There was a time back in the 1980s when overfishing had decimated popular fish like red snapper and grouper in the Gulf. But then, there was a dramatic turning point, when both fish and fishermen in the Gulf were kind of saved. Today, we hear the remarkable success story of how unlikely partners joined forces to save an industry and an ecosystem.
In this episode, Environmental Defense Fund's Executive Director, Amanda Leland, water resilience author, James Workman, and fisherman, Buddy Guidon, talk about how catch shares created a quiet revolution.
To learn more, check out Amanda and James' book, Sea Change: Unlikely Allies and a Success Story of Oceanic Proportions.
This episode was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun and Michael McEwen. Michael conducted the interview. Our sound designer is Emily Jankowski, and our theme music is by Jon Batiste. Carlyle Calhoun is the executive producer. Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.
Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sea Change is also supported by the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
Buddy Guindon tape: ”I mean, there was a time when I told my children, find something to do. Go to school. Because you're not gonna be doing this. I'm not gonna allow you to be in the commercial fishery because it's not gonna be here for you. It's gonna leave sometime in my lifetime. I could see the end, there's no doubt about it.”
CARLYLE: That’s Buddy Guindon, a longtime commercial fisherman in Galveston, Texas. Buddy’s talking about a time in the 80s when overfishing had just decimated popular fish like red snapper and grouper.
Fishing, and especially commercial fishing, has been one of the largest industries on the Gulf for hundreds of years. Entire cities from Texas to Florida grew up around it, but at some point, in the second half of the 20th century, overfishing began to change that dynamic,
I’m Carlyle Calhoun, and you’re listening to Sea Change.
CARLYLE: Today, we are talking about a pivotal time for fisheries and fishermen in the Gulf.This turning point where red snapper and grouper, fish that were really struggling, as were the fishermen who made a living catching them, were kinda saved.
And this is a story Coastal Reporter Michael McEwen knows well. He grew up in a few different historic fishing communities on the lower Gulf Coast of Florida, and spent many years as a fisherman himself. Hey Michael.
MICHAEL: Hey Carlyle
CARLYLE: So take us back to the 80s, I mean you weren’t born yet, but you heard a lot of stories.
MICHAEL: Yeah, from what I’ve always heard it was a really successful time. But pretty much everyone knew that they had to make as much money as they could from it, or catch the last fish before the other guy does, because they could tell it was edging toward collapse. We’re talking about the fish that restaurants love to serve and so they earned fishermen the most amount of money. So really it was just a free forall…people catching as much as they could.
CARLYLE: You grew up wanting to be a fisherman right?
MICHAEL: Absolutely…it was what I grew up with. But you know family members and fishermen I knew were always saying the same thing as Buddy did to his kids…go to school. Do something different. B/c this industry is gonna be gone. And in the case of at least one place I grew up,they were right.
CARLYLE: But then starting in the 90s regulators stepped in and introduced some rules for certain fish populations.
MICHAEL: Yeah, so what they did was officials first set windows each month, usually between a week or two, where captains could catch as much as possible. But fishermen nicknamed it Derby Days b/c it felt like a race against a clock and against other fishermen, too.
CARLYLE: Wow sounds intense.
MICHALE: Yeah, it was intense. Funerals, birthdays, holidays or storms in the Gulf didn’t matter if they fell into that window, and neither did the health of the populations of fish they were catching.
CARLYLE: Ok, so sounds like the Derby Days weren’t working for fishermen or fish.
MICHAEL: They really weren’t. And environmentalists and fishermen were worried. So they gradually turned to something else. Something called Catch Shares. It’s really just a way of managing fisheries where scientists determine a healthy total catch of a given population of fish. From there, a portion of that catch is divided up to individuals, communities or sometimes companies.
CARLYLE: And when the concept of Catch Shares was introduced in the Gulf, it was hugely controversial. There is a new book about this critical moment when certain fish species, and even fishing communities, were saved from the brink in the Gulf. The book is called, brilliantly, Sea Change. And The subtitle is: The fishermen’s quiet revolution to restore life offshore.
