Northern Mariana Islands Archives - Page 2 of 3

Researchers and Feds to Address Quality of Science Used to Manage US Pacific Island Fisheries

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Scientists from throughout the Pacific region will meet Oct. 15 to 17, 2019, in Honolulu to address the quality of the data used to manage federal fisheries and other topics. The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will convene 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1164 Bishop St., Suite 1400. The meeting is open to the public.

The lack of sufficient data to manage fisheries has been a continued concern, especially in the US Territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Federal law requires that annual catch limits (ACLs) be set for each federally managed fish species. Typically, limits are based on stock assessments, but these are lacking for most of the hundreds of coral reef species caught in the islands.

In 2018, based on the Council’s recommendation, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reduced the number of species requiring ACLs from 205 species or families to 11 in American Samoa, from 227 species or families to 13 in the Mariana Archipelago (Guam and the CNMI) and from 173 species or families to 20 in the Hawai’i Archipelago. The species no longer requiring ACLs are now considered “ecosystem components.” They are being monitored until additional information is available to assess their stock status. By reducing the current need for ACLs to dozens of species, scientists and managers are able to allocate more resources to improving the datasets for those species without stock assessments.

One such effort is a recent review organized by the Council and NMFS on the quality, relevance and performance of the data collection systems in the US Pacific Territories. At the SSC meeting, the co-chairs of the review will report on the recommendations from that week-long effort by a panel of experts in the field. Key among these is the need to collect total catch and effort from fisheries targeting the key species by requiring mandatory reporting from fishers and vendors rather than relying on creel surveys. This recommendation is in line with actions taken by the three governments of the three US Territories to improve available information by instituting or considering mandatory permit and reporting requirements.

Another effort is the ongoing Council-sponsored biosampling studies on O’ahu and Maui by Poseidon Fisheries Research (PFR). From July 2018 to July 2019, PFR measured and weighed 10,256 fish on O’ahu, comprising 69 different “ecosystem component” species and 14 families. On Maui, as of August 2019, PFR measured 407 fish and worked with the marine biology class at Kamehameha Schools on that island to sample 91 fish from five species for life history information, e.g., sex, reproduction, size and age. Due to these efforts, the first life history article on palani (ringtail surgeonfish) and pualu (eyestripe surgeonfish) will be published in a journal.

Other items on the SSC agenda

The NMFS Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center’s new stock assessment for the federally managed bottomfish species in American Samoa, Guam and CNMI shows a pessimistic stock status for American Samoa and Guam. The SSC will review the assessment and the Western Pacific Stock Assessment Review panel’s report on it and decide whether this new assessment constitutes the best scientific information available for fishery management decisions.
The SSC will review and consider the implications of a new model for loggerhead and leatherback turtle interactions in the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish.
The SSC will review and may make recommendations regarding the stock status ofoceanic whitetip sharks (a species listed under the Endangered Species Act) and blue marlin.

Recommendations made by the SSC on these and other matters will be considered by the Council when it meets Oct. 22 to 24, 2019, at the Tauese P. F. Sunia Ocean Center in Utulei, American Samoa. For agendas and briefing documents for the SSC, Council and related advisory body meetings, go to http://www.wpcouncil.org/public-meetings/ or contact the Council at info@wpcouncil.org or call (808) 522-8220.

Hawaii Tuna Fishermen Want Higher Quotas

December 4, 2018 — Hawaii’s longliners caught their quota for bigeye tuna early again this year. But that may not be an issue going forward if U.S. officials can negotiate a higher limit next week with an international fisheries commission.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Blown Deadlines Weaken Hawaii’s Voice On Federal Fishery Council

June 28, 2017 — Hawaii will soon have less influence in setting national policies that affect everything from commercial fishing to endangered species in nearly 1.5 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Gov. David Ige’s administration twice missed deadlines to submit to federal officials a list of names to fill two at-large terms that expire in August on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.

The seats have historically been held by Hawaii residents. Instead, they will be filled from the lists provided by the governors of American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam, the other U.S. territory represented on the council, did not nominate anyone.

