About Us

The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) is an organization of commercial fishing businesses in the northeast United States.  NSC members are small, independent, entrepreneurial businesses that fish for – and support fishing for – cod, haddock, flounders, and other groundfish species along the northeast coast.  NSC’s fishing business members fish from small and large ports all along the northeast coast.  They fish small, medium, and large vessels, and they employ, among them, all groundfish gear types (trawl, longline, gillnet, and others).   The number of fishing business members in NSC is approximately 255.    

NSC’s mission is to work for the long term health of fishery resources, fishing communities, and the fishing industry throughout the northeast.  Since 2002, NSC has worked in the policy process in efforts to help develop rules to rebuild the northeast groundfish fishery.  NSC works for rules that embody real solutions to complex fishery problems.   NSC opposes overfishing. 

NSC organized 12 of the 17 groundfish ‘sectors’ that became operational on May 1, 2010.  Sectors are self-selected groups of groundfish permit holders; each sector is allocated a ‘catch share’ – a share of the annual total allowable commercial groundfish catch.  The ‘catch share’ allocated to a given sector is based on the ‘potential sector contributions’ associated with the individual groundfish permits held by the permit holders comprising the sector – it is, essentially, the sum of the catch quotas associated with the individual permits.  

Of the 12 NSC-organized sectors, nine operate out of ports in Massachusetts, two out of ports in New Hampshire, and one out of ports in Rhode Island.  NSC is seeking to organize additional sectors that will operate out of ports in Maine.  The number of permits per NSC-organized sector ranges from 10 to 75, and the total number of permits held by all 12 NSC-organized sectors combined is 468 (this analysis is as of September 2009).  Taken together, the 12 NSC-organized sectors’ catch shares – the 12 sectors’ allocations combined – range, by individual groundfish stock, from 44% to 89% of the total commercial annual catch limits of the respective stocks (the average, by stock, is 60%). 

NSC did not organize the 12 sectors because it was a proponent of sectors; it did so because, in the period 2008-2010, the only viable option under regulatory development was the sector management system.  In organizing sectors under the rules that became effective in 2010 (Amendment 16 to the northeast multispecies groundfish management plan), NSC sought to create ‘lifeboats’ for its members so that they could continue to be part of the fishery that they love and to which they have contributed so much.   Amendment 16 sectors are a stop-gap measure in the difficult march to a well-managed, robust, and rebuilt fishery.