MICHAEL: And I got to interview the three people behind the book. You heard from Buddy Guindon earlier, in his day he was the Highliner of his neck of the Northern Gulf – basically, the top dog who caught the most fish and brought in the most money.
CARLYLE: And you also spoke with the authors of the book and Buddy’s unlikely collaborators: Amanda Leland and Jamie Workman. Amanda is executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, where she previously led a global team working to reverse overfishing. And Jamie is a journalist and angler who has written about– and worked on– water and ocean issues all over the world.
Coming up after the break, Michael talks Buddy, Amanda and Jamie about the quiet revolution in the Gulf.
interview
So the book starts with how fish provided an evolutionary edge for humans, because they’re really nutritious and really healthy for you. I mean it’s crazy, but the ability to catch and eat seafood is really a big part of how we evolved from primates into homo sapiens. But then as we evolved and caught ever more fish, eventually, in many places, fish were virtually disappearing. People often talk about it as a race to the bottom without a clear solution.
McEwen: So Jamie, at some point a little more recently in the US, this idea of catch shares popped up as a proposed solution. So what's the background or the origin story on catch shares?
Jamie Workman: Yeah, there's this dumb saying of like, teacher fisher, teacher fisherman to catch fish. And, and you know, he'll, he'll, he'll fish for that.
No one needs to be taught how to catch fish. We evolved to do that and, and our technology just got ahead of us. We got too good at catching fish, uh, not just the, you know, long line hooks and, and, and nets, but the industrial power, the, the motorized vessels and so forth. And so what catch shares is about is a, a new approach where we recognize that fisheries management is really people management.
Uh, you know, Fisher respond to biology and. And currents and ecology, but as humans that respond to rules and incentives, and the oldest and fairest, you know, most enduring systems are, are the ones where people, you know, govern their own fisheries through secure and well-defined rights.
because people can decide who catches what fish, how much of it, uh, when and where,. And then they would strictly self enforce those limits. So what, you know, our story, modern catch shares are essentially this formal rebirth or renaissance of that idea at the state and national scale.
McEwen: And so developing equipment to catch even more fish led to fishing becoming this massive industry, really the world’s first industry. It still pulls in a lot of money and has a ton of influence. Amanda, you work for a big environmental NGO with a goal of reversing overfishing globally. How did you work to join the fishing industry’s priority of profit with environmental conservation goals as well?
Amanda Leland: Yeah, you know, we're looking for practical solutions that are gonna work, that are gonna work for people and they're gonna work for the planet.
And when we started seeing the results in some of the fisheries around the world that were adopting these catch share programs and seeing the results of them and talking to the fishermen who were part of that change, we became convinced that there was a real opportunity.
And I, I, maybe it's worth stepping back a little bit further in my life, which is as before that, as a scientist, I spent a lot of my career.
Talking about how fisheries were collapsing and hearing from fishermen how the science was not accurate from their perspective and that they should be allowed to catch more, right? So that like totally, disconnected the sciences and the fishermen had very different experiences and were asking for different things in the Gulf.
When the red Snapper fishery, was in the process of going to this new management approach, fishermen on their own volition came to Washington DC and advocated for a dramatic cut to the overall fishing and the red snapper, fishery. They didn't know at the time, and Buddy is best to speak to this, that as soon as this program was implemented, they would actually be able to earn more money.
And that just creates more of a reinforcing environment where conservation pays for them and for their livelihoods.
McEwen: Yeah and The story of red snapper in the Gulf is really central to this book, and that’s because it was on the brink of collapse and fishermen knew change was urgently needed. But It wasn’t until 2007 Catch Shares was implemented, and it became the first fishery in the Gulf to do so. And that was a big deal, so Buddy, could you talk a bit about your history chasing red snapper off Galveston and how you went from opposing it to advocating for catch shares globally?
Buddy Guindon : Well, I have 46 years experience in the fisheries. And back in the day when we went fishing under the government's, uh, desired timelines, uh, we had to go whether the weather was good or bad. I had three kids at home I, I needed to feed. And so things were not good. We took a lot of chances. I have many stories of folks losing their vessels, loss of life and, and just terrible situations you were put in, uh, because you overworked yourself, because you knew you only had 10 days to make your living.
