October 21, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The New England Fishery Management Council developed Amendment 23 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan to revise the groundfish sector monitoring program. The Council’s selected measures include a requirement for 100 percent of sector groundfish trips to be monitored, if the agency can reimburse industry’s costs. Sectors would be able to use either human at-sea monitors or either of two electronic monitoring options, or a combination of those options, to meet their monitoring requirement.
While NOAA Fisheries reviews Amendment 23, we are determining how to implement the measures if they are approved. On October 12, we hosted an informational webinar and we have scheduled a series of virtual workshops this fall to assist industry in preparing for the implementation of Amendment 23, if approved. The informational webinar focused on presenting information about the new Maximized Retention Electronic Monitoring model, implementation decisions made to date, a timeline for additional implementation decisions, and our outreach plan to engage constituents in collaboratively planning implementation details.
Informational Webinar
October 12, 2021: 2-3:30 p.m.
Click here for a recording of the webinar.
Virtual Workshops
We are also planning a series of virtual workshops, with multiple webinars to allow each to focus in-depth on a limited number of topics. We will limit the number of attendees for each webinar to ensure that all participants have an opportunity to engage in the discussion. Topics will be chosen based on public feedback so that we focus on the issues of interest to our constituents.
We will be rescheduling the first workshop, initially scheduled for October 27, to a later date this fall. Next week we will post an agenda for the November 3 workshop.
Please email us to register for a workshop webinar, suggest topics for a workshop agenda, or to provide other feedback for the workshops.
For more information on the webinar and virtual workshops, visit the event page.
Questions?
Media: Contact Allison Ferreira, Regional Office, 978-281-9103