Environmentalists see it as a missed opportunity for Ige to rebalance the council, which has long weighed heavier on the side of the commercial fishing industry than conservation. Others view it as a blown chance for Hawaii’s longline tuna fishermen to maintain their grip on the council’s direction.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Pre-Proposals for SK Grants Program FY 2017

July 25, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

Today is the start of the fiscal year 2017 Saltonstall-Kennedy (SK) Grant Program application solicitation; now with a new, early “pre-proposal” process that will reduce the burden of preparing full proposals on projects that do not meet program criteria. Pre-proposals will be accepted for 60 days, July 22 through September 20, 2016. To maximize time and familiarity, NOAA Fisheries will conduct at least two public webinars for interested stakeholders to walk through the process and answer any questions.

Briefly, the “pre-proposal” process is a required step that will provide applicants with early clarification from NOAA as to the technical merits and relevancy of their project. This new step provides applicants an early indication of their project’s eligibility before going through the more intensive process of developing a full project proposal.

In addition to the new “pre-proposal” process, NOAA Fisheries made a number of modifications to the proposal review process in 2016 to improve transparency and participation by external expertise. Starting in 2016, the eight fishery management councils and three state marine fishery commissions selected external parties to assist in identifying priority focus areas for funding, as well as serve on the review panel process. Also in 2016, NOAA gave broader consideration to projects focused on sustainable economies, business innovations and opportunities as well as science and research.

The 2017 priority focus areas remain the same as 2016 with the additional focus area aimed at improving the quality and quantity of fishery information from the U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealths of Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.

‘Shark Infestation’ Affecting Fishers?

June 7, 2016 — Sharks are eating onaga and other fish faster than fishermen can reel them in, compromising the quality and amount of fish that can be harvested in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, according to the territory’s acting governor, Victor Hocog.

He asked the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council on Monday to work with CNMI on regulations affecting his people.

“The greatest predator is the sharks … not the human,” Hocog said in a news release that Wespac issued Monday.

He delivered the opening remarks on the council’s first day of meetings in CNMI and Guam this week.

“If you put 12 hooks down to catch onaga, ehu, whatever it is, you are very lucky when you pick up three out of the 12 on the hook because of the shark infestation around our islands,” Hocog said.

CNMI is on the verge of developing infrastructure for its expanding tourism industry and the hotels would need high-grade fish, according to the release. The quality of the fish is seriously compromised when sharks remove the head or body of the fish, the release said.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

CNMI Gov: No To Expansion Of Hawaii Marine Monument

May 11, 2016 — SAIPAN, CNMI — Governor Ralph Torres does not support the expansion of the marine national monument in Hawaii, citing the CNMI’s disappointing experience with the Marianas Trench monument.

The governor in an interview on Tuesday said he wrote to President Obama to raise some concerns regarding the proposed expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii also known as the Northwestern Hawaiian monument.

“I don’t think I’m supporting it,” he said. “What we were offered here [for the Marianas monument] was not the one given to us. The proponents mentioned hundreds of millions of dollars and many jobs, but none of those have occurred.”

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

CNMI, Hawaii Longliners Agree On Sharing Tuna Quota

April 20, 2016 — Senate Vice President Arnold I. Palacios says the CNMI and the Hawaii Longline Association have finalized a deal regarding the tuna-catch limit.

Palacios was with Gov. Ralph Torres who visited Hawaii to meet its governor and officials of the Hawaii Longline Association who, the senator said, agreed to an annual payment of $250,000 for three years.

Palacios said the deal had been on hold for six months.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Hawaii’s Tuna Longliners Offer to Buy Additional Quota from Northern Mariana Islands

April 14, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said Monday he wants to “get as much as we can” from a proposed deal by Hawaii longliners to buy half of the CNMI’s tuna fishing quota for a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year, allowing them to fish past their annual catch limits if exhausted.

The Hawaii Longline Association wrote to Torres in February and offered a three-year deal—with $200,000 paid out each year—to allow their fishing vessels to catch up to 1,000 metric tons of bigeye tuna “against the CNMI catch limit,” Saipan Tribune learned. The offer is made on the expectation that Hawaii longliners would exhaust their own catch quota, and similar agreements with the CNMI have been made in the last several years.

