The Sustainable Harvest Sector includes dozens of fishing vessel owners and operators who joined to form a harvesting “sector” in the New England groundfishery. The groundfishery encompasses several different species of fish which cohabitate on the ocean floor.
Harvest controls in the groundfishery are jointly managed by the New England Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Sectors are part of those controls, and are granted privileges to sustainably harvest a portion of the Total Allowable Catch, or quota, of groundfish each year.
Our members live in and support fishing communities located from Maine southward to New Jersey. Our vessels are small to midsized, ranging from 40 to 100 feet long. All of our harvest is wild-caught and landed fresh.
Our goal is:
To promote the sustainable harvest of New England groundfish resources by serving as a model to demonstrate controlled fish harvesting, to promote safer fishing practices, to reduce regulatory discard of harvest, and to work cooperatively with harvesters from several ports in New England towards sustaining the viability of fishing families and fishing communities.
