The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) is one of eight regional councils established by the

Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA), commonly referred to as the Magnuson–Stevens Act (MSA), is the legislation providing for the management of marine fisheries in U.S. waters. Originally enacted in 1976 to as ...

in 1976 to manage the fisheries of the United States. With jurisdiction over the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, the Council has primary responsibility for groundfish management in the

Gulf of Alaska The Gulf of Alaska (Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, ...

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Ameri ...

and

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a cha ...

, including

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

pollock Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic marine fish in the genus ''Pollachius''. '' Pollachius pollachius'' is referred to as pollock in North America, Ireland and the United Kingd ...

flatfish A flatfish is a member of the Ray-finned fish, ray-finned demersal fish order (biology), order Pleuronectiformes, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the ...

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

sablefish The sablefish (''Anoplopoma fimbria'') is one of two members of the fish family Anoplopomatidae and the only species in the genus ''Anoplopoma''. In English, common names for it include sable (US), butterfish (US), black cod (US, UK, Canada), b ...

, and

rockfish Rockfish is a common term for several species of fish, referring to their tendency to hide among rocks. The name rockfish is used for many kinds of fish used for food. This common name belongs to several groups that are not closely related, and ca ...

species. Other large Alaska fisheries such as

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

and

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

are managed primarily by the State of Alaska.

Community Development Program Quotas

The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program was created by the Council in 1992 to provide western Alaska communities an opportunity to participate in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) fisheries that had been foreclosed to them because of the high capital investment needed to enter the fishery. The purpose of the CDQ Program is to: *to provide eligible western Alaska villages with the opportunity to participate and invest in fisheries in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area *support economic development in western Alaska *alleviate poverty and provide economic and social benefits for residents of western Alaska *achieve sustainable and diversified local economies in western Alaska

Habitat protection

An ecosystem-oriented management approach is being used to preserve the productivity of fishery resources in the ocean habitat. Habitats such as

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

s are important for food, reproduction, and shelter for certain fish. Other structural habitats include

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

anemone ''Anemone'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Plants of the genus are commonly called windflowers. They are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of all continents except Australia, New Zealand an ...

s, and

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwat ...

s. There are many activities that could destroy these underwater habitats. This is why in various areas of the North Pacific, activities such as

groundfish Demersal fish, also known as groundfish, live and feed on or near the bottom of seas or lakes (the demersal zone).Walrond Carl . "Coastal fish - Fish of the open sea floor"Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009 They occ ...

trawling and

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...

dredging have been banned; moreover, these areas have become

marine reserve A marine reserve is a type of marine protected area (MPA). An MPA is a section of the ocean where a government has placed limits on human activity. A marine reserve is a marine protected area in which removing or destroying natural or cultural ...

s on the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

. All fishery management plans include a description and identification of

essential fish habitat Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) was defined by the U.S. Congress in the 1996 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, or Magnuson-Stevens Act, as "those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, ...

, adverse impacts, and actions to conserve and enhance habitat; furthermore, maps of essential fish habitat areas are useful for understanding potential effects of proposed development and other activities.

Aleutian Islands Fishery Ecosystem Plan (AI FEP)

The

are chain of rugged

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

islands of southwest Alaska curving about 1,931 km (1,200 mi) west from the

Alaska Peninsula The Alaska Peninsula (also called Aleut Peninsula or Aleutian Peninsula, ale, Alasxix̂; Sugpiaq: ''Aluuwiq'', ''Al'uwiq'') is a peninsula extending about to the southwest from the mainland of Alaska and ending in the Aleutian Islands. The ...

and separating the Bering Sea from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. These islands came under the United States control once Alaska was purchased in 1867. Since then the islands are the site of U.S. military bases and research stations. The importance of the islands and an extremely unpredictable

weather pattern Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the tr ...

, prompted the NPFMC's creation of the Aleutian Islands Fishery Ecosystem Plan (AI FEP), which serves as a strategic policy and planning document to guide the Council in its management actions relating to the Aleutian Islands. The FEP is intended to be an educational tool and resource that can provide the Council with both an ‘early warning system,’ and an ecosystem context for fishery management decisions affecting the Aleutian Islands area.

Alaska Marine Ecosystem Forum

Alaska Marine Ecosystem Forum is formed by Councils signing a Memorandum of Understanding with 10 federal agencies and 4 state agencies. The purpose of the forum is to establish cooperation among the agencies, in order to understand the issues related to

marine ecosystem Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 70% of the surf ...

s off Alaska's coast. The forum also designed to improve the sharing of

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

between agencies.

Protected species

Marine mammal Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reli ...

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s, and other species in the

Arctic region The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

are affected by excess fishing. Protected Species: The adverse effects of fishing in these areas have caused higher death rates in these species, which has led to ecological imbalance. To combat this dilemma, the NPFMC and the NOAA Fisheries Service has tried to minimize the interactions of the fishermen and the animals; furthermore, the local fishing industry has also collaborated with the Council to help achieve the objective.

Non targeted species management

During fishing trips, fishermen collect their intended species along with unintended or non-targeted species. The Council is working with the BSAI and the GOA Groundfish FMPs to create guidelines for the management of

groups and species that are considered to be vulnerable to the adverse effects of overfishing. The animals are ranked for management priority based on complexes, groups, and then species.

Bycatch controls

Even though fishermen try only to target specific species, it is impossible for the catch to consist 100% of the selected fish. Non-targeted organisms are also caught, and this is considered bycatch. Bycatch is not kept to sell or for personal use, and is supposed to be discarded back into the sea. Baycatch controls are applied to the following groups: *Salmon Bycatch *Bering Sea Chinook Bycatch *Bering Sea Chum Bycatch *Gulf of Alaska Salmon Bycatch *

Crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

Bycatch *BSAI Crab Bycatch *Gulf of Alaska Crab Bycatch *BSAI/GOA

Halibut Halibut is the common name for three flatfish in the genera '' Hippoglossus'' and ''Reinhardtius'' from the family of right-eye flounders and, in some regions, and less commonly, other species of large flatfish. The word is derived from ''h ...

Bycatch

Fishery Management Plans

The Council endorses a Fishery Management Plan that corresponds to groundfish, crab, salmon, scallop, etc. The Arctic region contains a very fragile ecosystem. Factors such as prolonged ice-free seasons and increasing water temperatures could have unforeseen effects on the environment. This is why the region is being monitored more frequently and adequately than before. In 2009, the Council's new management plan was developed under the power of the U.S. Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. This newly developed plan states that finfish,

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s, and other marine animals are not open to commercial fishing. However the management plan does not have precedence over

recreational fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing ...

or Alaska-monitored fisheries in the Arctic region. The

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

pushed for the prohibition of commercial fishing in the arctic region until research of the region can prove that a fishery is sustainable. Moreover, commercial activities regarding marine mammals and birds are not regulated by this plan.

References

{{Authority control Commercial fishing in Alaska Nature conservation organizations based in the United States Fisheries conservation organizations Natural resource management