Issues

Ecosystem - Based Fishery Management It works in the North Pacific

In its report to Congress, the US Commission on Ocean Policy recommended that ecosystem considerations be incorporated into fishery management. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has developed a framework to evaluate incorporation of ecosystem considerations into specific fisheries management regimes. The challenge, according to the NAS, is to "rebuild and sustain populations, species, and biological diversity, so as not to jeopardize a wide range of goods and services from marine ecosystems, while providing food, revenue and recreation for humans." The North Pacific Fishery Management Council incorporates procedures and techniques that meet or exceed NAS strategies, providing an excellent example of how ecosystem-based management can utilize precautionary management that best adapts to changes in the ecosystem, while at the same time allowing the sustainable extraction of fish resources to sustain jobs, recreation, and food production.*

Marine ecosystems are dynamic and driven by climate, biological abundance and human-induced factors. Environmental conditions such as climate and currents as well as abundance of biological resources such as plankton production and predator/ prey dynamics change from year to year. Human-induced factors such as pollution, coastal development, shipping traffic, recreational uses and fishing can also influence marine ecosystems. The United States Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) recommends moving towards an ecosystem-based approach to management but recognized that our limited knowledge of these forces and their interrelationships is a major hurdle. USCOP called for dramatically expanded marine research programs to meet the challenge.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), also recognizing these limits, proposed eight specific elements of an ecosystem-based management approach which should be used as guidelines in sustainable fishery management by regional management councils. The fishery management techniques used in the North Pacific meet or exceed the NAS recommended measures. Not a single groundfish stock is overfished in the North Pacific demonstrating the success of this approach.

NAS recommendations and their implementation in the North Pacific include:

1) Adopt conservative harvest levels and set annual catch limits.
Annual limits are set at or below acceptable biological catch (ABC) level recommended by scientists. Fisheries close when catch limits are reached. A federal observer program - funded by the industry - monitors and reports catch and bycatch amounts. All fish caught count against the limit.

2) Incorporate Ecosystem-based goals into management.
Ecosystem considerations are incorporated into annual stock assessments that factor in uncertainty of population dynamics. Biodiversity and regime shift indicators help reveal changing ecosystem trends not yet understood, but which could affect stock abundance.

3) Adopt a precautionary approach to deal with uncertainty.
Scientists and managers use a precautionary approach to estimate fish abundance and set catch limits. An overall species harvest cap in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) and Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is always below the cumulative, biological catch limits for individual species.

4) Reduce excess fishing capacity and assign fishing rights.
Managers working to end the "race for fish" have acted to "rationalize" the halibut, sablefish, and BSAI pollock and crab fisheries. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) is now deliberating over complex programs to establish rights-based management in all GOA groundfish and BSAI non-pollock groundfish.

5) Establish Marine Protected Areas as a buffer for uncertainty.
Managers established a comprehensive habitat protection policy and have closed 130,000 square miles of productive fishing grounds permanently or seasonally to some or all fishing to protect marine resources and sensitive habitat. Recent actions by the Council to protect essential Fish Habitat closed an additional 279,000 sq. nautical miles.

6) Include bycatch and discard mortality in catch accounting.
Fishery managers have implemented numerous measures to reduce bycatch and ensure accurate accounting of bycatch. Bycatch-related mortality is always included in catch accounting.

7) Institutionalize scientific and stakeholder review into a transparent decision making process.
The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) meets during each NPFMC session to make recommendations on stock-assessment, ecosystem, habitat and economic models; the Council follows their recommendations when setting catch limits. Environmental, commercial, sport fishing and Alaska Native representatives serve on the NPFMC's Advisory Panel. Other appointed committees, including an Ecosystem Committee, make recommendations to the Council. All meetings are open to the public; public comment is solicited on all proposed management measures.

8) Conduct more research on structure and function of marine ecosystems.
Scientists regularly incorporate uncertainty into stock assessment models and engage in research to increase understanding of prey/predator relationships, climate and oceanographic shifts and habitat mapping and impact assessment. Industry supplements these efforts by contributing about $2 million annually to university marine research.

The result is robust fisheries with no overfished stocks of groundfish in the North Pacific, no stocks of groundfish or shellfish experiencing overfishing, and aggressive rebuilding plans for two crab stocks that have been depressed for several years due to changing oceanographic conditions.

* The MCA's description of the Council's efforts to integrate ecosystem principles into the NPFMC is drawn heavily from a paper authored by David Witherell and Clarence Pautzke of the North Pacific Council staff and Professor David Fluharty of the University of Washington School of Fisheries, entitled, "Integrating Ecosystem Considerations into Groundfish Fisheries Management off Alaska,USA".