The council is mandated by the U.S. Congress to manage fisheries in federal waters (generally 3 to 200 miles from shore) around Hawaii, Guam, CNMI, American Samoa and eight other remote island areas.
Decisions by the council are transmitted to the secretary of commerce for final approval.
The council also voted favorably on the following:
• To consider revising management of the CNMI bottomfish fishery to exclude non-bottomfish gear from the regulations and reduce the 0 to 50-nautical mile from shore bottomfish closure in the southern islands to 0 to 30 nm and reduce the 0 to 10-nm closure around Alamagan to 0 to 1 nm. The council also recommended that CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources enforcement section be allowed access to vessel monitoring system information for all vessels operating in the U.S. exclusive economic zone around the CNMI and that the National Marine Fisheries Service provide bottomfish permitting and reporting training workshops for all inhabited islands of the CNMI.
• To support CNMI DLNR’s plan for incorporating capacity building as a condition of issuing permits for activities to be conducted in the Northern Islands. The federal government would be required to obtain local permits in conducting research or studies with conditions such as training, technical assistance, employment and other benefits for the local people as part of the permit. This would also allow the local government to know the types and extent of research or studies to be conducted prior to their implementation.
• To request that the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Department of Defense to use of an independent contractor to verify information on baseline conditions with regards to future impacts of proposed military operations in the Marianas Archipelago.
The council meeting agenda and additional information on the major items under consideration may be found at the Web site at www.wpcouncil.org or by contacting the council by phone: 808-522-8220, fax 808-522-8226, or e-mail [email protected].
