You can buy quota if you're up against it, but it will cost you," he said. "The shame of it is that these quotas are based on catch history and the guys who cut back on effort in the bad years to conserve the stocks are now suffering for that," deOliveira said. "The ones who took the most fish then are being rewarded now."
At the same time, the federal government encouraged boats to join sectors, which are self-managed collectives that include a number of boats with similar methods and objectives.

Boats that stayed in the common pool were subjected to a nearly punitive limit of days at sea, the objective being to get as many boats into the sectors as possible.