NMI’s conservation plan paves way for commercial fishing

A newly approved Marine Conservation Plan for the CNMI appears to open the seas surrounding the islands to foreign commercial fishing to generate income that will finance programs related to the three-year plan.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that promotes sustainable fisheries, recovery of protected species, and the health of coastal marine habitats in the U.S., recently approved the Marine Conservation Plan for the CNMI.

The plan will run for a three-year period from Oct. 6, 2008, to Oct. 6, 2011.

A notice of the plan’s approval was published in the Oct. 15 edition of the Federal Register.

Under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Management Act, the marine conservation plan is required before the CNMI governor can ask the Secretary of State—with the concurrence of the Secretary of Commerce and the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council—to negotiate and enter into a Pacific Insular Area Fishery Agreement.

That agreement would allow foreign commercial fishing within waters adjacent to the CNMI in the federally controlled Exclusive Economic Zone.

Accordingly, before a federal license/permit can be issued and foreign vessels can commercially fish in the waters around the NMI, a marine conservation plan must be approved, containing a detailed description of how the funds to be collected from the foreign fishing company will be used.

Earlier, Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Ignacio De la Cruz said the plan contains a provision which provides that funds raised from foreign commercial fishing will be used to pay for the closure of the Puerto Rico dump and the operations of a park to be built on the dumpsite.

De la Cruz could not be reached for comments yesterday about the plan’s approval as he is attending a workshop in Fiji and will be back at the end of this month.

Acting officer in charge Jack Songsong said he is not in a position to comment on this and is not aware of the conservation plan.

Songsong referred the issue to Division of Fish and Wildlife director Sylvan Igisomar. Igisomar, however, did not respond to several e-mail inquiries.

The National Marine Fisheries Service notes that under federal law, any payments received under the Pacific Insular Area Fishery Agreement shall be deposited into the U.S. Treasury and then covered over to the Treasury of the Pacific Insular Area for which the funds were collected.

The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council approved the CNMI’s marine conservation plan in June 2007 and recommended its submission to the Secretary of State for approval.

The National Marine Fisheries Service received the plan on March 10, 2008, reviewed it and informed the CNMI government that the plan was incomplete.

On Sept. 23, 2008, DLNR submitted an amended version to the National Marine Fisheries Service with 12 objectives: data collection and reporting; resource assessment and monitoring; incidental catch, bycatch, and protected species interaction; habitat assessment and monitoring; management procedures; surveillance and enforcement; marine conservation and education; public participation; regional cooperation; performance evaluation; and Western Pacific demonstration projects.

The following are the 10 major projects identified with the objectives for potential funding under a Pacific Insular Area Fishery Agreement (in order of priority);

* EZ enforcement program;
* Subsistence and recreational harvest monitoring system;
* Commercial harvest monitoring;
* Charter fishing economic impact study;
* Analysis of data on pelagic fishery resources;
* CNMI commercial fisheries baseline assessment;
* Regional fisheries meeting and conferences funding assistance;
* Recreational and subsistence fishing economic impact use study;
* Fisheries technology program; and
* Local auction marketplace feasibility study.