Find amendments across Fishery Management Plans

SAL 7 Essential Fish Habitat

These amendments revise the FMPs by identifying and describing essential fish habitat (EFH) and designating habitat areas of particular concern. They also include measures to minimize, to the extent practicable, adverse effects on EFH. This action is necessary to protect important habitat features to sustain managed fish stocks.

SAL 8 Habitat Areas of Particular Concern

These amendments revise the FMPs by identifying and describing essential fish habitat (EFH) and designating habitat areas of particular concern. They also include measures to minimize, to the extent practicable, adverse effects on EFH. This action is necessary to protect important habitat features to sustain managed fish stocks.

83 Housekeeping Amendments

This action is necessary to update and reorganize the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska groundfish fishery management plans. It updates harvest, ecosystem, and socioeconomic information, consolidates text, and reorganizes the documents. It is intended to keep the FMPs current and make them easier to read.

71 Community Development Quota Policy and Administrative Changes

This action is necessary to improve the administration of the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program. It simplifies the processes for transferring quota, authorizing vessels to participate in CDQ fisheries, and obtaining approval of alternative fishing plans. It is intended to make administration of the CDQ Program more efficient and effective.

48 Establish Procedure for Total Allowable Catch Setting

This amendment revises the process for establishing annual groundfish harvest specifications in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands, updates the Fishery Management Plans, and makes administrative and technical revisions. The action improves the use of the best scientific information, enhances opportunities for public and Secretarial review, and increases administrative efficiency while supporting the goals of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the Fishery Management Plans.

48 Establish Procedure for Total Allowable Catch Setting

Revised the FMP to update harvest specification and prohibited species catch (PSC) procedures, including the annual establishment and allocation of Pacific halibut PSC limits, and to remove outdated provisions related to foreign fishing and processing. The amendment also updated species and biological information, including information on skates, and clarified management procedures for TAC reserves and PSC closures.

82 Framework for Management of the Aleutian Islands Subarea Directed Pollock Fishery

This action is necessary to establish a management framework for the Aleutian Islands directed pollock fishery. It allocates the fishery to the Aleut Corporation as required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004. It is intended to support economic development in Adak, Alaska.

77 Pacific Cod Fixed Gear Allocations

This action is necessary to maintain stability in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fixed gear Pacific cod fishery. It apportions the fixed gear Pacific cod total allowable catch among sectors, divides the pot sector allocation between catcher/processors and catcher vessels, and revises the seasonal allocation and reallocation of the jig gear share.

75 Repeal of Improved Retention/Improved Utilization Program Flatfish Requirement

This action is necessary to revise the Improved Retention/Improved Utilization Program for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries. It eliminates the 100-percent retention and utilization requirements for rock sole and yellowfin sole while maintaining those requirements for pollock and Pacific cod.

72 Prior Notice of Landings Requirements

This action is necessary to revise recordkeeping and reporting requirements for the Pacific halibut and sablefish Individual Fishing Quota Program and the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program for Pacific halibut. It is intended to improve fishing operations and NOAA Fisheries’ administration of the programs while making IFQ Program regulations clearer and more consistent.

69 American Fisheries Act Inshore Cooperative Contracts with Catcher Vessels Outside Cooperative

This action is necessary to incorporate provisions of the American Fisheries Act into four North Pacific fishery management plans and their implementing regulations. It establishes Bering Sea pollock sector allocations and cooperatives, harvesting and processing limits to protect participants in other fisheries, and catch weighing and monitoring requirements. It is intended to rationalize the Bering Sea pollock fishery while limiting spillover effects on other fisheries and maintaining the Gulf of Alaska inshore/offshore management regime for pollock and Pacific cod.

