Pacific Fisheries
First Fishery Ecosystem Plan is Developed in the Western Pacific Region
Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council
Over ninety percent of the United States’ coral reefs are located in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. To conserve and manage these resources, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council) recently finalized the Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishery Management Plan (Plan). This is the first ecosystem-based fishery management plan in the U.S. and is designed to protect coral reef resources in federal waters of the western Pacific region. The overall goal of the Plan is to create a management regime to maintain sustainable coral reef fisheries, while preventing adverse impacts to stocks, habitat, protected species, and ecosystem resources.
To accomplish this, the Council worked with scientists, fishermen, policymakers and conservation organizations over the past five years. Four management measures emerged which emphasize ecosystem-based management:
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Great Barrier Reef Marine Park | Coral Reef Ecosystem MPAs |
| Size of MPA | ~340,000 km2. ~10% coral reef habitat | 9,903 km2. 100% is coral reef habitat |
| Reserve within MPA | 4.5% of area within MPA are no-take | 20% of area within MPA are no-take |
| Fishing Activities | Zone-based fishing allows shrimp trawling, net fisheries, line fishing, live coral collection, aquarium fish harvesting, indigenous harvest, sport fisheries. | Allow line fishing, aquarium harvest, tended nets, spear fishing and traps, with conditions. Permits and reporting required, ban on trawling and other destructive fishing practices. No commercial live coral harvest |
| Annual Commercial Harvest | 30 million lbs of food & aquarium fish | 550,000 lbs of food fish |
| Number of vessels | 24,000 recreational vessels, 1400 commercial vessels, 100s of sport fishing vessels | Few to no recreational vessels, 15-20 commercial vessels, 2-3 sportfishing vessels |
Approximately 11,382 km2 of coral reef habitats are under Council jurisdiction. Of this, 86% are designated as MPAs under the Plan. Most of these are found in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), a string of virtually uninhabited and widely dispersed islands which stretch approximately 1,200 miles northwest from the main Hawaiian islands. The NWHI is a unique place containing artifacts of early Polynesian history, and is home to threatened Hawaiian green sea turtles, endangered Hawaiian monk seals, substantial numbers of endemic marine species and the world’s largest colonies of Laysan and black-footed albatross. Kure Atoll, at the northern end of the archipelago, is scientifically significant as the “Darwin Point”, where coral growth equals the relative rise in sea level. North of Kure, corals drown and become the Hawaiian and Emperor Seamounts extending northwest to Alaska. Although marine fisheries in the NWHI have been closely regulated by the Council for the past 25 years, this Plan will afford additional protection for fishery development and expansion, maintaining the integrity of this healthy and largely undisturbed ecosystem.
Outside the NWHI, coral reefs in the inhabited regions are an integral part of island lifestyle. These reefs are subject to a number of tourist activities, recreational boating and traditional fishing. As local marine resource managers have intimate knowledge and familiarity of the people and the resource, the Plan integrates their authority into the regulatory regime, fostering appropriate conservation measures to provide for sustainable use.
Many types of MPAs exist throughout the world, however, researchers do not fully understand how dimension and location of such areas can be applied to fisheries management. Although completely restricted areas provide the highest degree of protection to marine ecosystems, less restrictive areas may also provide significant levels of protection with fewer economic and social impacts. When designating areas as MPAs, the Council and its advisors considered the array of species and ecological importance of the natural resources in the area, the human uses and their impacts which occur in the area, among other management concerns. As the level and locations of fishing activities are well documented, the NWHI will offer an excellent opportunity to monitor the benefits of MPAs.
The goals of each MPA should clearly be determined early in the development process. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a model by which coral reef conservation and management is compared. While it is apparent that the NWHI are exposed to fewer human activities than the Great Barrier Reef, each MPA has been designed to balance the needs of the resource users while maintaining ecosystem integrity.
| Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council |
| American Samoa Frank W. McCoy, Sr. Aitofele T. Sunia (Vice-Chair) Ray A. Tulafono Guam Judith P. Guthertz (Vice-Chair) Isabel D.S. Lujan Hawaii Gilbert Coloma-Agaran Edwin A. Ebisui (Vice-Chair) Frank P. Farm (Chair) Bryan Y.Y. Ho Roy N. Morioka Northern Mariana Islands Benny Pangelinan (Vice-Chair) Joaquin A. Tenorio National Marine Fisheries Service Rodney R. McInnis U.S. Coast Guard 14th District Rear Admiral Ralph Utley U.S. State Department William Gibbons-Fly U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Paul Henson Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds |
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The Council is the policy-making organization for the management of fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ, generally 3 to 200 miles offshore) around the Territory of American Samoa, Territory of Guam, State of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and U.S. Pacific island possessions—an area of nearly 1.5 million square miles. The Council is one of eight regional councils in the United States, which were established under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The main task of the Council is to protect fishery resources while maintaining opportunities for domestic fishing at sustainable levels of effort and yield. To accomplish this, the Council monitors fisheries within its region and prepares and modifies fishery management plans as needed. For information on the Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishery Management Plan, contact the Council.
