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Fono lends support to DMWR opposition to bottomfish interim measure

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Catch limit “is too low for our fishermen” posted in public comment
fili@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Fono has approved a Senate Concurrent Resolution lending its support to a request by the Department of Marine of Wildlife Resources (DMWR) to a federal fishery agency “to suspend or vacant the interim measure” imposed on the limitation of bottomfish caught in federal waters immediately outside of territorial waters around American Samoa.

The non-binding resolution, endorsed early this week, also supports DMWR’s proposal “to develop a territorial bottomfish management plan that would provide a proper assessment of bottomfish stock for American Samoa”.

As reported by Samoa News last Friday, the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a public notice on Sept. 11th — through the federal portal www.regulations.gov — announcing a temporary rule for an interim catch limit (ICL) of 13,000 pounds of American Samoa bottomfish for fishing year 2020.

NMFS said it would monitor 2020 catches, and if the fishery reaches the ICL, “we would close the fishery in federal waters for the remainder of the calendar year”. Additionally, the temporary action is necessary to reduce overfishing of American Samoa bottomfish while minimizing socio-economic impacts to fishing communities.

“This proposed rule supports the long-term sustainability of American Samoa bottomfish,” said NMFS, which states in the notice that DMWR in a June 15th letter expressed concerns that the ICL of 13,000 pounds is “too low for their fishermen to subsist, and that a closure of offshore banks in federal waters to bottomfish fishing would deprive fishermen of important fishing grounds for deep-water snappers that are critical for cultural ceremonies”.

DMWR on Monday this week — the deadline to submit public comments —  released the full context of the letter written to the federal portal from director, Va’amua Henry Sesepasara.

“The American Samoa Government cannot accept the bottomfish interim measure proposed and the request to close sections of the territorial waters,” Va’amua wrote NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office’s regional administrator Mike Tosatto.

Va’amua’s first argument is that the interim measure bottomfish catch limit “is too low for our fishermen to submit”. For comparison, he points out that the annual average catch was 21,139 pounds from 2013 through 2017.

“Second, our government cannot close our territorial waters for bottomfishing. We have very limited fishing ground,” he further argued. “Closing federal waters would also deprive our fishermen of important fishing ground for deep-water snappers that are critical for our cultural ceremonies and fa’alavelave.”

NMFS was informed by Va’amua that fishing is “intrinsic to fa’asamoa so it is important that we continue to fish to maintain our culture ties and to derive sustenance and livelihood from our oceans.”

“We cannot understand how the American Samoa bottomfish is now assessed as overfished and experiencing overfishing,” he continued. “This is a declining fishery and involves 3-6 full time fishermen. We believe that the stock assessment did not capture the true picture of the fishery, fishermen behavior and fish targeting — shallow versus deep-water bottomfishing — and their changes throughout the years.”

For example, local fishermen only fish deep-water snappers when there is a demand from cultural ceremonies and their absence in the catch does not indicate depletion, he said and emphasized that the previous stock assessment before the current one indicated, “our stocks are healthy.”

He calls for the need to revisit the stock assessment method and whether data collection programs are appropriate for such method.

DMWR proposes to develop a territorial bottomfish management plan in coordination with NMFS and such a plan that includes data workshops to fully understand local fishery and incorporate the cultural aspects of the fishery.

“We also propose a discussion on what kind of assessment is appropriate for our fishery situation and requests flexibility in the national guidelines in managing our fisheries,” Va’amua added.

In a Sept. 28th comment letter, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council executive director Kitty M. Simonds notes that the interim measure was requested by the Council at its 180th meeting in October 2019 hosted by American Samoa.

Simonds said the Council received the new benchmark assessment for the bottomfish fishery indicating the stock is overfished and overfishing is occurring. “Harvest limits projected from the assessment resulted in a significant reduction of bottomfish catch for the community,” she points out.

“Implementation of the interim measure will be challenging given the majority of the fishing activity is within territorial waters,” said Simonds, noting that the Council is working with DMWR to develop their Territorial Bottomfish Fishery Management Plan, which would allow parallel management of the bottomfish management unit species (BMUS) between territorial and federal waters.

She also points out that proper implementation and monitoring of the ICL and associated accountability measures will be difficult using exiting data collection programs as they are not designed for in-season tracking of catch.

In partnership with DMWR, she said the Council is implementing an electronic reporting project that can potentially track the bottomfish catch in a near real-time. Additionally, the Council and DMWR will use this data collection system to monitor BMUS catch in order to support the implementation of the ICL and test its efficacy in tracking catch during the fishing season.

(Full details of the interim rule, along with data and other information in letters from Va’amua and Simonds available at: www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NOAA-NMFS-2020-0099)

For the Fono resolution, it is to be submitted to US Secretary of Commerce, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga, Congresswoman Aumua Amata, Va’amua and Tosatto.