61 American Fisheries Act Implementation

NOAA Fisheries issues final regulations to implement the following American Fisheries Act-related amendments: Amendment 61 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Groundfish Fishery of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Area Amendment 61 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska Amendment 13 to the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crab Amendment 8 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Scallop Fishery off Alaska These four amendments incorporate the provisions of the AFA into the fishery management plans and their implementing regulations. The management measures include: measures that allocate the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area pollock among the sectors of the pollock processing industry and restrict who may fish for and process pollock within each industry sector measures that govern the formation and operation of fishery cooperatives in the BSAI pollock fishery harvesting and processing limits known as sideboards to protect the participants in other fisheries from spillover effects resulting from the rationalization of the BSAI pollock fishery measures that establish catch weighing and monitoring requirements for vessels and processors that participate in the BSAI pollock fishery extension of the inshore/offshore regime for pollock and Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska through December 31, 2004 These amendments and management measures are necessary to implement the AFA and are intended to do so in a manner consistent with the environmental and socioeconomic objectives of AFA, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable laws. On February 10, 2004, NOAA Fisheries issued a final rule to remove the expiration date of regulations published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2002, implementing the AFA. The AFA final rule inadvertently specified a period of effectiveness that will expire December 31, 2007. This rule made the amendments to the AFA rule permanent, as originally intended.

54 Individual Fishing Quota Indirect Ownership and Use Caps

Amendments 54/54 would revise the IFQ Program by allowing indirect vessel ownership to qualify for skipper hiring, clarifying corporate and partnership changes involving estates, and expressing sablefish use limits in QS units rather than percentages. The amendments are intended to improve the effectiveness of the IFQ Program and support the objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and Northern Pacific Halibut Act.

67 Pacific Cod Species and Gear Endorsements to License Limitation Program License

This action is necessary to stabilize the fully utilized Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Pacific cod fisheries harvested with hook-and-line and pot gear. It establishes endorsements for exclusive participation by long-time participants in these fisheries. It is also intended to clarify directed fishing and discard provisions for the Community Development Quota and Individual Fishing Quota fisheries.

SAL 6 Revise Definitions of Overfishing

Amendment 6 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Salmon Fisheries is necessary to implement overfishing definitions for the salmon fishery authorized under the salmon FMP. This action is intended to ensure that conservation and management measures continue to be based on the best scientific information available and to advance the Council's ability to achieve, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from fisheries under its jurisdiction.

60 Adjustments to the License Limitation Program

These sister amendments implemented changes to the License Limitation Program (LLP). The changes were intended to improve the LLP and further the objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the three fishery management plans.

66 Removing Allocation of Squid, and Defining Directed Fishing for Pollock Under the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program

This action is necessary to establish cost recovery for the Pacific halibut and sablefish Individual Fishing Quota program. It is also necessary to recover the actual costs of Federal management and enforcement of these fisheries, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. It is intended to establish and collect fees from IFQ program participants to cover these costs.

58 Reduced Chinook Salmon Prohibited Species Catch 58 Limits, Modify Chinook Salmon Savings Area

This amendment established a framework allowing NOAA Fisheries to reduce the annual trawl bycatch limit for Chinook salmon and revised the Chinook Salmon Savings Area. NOAA Fisheries subsequently used this authority to reduce the annual Chinook salmon trawl bycatch limit to further reduce bycatch and support the conservation and management objectives of the F

64 Pacific Cod Fixed Gear Allocations

NOAA Fisheries issued regulations implementing Amendment 64 to allocate Pacific cod TAC among hook-and-line and pot gear sectors and establish vessel-specific restrictions to prevent those allocations from being exceeded. The action also revised the 2000 Pacific cod harvest specifications and closed directed fishing for Pacific cod by hook-and-line and pot catcher vessels over 60 feet, addressing industry socioeconomic needs while supporting the goals of the BSAI FMP.

39 Establish License Limitation Program

This amendment, submitted by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council established the License Limitation Program (LLP). The LLP limits the number, size, and specific operation of vessels that may be deployed in the groundfish fisheries in the exclusive economic zone off Alaska, except for demersal shelf rockfish east of 140 deg. W. long. and sablefish managed under the Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program.