This Plan of the Pacific Fishery Management Council concerns management of groundfish and related matters. The Council is committed to developing long-range plans for managing the Washington, Oregon, and California groundfish fisheries that will promote a stable planning environment for the seafood industry, including marine recreation interests, and will maintain the health of the resource and environment. The Pacific Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 to manage fisheries in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. The following goals have been established in order of priority for managing the west coast groundfish fisheries, to be considered in conjunction with the national standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Act: Prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks by managing for appropriate harvest levels and prevent, to the extent practicable, any net loss of the habitat of living marine resources; Maximize the value of the groundfish resource as a whole; Within the constraints of overfished species rebuilding requirements, achieve the maximum biological yield of the overall groundfish fishery, promote year-round availability of quality seafood to the consumer, and promote recreational fishing opportunities. To accomplish these management goals, a number of objectives are considered. The FMp is divided into 11 chapters: Chapter 1 describes the development of the FMP and how it is organized; Chapter 2 describes the goals and objectives of the plan and defines key terms and concepts; Chapter 3 specifies the geographic area covered by this plan and lists the plan’s Fishery Management Unit (FMU) species and Ecosystem Component (EC) species, including those EC species shared between all four of the Council’s FMPs; Chapter 4 describes how the Council determines harvest levels. These harvest limits are related to the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and overfishing limit (OFL) for FMU species. Precautionary reductions from these thresholds may be applied, depending on the management status of a given stock. If, according to these thresholds, a stock is determined to be overfished, the Council must recommend measures to end overfishing and develop a rebuilding plan, as specified in this chapter. Based on the thresholds, criteria, and procedures described in this chapter, the Council specifies an annual catch limit (ACL), or harvest limit, for managed stocks or stock complexes; Chapter 5 describes how the Council periodically specifies harvest levels and the management measures needed to prevent catches from exceeding those levels; Chapter 6 describes the management measures used by the Council to meet the objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and this FMP; Chapter 7 identifies EFH for groundfish Fishery Management Unit species and the types of measures that may be used to mitigate adverse impacts to EFH from fishing; Chapter 8 describes procedures followed by the Council to evaluate and recommend issuing exempted fishing permits; Chapter 9 provides criteria for determining what activities involving groundfish would qualify as scientific research and could therefore qualify for special treatment under the management program; Chapter 10 describes the procedures used to review state regulations in order to ensure that they are consistent with this FMP and its implementing regulations; Chapter 11 describes the groundfish Limited Entry (LE) program.
États-Unis d'Amérique · 2016-03-01