The offered payment is not tied down to whether the longliners actually end up using the CNMI quota, Saipan Tribune learned, and the $200,000 would be paid without regard the amount of catch HLA has in any given year.

“I am trying to get as much as we can,” Torres said on Monday, “by meeting with our stakeholders in Hawaii and utilizing what we have here and seeing what we gave last year and what are giving up in the years coming.” Torres will be in Hawaii for three days and flew out yesterday.

Asked if he has received any information whether the offer was a “lowball,” Torres said the CNMI’s neighboring islands asked for $1 million “and that was shot down right away.”

“As much as we want a million dollars we will get as much as we can” so “that the industry continue to grow,” Torres said.

Still, an industry source from a neighboring island said the $200,000 price was “not enough.”

Using their formula to calculate market value of tons per yen or dollar, the source estimated a market value for the CNMI’s 1,000 metric tons at between $887,280 to $1.2 million.

The CNMI is allotted 1,000 metric tons for big eye tuna as part of regulations in for fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean as managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Office of the Governor spokesman Ivan Blanco earlier said that the CNMI is “actively reviewing available options including comparable market values from nearby island countries before an acceptance of the offer will be made.”

Department of Lands and Natural Resource Secretary Richard Seman, for his part, said they always do and hope for money but at the same time, “we want to be reasonable and extend our assistance to the Hawaii Longline Fishery Association who had been cut short by the overall international” regulations.

Asked if he thought the offer was market value or “a fair price,” Seman said it was not so much market value as “it is not based on what they catch.”

“They are just assuming that they catch that amount of quota. If they don’t catch anything, it is their loss,” he told reporters Monday.

Seman said the United States has been in the “forefront of compliance” under the rules that Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission has set up but it was “sad that [the U.S.] gets kind of shortchanged at the end of the day when it comes down to allocation” of fishing quota.

Seman said U.S. longliners are now using “its own territories’ quota” but added they are not going out and seeking other national quotas as compared to other longliners from China who are buying out some of Japan’s quota.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Feds approve exemption of US longline vessels in American Samoa Large Vessel Prohibited Area

February 1, 2016 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Federally permitted longline vessels in American Samoa that are over 50 feet in length can fish for pelagic species in certain areas of the American Samoa Large Vessel Prohibited Area or LVPA. The National Marine Fisheries Service announced the final rule, which will publish in the Federal Register on February 3, 2016.

The LVPA, which extends out to 30 to 50 nautical miles from shore around the islands of American Samoa, prohibits vessels greater than 50 feet from fishing within the area. In 2015, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council undertook decision-making to amend the applicable federal LVPA regulations to provide an exemption to large vessels in the American Samoa longline fishery to allow them to fish seaward of 12 nautical miles from shore around the islands of Tutuila, Swains Island and the Manu’a Islands. Fishing around Rose Atoll Marine National Monument remains unchanged

The LVPA was developed by the council and approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2002 to prevent potential gear conflicts between large and small fishing vessels. At that time, approximately 40 alia longline vessels were operating in offshore waters around American Samoa. Originally used to target bottomfish, the alia vessels range from 25 to 40 feet in length and have a catamaran hull.

Since 2002, the alia longline fleet in American Samoa declined to the point where only one alia longline vessel was operating in recent years. In 2014, the council proposed opening the LVPA as a means to assist the larger U.S. longline vessels based in American Samoa. The U.S. fleet was experiencing financial difficulties attributed in part to market competition resulting from an influx of Chinese longline vessels in South Pacific albacore fishery. In making its decision, the council noted that the National Standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act require the achievement of optimum yield and the fair and equitable allocation of privileges. The council took final action on the measure in March 2015. The exemption will be reviewed annually by the council to take into consideration any new small vessel fisheries development initiatives, small vessel participation and catch rates.

Council Chair Edwin Ebisui Jr. noted that the measure is important to maintain the supply of U.S. caught albacore from the local longline fleet to the Pago Pago-based canneries in American Samoa. The exemption will improve the viability of the American Samoa longline fishery and achieve optimum yield from the fishery while preventing overfishing.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council was established by Congress in 1976. Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Council has authority over the fisheries in the Pacific Ocean seaward of the state/territory waters of Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas.