And of course, uh, it didn't take, as Amanda said, it didn't take very long after implementation of the catchier system to find out that, my price per pound of fish had gone up 100% from two 50 to $5. And, and that, uh, I didn't have to go fish when it was bad weather, and it also reduced my expenses by 80%.
So as you can probably assume, it was in my best interest to find out who these people were and why they did this and how we could keep it going, how we could continue to be, successful. Because success was a different measure prior to the implementation of catch shares.
McEwen: So basically you were able to fish smarter. You could now work with the people buying the fish on when they could get the highest price, and you could be more selective with the fish you caught. The Derby Days were really intense for fishermen but also for the fish. One big problem was that the mature, and what are also the most fertile females, brought in the highest price. So they were targeted exclusively, which of course was bad news for replenishing the population.
Could y'all talk about what that looked like on the water? Amanda Leland: Michael, one thing I think about, um, this is one way to think about this is, um, sort of a race to the bottom versus a race to the top.
And as a scientist, you know, I would hear all the time if I don't take the last fish someone else will. And if you sit and really think about that statement, it's an end game statement, right? Like, if I don't take it, someone else is gonna take it.
And, and that is the reality in a lot of fisheries. Um, and the incentives are structured for that. It's not that the fishermen are wanting to take the last fish, it's that the system around them is forcing them to do that in order to make a livelihood, feed their family and do what they've always done.
That's the race to the bottom is what those Derby days were. And then the race to the top is, you know, actually if we have a strong incentive for a productive fishery in terms of the fishermen,
it, it fundamentally shifts, in so many ways how fishermen think about their role as a steward of the ocean because it's in their best interest and because they and others in the fishery can reap the rewards of that progress.
Buddy Guindon : And as Amanda said, uh, my friends and I used to talk about, you know, we just need one more year and we'll be fine. And that was meaning we one more year that there was some fish left to catch. If we can get one more year, we'll be fine. We'll get one more year. And, the depletion of the stock, we, we would watch the, the science come out and, and tell us that uh, the stock was fine and they would, they would raise the quota and on the water we're seeing the stock plateau or even taking a dive and just thinking, this is over with it.
Amanda Leland: And buddy, your, your sons are in the business now, right? You had told them before to stay out. And what's, what's happening now?
Buddy Guindon : All four of my sons work for me. Uh, we have a fully integrated business now. My, my oldest son runs the fish market. His next youngest brother runs the restaurant and I have my two youngest sons that are on boats fishing.
McEwen: Wow, well that’s great that they were able to follow in your footsteps. So Jamie. we mentioned at the top fishing, it's really one of the world's oldest industries. Certainly in the Gulf, it's one of the oldest, it's also one of the world's biggest by scale and by revenue.
But how has overfishing changed things here in the Gulf, and is the Catch Shares program making a difference?
Jamie Workman: the Derby was a result of this top down unilateral command and control.
You know, the government says, we've got the science. Thou shalt not fish except on Tuesdays or 2000 pounds a trip, or use this gear and not that. And fishermen found legal ways to get around it. Just more boats, more gear, uh, more intensity. And the result, of course, was just more haste and more waste and more danger and more depletion.
And what Catch Shares did, which was, you know, was basically flipping the script, uh, the scientists set the total allowable catch, each vessel gets a secure percentage of that. And so a captain like Buddy, you know, then can decide, okay, with my percentage, how, when, whether to catch that. And, and that incentive, you know, aligns up with, with, you know, what Amanda and what the scientists want, which is more fish in the water and, and more food on the plate, and more prosperity.
Now to your question of like, okay, well what about now over fishing? Uh, what's really changed with, with the industry is the industry itself. Um, the, the source of extractive pressure, and this was a surprise to me 'cause I'm a recreational fisherman.
Uh, and it used to be simple Buddy, and as you said, 80 or so other, uh, vessels, um, would go out and they'd, they'd catch the snapper. Um, but just as catch shares comes in, they start to heal the fishery Um, the number and, and pressure from recreational anglers really just exploded.
