May 4, 2016 — At-sea monitoring requirements for Northeast multispecies groundfish vessels have been lowered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), bringing relief to fishermen who have been forced to absorb its cost due to a recent policy change.
In the same ruling, NOAA also set quotas for 2016 to 2018 covering 20 groundfish stocks, including decreasing the quota for Georges Bank cod to a level that will be “devastating” to the Northeast groundfishing fleet, according to one fisherman.
NOAA’s final rules, known as Framework 55, were filed Monday, 2 May and went into immediate effect to coincide with the beginning of the 2016 fishing season. Commercial groundfish operators will only be required to pay for monitors on 10 percent of their trips, whereas previously they had been expected to pay for them on 20 percent of their trips. The Northeast Fisheries Observer Program will pay for an additional four percent of the monitoring, pushing monitoring requirements to 14 percent of groundfish fishing trips taken by commercial vessels.
NOAA cited standards that required it to minimize costs and adverse economic impacts, while maintaining sound scientific practices to ensure sustainable fishing levels, as a reason for the lowering of the requirements.