Read the release online here

2016 US Pacific Territories Capacity-Building Scholarship Announcement

January 8, 2016 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Managment Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and its Education Committee members are pleased to announce the availability of three scholarships for academic years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. These scholarships support the aspiration to build the capacity of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) to effectively manage their fisheries and related resources through the employment of their own people.

The US Pacific Territories Capacity-Building Scholarships may be used for the following:

1. Completion of the junior and senior years to obtain one of the following undergraduate degrees:

i) BA or BS in Marine Science at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, or

ii) BS in Oceanography with a concentration in Fisheries Science at the Hawaii Pacific University; or

2. Completion of one of the following graduate degrees:

i) MS or PhD in Marine Biology at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa’s Hawai`i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB),

ii) MS in Marine Science at Hawaii Pacific University,

iii) MS in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, or

iv) MS in Biology at the University of Guam.

Eligibility Requirements

Undergraduate Student

1. Be a US citizen or national with strong ties to American Samoa, Guam or the CNMI;

2. Have successfully completed freshman and sophomore years of college with a grade point average of 3.0;

3. Have been accepted to attend the University of Hawai`i at Hilo (BA or BS in Marine Science) or Hawaii Pacific University (BS in Oceanography with a Concentration in Fisheries Science) in Honolulu for the 2015-2016 academic year;

4. Be available for an 8- to 10-week paid internship in Hawaii;

5. Have demonstrated interest and/or previous work/involvement with fisheries, coral reef conservation or related fields;

6. Commit to being employed for a minimum of two years (one year for each scholarship year) with the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, Guam Department of Agriculture or the CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources after completion of the undergraduate degree. Those who do not fulfill this commitment will be required to pay back the scholarship amount that has been provided.

Graduate Student

1. Be a US citizen or national with strong ties to American Samoa, Guam or the CNMI;

2. Have been accepted to attend one of the following graduate programs for the 2015-2016 academic year: University of Hawai`i at Mānoa’s MS or PhD in Marine Biology; Hawaii Pacific University’s MS in Marine Science; University of Hawai`i at Hilo’s MS in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science; or University of Guam’s MS in Biology;

3. Have demonstrated interest and/or previous work/involvement with fisheries, coral reef conservation or related fields;

4. Commit to being employed for one year for each scholarship year (maximum two years) with the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, Guam Department of Agriculture or the CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources commencing within the year after completion of the graduate degree or departure from the educational program for which the scholarship was provided. Those who do not fulfill this commitment will be required to pay back the scholarship amount that has been provided.

Eligibility Documents

Undergraduate Student

1. Complete the accompanying scholarship application and a two-page essay on your reasons for pursuing your chosen degree. The essay should include a summary of your relevant experience, your long term career goals and your motivations to serve your home islands in the area of sustainable marine resource management.

2. Provide an official college transcript of freshman and sophomore classes completed to date; and

3. Submit two letters of recommendation, one by a college instructor of your choice and one by a community leader who can speak to your overall ability, likelihood of your success in an undergraduate program of study in Hawaii, and commitment to working in a local fisheries related agency for a minimum of two years upon completion of the undergraduate degree.

Graduate Student

2. Provide official undergraduate college transcripts and, if relevant, graduate-level college transcripts;

3. Submit two letters of recommendation from professors, employers and/or community leaders who can speak to your overall ability, likelihood of your success in a graduate program of study in Hawaii, and commitment to working in a local fisheries related agency for a minimum of two years upon completion of the undergraduate degree.

Mail completed application and letters of recommendation to Kitty M. Simonds, Executive Director, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, 1164 Bishop Street, Suite 1400, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813, by February 29, 2016. Preliminary decisions will be made by March 15, 2016. Final decision is contingent upon 1) an acceptance letter from the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, Hawaii Pacific University or the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa HIMB for the 2016-2017 academic year and 2) the signing of an agreement to work with the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, Guam Department of Agriculture or the CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources in fisheries ecosystem related work for one year of for each scholarship year or to provide immediate reimbursement for the scholarship funds that had been provided. Funding for 2017-2018 will be provided based on proof of continued progress in the college program and maintenance of a 3.0 grade point average.

Click here for complete scholarship application packet.