United States Pushes for Stronger Action to Fight Illegal Fishing and Sustainably Manage Fisheries in the North Pacific

The United States advanced its goals to combat harmful fishing practices at the North Pacific Fisheries Commission's 10th annual meeting in Osaka, Japan, in April. The Commission is a regional fisheries management organization. It manages pelagic and deep-sea fisheries in the high seas of the North Pacific, other than those managed by other international organizations. The United States is one of nine Commission members.

The United States does not have fishing vessels active under NPFC but its outcomes align with broader U.S. objectives related to:

• Promoting sustainable fisheries management
• Bolstering maritime security on the high seas adjacent to U.S. waters
• Ensuring U.S. seafood imports derive from legal, well-managed fisheries

Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing

A top U.S. priority is combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. IUU fishing undermines sustainable fisheries management, U.S. seafood competitiveness, and consumer confidence in seafood supplies.

The Commission took several steps to strengthen and implement tools to combat IUU fishing at its annual meeting, including adopting a measure on minimum standards for port inspections. This measure lays out basic obligations for port states and other actors when foreign fishing vessels request entry into port. It will help prevent the landing and entry into commerce of IUU fish and fish products. It is aligned with the Agreement on Port State Measures and related information exchange systems. Adoption of the measure complements similar measures in other regional fisheries management organizations. It also strengthens other monitoring, control, and surveillance tools the Commission has in place to combat IUU fishing at sea, such as:

• High seas boardings and inspections
• Vessel monitoring systems
• Transshipment observer program

The Commission also adopted a U.S. proposal to amend the measure that establishes a list of vessels involved in IUU fishing and imposes consequences on those vessels. The existing measure had a potential gap in the timeframe under which vessels could be nominated for inclusion on the list. The U.S. proposal successfully closed that gap and strengthened other aspects of the measure. It launched a process to develop clearer procedures to share information with other regional fisheries management organizations and take comparable measures against vessels on other organizations' IUU vessel lists.

The United States and other members continued to work to strengthen the Compliance Monitoring Scheme that holds governments and their vessels accountable for implementing the binding measures adopted by the Commission. The compliance process and discussions around the IUU Vessel List helped ensure that members-including China and Russia-took action as flag states against potential IUU fishing by their vessels.

"U.S. engagement in NPFC and other RFMOs advances the Administration's objectives to combat IUU fishing, control overcapacity and overfishing by foreign fleets, and ensure international measures are consistent with U.S. best practices to support seafood competitiveness," said Eugenio Piñiero-Soler, NOAA's Assistant Administrator for Fisheries.

Deep-Sea Bottom Fishing

The United States also led the push for stronger, more precautionary measures related to bottom fishing in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Japan continues to conduct bottom trawling on the Emperor Seamounts without any scientific advice on sustainable levels of catch or effort. This is likely contributing to overfishing of splendid alfonsino and negatively affecting stocks of overfished North Pacific armorhead. Such fisheries that contact the sea floor also result in substantial bycatch and have the potential to harm deep-sea vulnerable marine ecosystems. The U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone around the northwestern Hawaiian Islands has been closed for decades to the development of related fisheries due to stock status concerns.

The U.S. proposal led to more members supporting a temporary closure of such high-seas bottom fisheries than ever before, but Japan blocked consensus on stronger action. The Commission's Scientific Committee will review the measure and recommend changes to address U.S. concerns about the status of deep-sea stocks and vulnerable marine ecosystems.

Sustainable Fisheries Management

The Commission also took important action to address concerns about the stock status of some of its most important pelagic commercial fisheries by:

• Cutting the catch limit for chub mackerel by almost 30 percent
• Addressing concerns about mixed catches with blue mackerel
• Putting limits on Japanese sardine for the first time

The Commission also cut catches of Pacific saury by 5 percent as the stock continues to rebuild from an overfished state. Catch limits should have been cut by 10 percent according to the interim harvest control rule. Some members said their industries could not support any catch reductions at all. U.S. intervention was key in ensuring the Commission agreed on any cuts to catch. We also secured a 2-year deal in which the Commission will respect the harvest control rule and automatically reduce catches by 10 percent next year (unless the Commission decides otherwise based on the best available scientific information).

"I am proud of the NPFC's accomplishments and the U.S. delegation's contributions to its substantial progress on addressing IUU fishing and overfished stocks. The gains in this and previous meetings at NPFC have been hard fought, given the divergent views of its members. This underscores the importance of strong U.S. engagement to continue moving the organization in the right direction," said Michael Brakke, U.S. Commissioner for the North Pacific Fisheries Commission.

Background

The North Pacific Fisheries Commission has nine members:

• Canada
• China, the European Union
• Japan
• Republic of Korea
• Russian Federation
• Chinese Taipei
• United States of America
• Vanuatu

Panama is a Cooperating non-contracting party.

The objective of the Convention that established the Commission is to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of the fisheries resources in the Convention Area while protecting the marine ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean in which these resources occur.