Issues

Regional Oceans Governance Magnuson-Stevens Act

In its report to Congress, the US Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) supports continued regional council management authority and makes several recommendation strengthening this structure by increasing the role of science and by better coordinating existing state and federal decisonmaking processes. The Marine Conservation Alliance supports many of these recommendations, especially increased institutionalization of scientific review in the Council decisionmaking process. The North Pacific is an example of how the current process can result in responsible stewardship of our marine resources. It is based on science, it is deliberative, it is transparent, and it is representative of all user groups and the general public. The USCOP identified the North Pacific as a potential model for the rest of the country. Early on, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) established a conservative, adaptive management process coordinated by local, state, and regional managers, based on the following principles: 1. Open and Transparent Regulatory Process Public testimony, public deliberation, and a public committee process enable participation by all stakeholders. The NPFMC follows comprehensive scientific advice from a panel of fifteen scientists, facilitating science-based management decisions and sustainable fishing quotas.

2. Sustainable and Conservative Fishing Quotas
The NPFMC sets harvest limits at or below sustainable levels defined by it scientific advisors. Third-party observers monitor quotas. Eleven Bering Sea and Aleutian Island groundfish fisheries operate under an overall 2 million metric ton harvest cap, which includes both targeted and non-target species. For more than 25 years, not a single North Pacific groundfish species has been overfished.

3. Effective Monitoring and Enforcement
The majority of the harvest is monitored by federally trained observers, paid for by the industry and stationed aboard harvesting vessels, processing vessels, and catcher-processor vessels, and in shoreside processing plants. A mandatory Vessel Monitoring System assists enforcement.

4. Effective Limitations on Fishing Effort
The NPFMC has instituted numerous effort limitation and fishery rationalization programs, each one tailored to meet the challenges of specific fisheries. The Bering Sea pollock fishery -- the nation's largest fishery -- operates entirely under a cooperative management regime. Other rights-based programs include the Halibut/Sablefish IFQ program and the newly enacted Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization program. A License Limitation Program mitigates overcapitalization in other fisheries as the NPFMC works to develop quota-based systems for fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

5. Ecosystem Based Management Principles
The NPFMC also considers ecosystem impacts of management decisions. Since 1995, the groundfish plan teams have prepared an Ecosystem Considerations section to supplement the annual Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation report. This chapter provides an annual assessment of the ecosystem, a review of recent ecosystem-based management literature, updates of ongoing ecosystem research, local observations from coastal people and fishermen and new information on the status of seabirds, marine mammals, habitat, and other oceanographic and biological components of the North pacific ecosystem. Fishery closures, by time, area, and gear type, account for species vulnerability at certain life stages. Some 388,000 square nautical miles of the North Pacific are closed to bottom trawling or otherwise restricted to protect habitat. In the Bering Sea, aggressive rebuilding plans are in place to protect two crab stocks depressed as a result of changing oceanographic conditions. And predator/prey relationships are addressed, with a prohibition on directed fishing on important forage fish species.

6. Protection of Fishery Dependent Communities
Coastal communities depend on ocean resources, and MSA-managed North Pacific fisheries have met the commercial and subsistence needs of rural Alaskans. The foundations of both the Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program and non-CDQ communities are built upon sustainably managed ocean resources. The NPFMC works hard to craft management measures that meet conservation needs as well as support a vibrant and healthy coastal economy.

Implementing these principles demonstrates that the Magnuson Stevens Act provides the tools to move towards a successful ecosystem-based approach to management, and MCA believes that the regional fishery management councils can provide an important model for implementing the USCOP recommendation for voluntary regional ecosystem councils.