Omnibus Amendment for the Western Pacific Region to Establish a Process for Specifying Annual Catch Limits and Accountability Measures, Including an Environmental Assessment

Download or read book Omnibus Amendment for the Western Pacific Region to Establish a Process for Specifying Annual Catch Limits and Accountability Measures, Including an Environmental Assessment written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) prepared a fishery ecosystem plan (FEP) amendment for all five western Pacific FEPs. The amendment to the American Samoa, Hawaii, the Mariana Archipelago (Guam and the CNMI), PRIA, and western Pacific pelagic fisheries FEPs provides specific guidance on how future annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs) will be developed for western Pacific fisheries. It also identifies the management unit species that qualify for statutory exceptions to the ACL/AM requirements and specifies the qualification criteria for "ecosystem component species." ACLs and AMs are not required for species classified as ecosystem components. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that western Pacific fishery management plans comply with requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to include a mechanism for specifying annual catch limits for all fisheries at a level such that overfishing does not occur and to implement measures to ensure accountability for adhering to these limits. The environmental impact analysis found that the proposed action is administrative and will not result in large or adverse effects on the environment. The approval of the mechanism and process will not result in any environmental change or in a change in fishing activity by any of the fleets, or change in monitoring by the Council, NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), or other fishery management entity. In the future, when specific annual catch limits and accountability measures are proposed, the Council and NMFS will analyze the potential environmental impacts. In general, ACLs and AMs are not expected to result in large impacts to the environment because many of the ACLs are likely to be based on recent harvests and, therefore, will not result in significant changes to most fisheries"--Cover letter; Portfolio comprised of three related PDF documents digitized and organized by: NOAA Office of Program Planning and Integration (PPI) National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) staff.