn from each other – and certainly for us to learn from them. We are now moving more consciously towards increasing fishermen’s input on the program design. In our next annual report we look forward to sharing how we are using one-on-one meetings, monthly meetings and focus groups to implement new policies, procedures and program management responsibilities for fishermen.

They want to use affordable leases as a means to an end: to improve their business practices, become bankable and buy their own quota.

CCFT seeks to catalyze the availability of lending capacity for small fishing businesses looking to buy quota to grow. In 2012, improving access to capital for Cape Cod fishermen will be pursued using new ideas and models for community economic development and lending such as the use of revolving loan funds, loan loss reserves, loan guarantees or loan buydowns.

CCFT will work with CDP to complete a business plan for the Cape Cod Fisheries Loan Fund to help fishermen finance quota purchase and increase community equity. Conceptually, CDP and CCFT believe that a $3-5M fund would dramatically improve local fishermen’s access to capital and opportunity to buy quota. As more fishermen invest in quota, it will further stabilize the Cape Cod fishing community in a way that leads to access for new entrants, improved business stability and profit.

In established and mature quota fisheries such as Alaskan halibut IFQs, there are financing programs that provide capital access for new entrants and other buyers. CCFT will study these programs and other cases to inform business plan development.

In 2011 we focused efforts in three areas: 1) using reduced rate leases to promote environmentally beneficial fishing practices; 2) determining ways to measure and describe fishing “best” practices and sustainable fishing; and 3) developing strategies for fishermen to participate in activities like cooperative research, enhanced data collection and analysis, and other innovations to help fishermen reduce their environmental impact.

In 2012 we will see the expansion of a partnership with the Fixed Gear Sector and the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab of Duke University to use fishermen’s data to create spatio-temporal analyses that will help fishermen manage their quotas. By using credible data to show how changes in fishing practice can reduce bycatch, improve efficiency and improve business profitability, this project will help us develop a reality-based incentive program to promote co-management and sustainable fishing activities and behaviors.

In 2010, CCCHFA and Trust staff and participating fishermen worked on developing policies to help New England permit banks and other community-based fishing associations succeed within the catch-share management system for New England groundfish and Atlantic sea scallop. Our activities included testimony to the New England Fishery Management Council Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan amendment process, and ongoing efforts to educate state and federal politicians to secure their support for community quota ownership.

One of our biggest challenges has been data acquisition, management and sharing. Our plan for collecting 2010 impact data relied on a number of internal and external sources. When the rubber hit the road, we found that data was more time-consuming to access and of more variable quality than we had anticipated.

Our “data frustration” was the impetus to develop a new data management strategy called the Fish Hub. The Fish Hub is a technology platform that will compile and use private-industry, community-owned data to simplify fishermen’s compliance burden and improve their business planning. The Hub also will facilitate managing leases, collective planning and fishing arrangements, and will enable partners to visualize and share results. Working with AmplifierCatalyst, the Nature Conservancy California and stakeholders on the East and West Coasts, we expect to have a first release of the Fish Hub for Cape Cod fishermen to test in mid-2012.

The Trust continued to share our approach – and our opinions – in a number of highly leveraged regional and national venues in 2011. These included the Community Dimensions of Catch Shares National Blue Ribbon Panel and New England regional permit bank workshops. We rarely said no to a conversation from communities seeking our insights and regularly sought out discussions with community leaders and industry about the challenges facing smaller ports and the potential for fishery trusts to address these issues.

Eric Brazer, Manager, Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector

Each morning I check who went fishing and who landed fresh day-boat cod, haddock and other groundfish last night. I manage a community co-op of small-scale commercial fishermen, and it’s my job to keep them compliant with regulations.

Scientists set quotas every year for each species of groundfish to make sure we don’t take fish faster than they can reproduce. Individual fishermen get a portion of the quota to catch. I balance their quota books. There is a lot of trading – both inside our co-op and with other co-ops in the region – to keep our members within their limits.

Enter the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust. The Trust helps our fishermen get the quota they need to run their businesses by leasing it to them for half of what they’d pay on the open market. Without it, I think there would be a lot fewer fishermen around here and fishing expenses would be much higher.

I help:

     •  fishermen who didn’t get enough quota to make a living,
     •  the next generation of fishermen that seek to launch a business, and
     •  small businesses that couldn’t otherwise compete with bigger fish companies.

The Trust is vital to our fleet and community.

Pam Andersen, Business & Credit Programs Manager, Community Development Partnership

“Is this a fishing day?” is the first question I ask myself when I see an appointment with a fisherman on my planner. There is no such thing as 9-5 or Monday-Friday in fishing!

The unique collaboration between the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust and the Community Development Partnership helps new scallop fishermen like Andy and his wife Alane Keese succeed in today’s competitive business market and comply with the many regulations that govern our fisheries.

I help them:

     •  reconcile federal reporting paperwork,
     •  use QuickBooks accounting software, and
     •  see the value of good business practice.

Andy, who has worked on the water his whole life, was disadvantaged by new fishing regulations that gave him too few pounds of scallops to make a living. The Trust makes quota available to fishermen in its community at below market rates in exchange for compliance with best business practices, including hiring and paying fair wages to crew. This assures the profits are redistributed into the community and supports the long-term sustainability of the local fishing industry.

Fishermen can’t keep using old ways to run their business; they have to plan, adapt and project as any modern businessman would.

Greg Walinski, cod and haddock fisherman, Dennisport, Mass.

In 2005, Paul Parker of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust asked to talk with me about an opportunity he was developing to get access to cod and haddock in the Gulf of Maine. He was looking for fishermen to collaborate with who would be willing to share information, which doesn’t always happen. He wondered if I could catch fish there. I said, “Yeah, I have experience up there and know I can do it!” I was really excited to get back up there to do some fishing and started immediately working with the Trust.

The cost of buying cod and haddock quota for the Gulf of Maine is too great for me at this point, so the Trust is a gigantic help and provides me with viable business opportunities. For example, I have been selling live fish to Chinatown markets, which has become a key income producer in my business plan.

The Trust makes enough quota available to me to keep my business sustainable through the winter months when there is nothing else I can fish for. If it weren’t for the Trust, I would be looking for land jobs in the winter.