You've got, instead of 80 commercial vessels, you have three or 4 million recreational anglers in, in private boats or charters or party boats, like the kind I go on. Um, and so, you know, the, the dynamic shifted. It wasn't just commercial overfishing. You had, you had recreational overfishing and, uh, you know, these two massive industries, each worth billions of dollars were competing for the same, you know, depleted fish.
Uh, and they fell into the same trap. The recreational guys, said, tell me more about this, you know, commercial catch share. 'cause we want something like that.
And they did it as an experiment and they designed it for, uh, party boats and charter boats. A you know, model catch share, which would allocate, you know, a scientific portion of the catch to them, which they could then catch year round and so they could make more money and, and opening up that possibility to their clients.
Guys like me coming down to the Gulf and, oh, I'm, I, oh, sorry, there's only two days and you missed the window. They had flexibility to be able to take me on the water and I'd pay happily for, for that experience. Um, and so the, the recreational guys are adapting and adopting a similar kind of rights-based approach.
Um, you know, all along the Gulf, uh, to this, you know, this new, new system. It's, it's helping with the rebound, it's helping grow the pie. It is helping reduce the tensions between recreational and, and, and commercial fishermen in Washington and on the dock.
McEwen: So Buddy and Amanda – environmentalists and fishermen are famously not friends. How did you two get to the point where you were actually working together on fighting overfishing through catch shares?
Amanda Leland: it really is about working with the people that can drive the change the most. And in fishing, the people that can drive the change the most are the fishermen and the communities that are involved.
So there was a lot of time at bars. I will say we spent a lot of time together in bars, um, talking about, um, you know, what would really make a difference for a buddy and for other Gulf red snapper fishermen and finding a common path so that we could, in a, in a way that we could all agree that, you know, we need the, the resource needs to rebuild and that that meant some cuts would need to be made.
But if those cuts could still enable a productive livelihood for the fishermen and it could ensure that they had that livelihood for the future, it made all the difference.
And, and thankfully I've had even the chance to get on a boat with Buddy and go fishing. And I think that is it's a lifelong friendship that we've built based on those common goals.
Buddy Guindon :. Well said. I think for me, we got a quota reduction of 50% going into the implementation of IQs. I voted against it.
I didn't want nothing to do with any government change to my fishery. But you cut the quote in half the first year and I made the same money net at the end of the year. So for me, going and finding Amanda and the people that took this ignorant fishermen out of the dark ages and brought him into the light. To see what could be instead of what was, was a huge, awakening for me.
And so because of what they did for me without my knowledge, I decided that I would do whatever I could to help them spread the word, that this is something good.
McEwen: So let’s tell a bit of the backstory. Catch Shares have been used in countries like Norway or New Zealand for a long time, but As catch shares found their way to the US, they quickly became controversial. Some said it was like bringing communism to the ocean, and some Senators representing the Gulf States actually placed a moratorium on them, meaning they were against the law. What did the more political work of undoing that look like?
Amanda Leland: Yeah, going back to the. Or the turn of the century as they say. Um, there, there was, uh, a lot of concern in the Gulf about this catch air model. First there was a moratorium, and then after the moratorium there was a requirement that any catch share program had to be approved by the fishermen themselves with a two thirds vote That happened twice. Think about when two thirds of people agree on anything and let alone having to do it twice.
McEwen: How often does that even happen in the Senate?
Amanda Leland: It doesn't happen in the Senate. So it felt like an impossible bar to achieve. Um, but don't tell us and our friends what's impossible because we will do everything we can to meet or exceed it. And both of those votes passed by 80%. Both of those votes were voted no by Buddy Guiden. Um, but most of the vast majority of the fleet around him voted yes. And it was a lot of work. And it was a lot of work at the Gulf Council, the Gulf Fisheries Council to, um, design a program that the fishermen basically felt like was gonna work for them.
