Recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced new fisheries measures that would encourage the use of sector management whenever possible in the New England region in an effort to restore depleted stocks such as cod, flounder and pollock.

“Catch share programs, like the groundfish sectors proposed here, have been shown to promote more profitable and stable fisheries, as well as healthy marine ecosystems,” NOAA’s assistant administrator for fisheries said. The proposals are open for public comment; if approved, the new measures will go into effect May 1.

The news comes as no surprise to Vineyard fishermen. Recently, a small group of fishermen met at the Chilmark Public Library to hear an environmentalist talk about the upcoming changes to the management of federal waters in the area, over three miles from shore.

Julie Wormser, a regional director for New England oceans with the Environmental Defense Fund, outlined the benefits of the new regime in preventing overfishing, wasteful fishing, and financial hardship for area fishermen. The library program began with an 11-minute video called Catch Shares: Fishermen to Fishermen, which included interviews with seasoned and young fishermen from Maine to Rhode Island concerned about the future of fishing.

Catch share is a term used by fisheries managers to describe fishermen pooled in groups, who are given an annual or seasonal quota for a specific fish. They are charged with managing their share and fishing responsibly. Sector management is a version of catch share fishing.

In describing the benefits of the new regime, Ms. Wormser described the failings of the current one, which involves setting a quota for a region and restricting fishermen by the number of days they can fish, when and where they can fish, and the size of the catch.

She said often undersized fish are brought on deck and must be discarded, or the wrong species is brought on deck and discarded due to restrictions. The result has been that fish are wasted and fishermen can no longer make a living.

“It encourages derby fishing,” Ms. Wormser said. “Fishermen are granted a narrow window when they can catch the fish, so they all rush out to catch as much as they can,” she said. This causes the market price to fall when all the fish come in at once.

Under the catch share system of fishing, fishermen in a sector decide when to fish; they can choose to fish on days when the weather is favorable, and they can arrange among themselves how the day’s catch is distributed among the fleet to insure there is no waste.

Ms. Wormser said the catch share management system has proved especially successful in British Columbia.

But she said some New England commercial fishermen are concerned that, as has happened in other areas, fleets end up being owned by large corporations.

To prevent this, she said fisheries managers can place restrictions on owners and operators within a sector. At the meeting a number of Island fishermen expressed concern about the future of Menemsha, including Jonathan Mayhew and his brother Gregory.

“If we don’t have something new like this, we are doomed,” said Greg Mayhew. “I can’t make it on days at sea.”

Earlier this year, the New England Fishery Management Council granted a group of Vineyard fishermen one of 17 sectors. The co-administrators of the sector, Warren Doty of Chilmark and Tom Osmers of West Tisbury, also attended the meeting.

Mr. Doty said later that he is hoping to have a sector granted to the summer fluke fishermen.

Rhode Island is the first state in New England to have a working sector plan, including an experimental fluke sector.