Scientists that compose the policymaking agency for fisheries management in the Pacific\u2019s federal waters criticized a plan to create a marine sanctuary in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, saying there is no scientific evidence that current fishing levels negatively impact on coral reefs.<\/p>\n
The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council\u2019s jurisdiction encompasses three to 200 miles offshore around the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, and Pacific Island possessions\u2014an area of nearly 1.5 million square miles.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s scientific and statistical committee voiced its position in a media release, disclosing that scientists that comprise the committee met sometime last week.<\/p>\n
The National Marine Sanctuaries Program had recommended that all fishing activity be stopped in different zones within the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including targeting of pelagic fish that are not associated with coral reefs, the committee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sanctuary document simply does not provide any credible scientific evidence that the existing levels of commercial fishing in the NWHI are having any detrimental impact on coral reefs,\u201d committee chair Dr. Paul Callaghan stated in the media release.<\/p>\n
The committee criticized the NMSP\u2019s plan that reportedly requires commercial fisheries to prove that activities do not affect the integrity of the ecosystem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proof is not required by the National Marine Sanctuaries Act or contained in the stated goals and objectives for the NWHI sanctuary,\u201d the media release stated.<\/p>\n
It said the NMSP report gives preference to recreational and sustenance fishing compared to commercial fishing, although both involve fish mortality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scientists that compose the policymaking agency for fisheries management in the Pacific\u2019s federal waters criticized a plan to create a marine sanctuary in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, saying there is no scientific evidence that current fishing levels negatively impact on coral reefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}