Senator Trent Lot who put the original moratorium in place became an advocate for and supporter of catch shares because the fishermen became advocates and supporters of catch shares because they were working for them. And so the politics here is that, um. Is good. Like it's a good story and it demonstrates that when, when the people who are most affected can, you know, see a path forward, you're much more likely to get a lasting, politically durable outcome. Um, and, and thankfully that continues on today,
Buddy Guindon : yes, I'll speak to voting against the catchier system. I, I'd been told by the government how to run my business for a long time and I had my head down. I was working hard and I was trying to catch that last fish and I just wasn't paying attention to any of this that was going on. And, and when they said, uh, we're gonna have to reduce your catch, you know, for me that meant I wasn't gonna be catching any more fish.
So I certainly didn't want anything to do with this catch share system. 'cause what I saw it as in the very beginning was they were gonna take my share of the catch and get rid of it. I would be gone from, from this scene, but that's not the way it worked out. And so I like to say that it's, it's the best vote I ever lost.
Jamie Workman: Thank God buddy didn't have a filibuster
McEwen: Right right, because largely they’ve been successful. And, and Jamie, that's really kind of the thing here with the book that you all wrote about Amanda and Buddy's experience with catch shares is that there's still some ignorance around it. and there are critics of catch shares even today. Could you kind of summarize what the main Critiques or concerns are
Jamie Workman: Oh yeah. No, and, and like buddy, I sort of came in a bit like, huh, you know, is this gonna work? I was, uh, uh, had my own skepticism and over the course of, of researching and writing it, so basically, the critiques fall into two buckets.
the first one is that you hear, sort of generally from the left, pet shares privatize as the public resource. And in reality, shares are more a revocable privilege. It's like you and me getting a driver's license or, you know, if I went to law school, a license to practice law in Louisiana,
Uh, and, you know, congress and regional fishery councils can and, and do and have, uh, capped and conditioned and revoked, um, this privilege or this share without compensation. You know, buddy. Uh, often said, Hey, I harvest a public resource, uh, for Americans.
And the second critique is detractors, you know, warn oh, you know, big incumbents, they have an unfair advantage in this system. Locks out newcomers. And, you know, that seems valid on paper in the abstract, but we're not seeing it in practice.
Um, and you know, okay, why not? Uh, well, the. Programs. This was new to me. They set concentration limits or caps, on, who can, who can have how much, uh, of a share, And so I think it's some buddies that like 4%, 5% in your case. So he can't just, oh, I'm gonna buy up, willing sellers to get bigger and bigger and dominate market power.
he instead focuses on marketing. He, he sells what he's gonna catch before going out and catching it. He agrees on prices and negotiates that, and that's, that's how he makes a profit. Um, and then if people have exited a fishery, which happens, they can change their mind. They can buy back in to a fishery.
and so can newcomers or some of buddy's former deckhands, and ensuring that they want and get fair access if they're really willing to work hard.
One of the surprises for me, it was a catch share in Alaska for Pollock, uh, where we get our, you know, uh, um, fish sticks or McDonald's filet of fish and. One of the biggest shareholders there were these, uh, you know, native villages along the coast. I said, well, God, I didn't know they, they caught Pollock. How'd they get a share? Well, they never did catch Pollock before, but part of the agreement on that catch share was to include them, uh, in the allocation. And they're on track for, you know, making a lot more money and being able to reinvest in the fishery.
So, um, I, I don't know, a more transparent or accessible industry, um, if you're willing to, you know, work your way into it. Uh, I'm, I'm not ready to work as hard as Buddy and these other guys. Um, but I know that, you know, Michael, you have, and, uh, you know, in theory, you and I could get together and say, Hey, I, I see an opportunity,
There's opportunities for us to do so there. Um, and that's, you know, that's exciting.
McEwen: And one kind of big picture question for everyone, these models of catch shares, obviously they apply to fisheries in many different varieties, but there's an argument throughout the book that this model, at least in its in its theory, can be applied to these tragedy of the commons issues in all sorts of ecosystems and natural resources.
So what, what are some examples of that, of how this can kind of be brought into these other areas and applied with this same idea in mind?
Amanda Leland: One big lesson here is that the fishermen were immediately doing better. They were able to, Buddy was able to earn the same amount of money with catching, 50% less fish. and he had a quality of life improvement that was significant. It was better almost on day one for him. And that was true for a lot of these, these folks. And so a key lesson is how do you find solutions where people can benefit very quickly?
This is also true for agriculture and thinking about bottom up incentive-based strategies that help farmers adapt to all kinds of changing conditions. it doesn't have to be a regulation from on high, and in a lot of cases it shouldn't be. If people can self-organize and, and get support when the transition is happening, we will see, uh, better outcomes. We will see more, um, resilient food systems around the world.
Um, and I think another one that I love to pull forward is that heroes can be hiding in plain sight, but he is the protagonist of this story. But he didn't ask to be. He didn't wave his, raise his hand and say, Ooh, pick me. I wanna be the guy that you guys talk about. Um, I want, I, he didn't say, I wanna be the guy that travels around the world with you and talks to these fishermen and tells them what I went through. He didn't, but he, he has embraced his sort of, uh, critical role in helping others solve problems. And that is heroism in my view. And I think, um, we need more Buddies.
Think about it. If we had Buddies all over the world, how much better off we would be? So for those of you who are listening, you might be that hero who can help find a solution that can help change someone's life pretty dramatically and make the planet healthier and more productive, and help find that better future for us all.
McEwen: I have one final question. It might be a bit of a minefield.
Amanda Leland:: It's all right. I'm used to minefields.
McEwen: The current landscape of environmental regulations and protections and I guess emphasis has really shifted in the second iteration of the Trump administration.So in talking about catch shares and in talking about these larger issues that we just touched on, how do y'all see that changing, if at all? Or how has it changed so far in the nine months that Trump's second term has seen so far? What's the landscape looking like in the future?
Buddy Guindon :Well, I have, I have been to DC uh, several times, uh, since the new administration has taken over because of the executive order that, uh, the president came out with on fisheries.Uh, it felt like it was necessary to get up there and get ahead of this, because we don't wanna throw away all the regulations. I don't think there's any fishery. That is, is operating right now that wants to get rid of all the regulation and just have a free for all because of the market benefits and, and all the other things that we've built with the catchier system.
Are there things that maybe need to go away or need to be lessened? Uh, maybe I'm happy with the way things are in the Gulf right now. Um, I guess, uh, our work is going to be to make sure the administration understands that the commercial fishermen in this fishery are very happy with what's going on and the regulations are necessary in order to have a fishery for the future.
Amanda Leland:: The one thing I would add is, um, it's really important to have, um, the scientific capacity to support fisheries management around the country that sits at noaa, NOAA in the National Marine Fishery Service. Um, and so that's a, that's sort of a live issue today is what happens around, um, funding support for, um, for fisheries management science.
And from my perspective, um, and I think from the fishermen who are in involved in highly sustainable fisheries, there's a real economic and national security rationale as to why we would want to protect those investments.
Jamie Workman: The only other thing that, um, struck me as how in the past marine protected areas were seen as this is what environmentalists want against the fishermen.And that made sense when it was like, you can't fish there. Uh, this is off limits to you. Um. And what changed is under catch share fisheries, uh, a lot of fishermen, you know, Buddy was, you know, uh, sort of, you know, having problems with these as well. But it's like, oh wait, now these are nurseries. Now these are fish banks, as some people call them. Uh, and they start helping design them, helping, you know, make sure that they're protected. That again, when fishermen or environmentalists are on the same side and that kind of decentralized approach to fisheries, yeah. They still need the science, as Amanda said, they still need the, um, the rigor, they accountability, the transparency.
Um, but, but if you wanna make fisheries great again, keep doing what's working, this is, you know, this is a success story that, uh, you know, bipartisan administrations can, can build on and, and put a feather in their cap
OUTRO
Thanks for listening to Sea Change. This episode was hosted by me Carlyle Calhoun and Michael McEwen. Michael conducted the interview. Our sound designer is Emily Jankowski and our theme music is by Jon Batiste. Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.
Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sea Change is also supported by the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux (Meer - O) Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
We’ll be back in two weeks.
