Dan Hull, Chairman
Chris Oliver, Executive Director
SUBJECT: title
Electronic Monitoring Integration (Final Action); EM Workgroup Report
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STAFF CONTACT: Diana Evans
ACTION REQUIRED: recommended action
(a) Final Action on Electronic Monitoring Integration Analysis
(b) Review EM Workgroup Report
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BACKGROUND:
In October 2016, the Council selected a preferred alternative for a proposed management change to establish electronic monitoring (EM) as a part of the North Pacific Observer Program. Under the Council’s preferred alternative, Alternative 2, regulations would be implemented to allow EM to be used for catch estimation. EM would be integrated into the established Observer Program process, by which the Council and NMFS can annually determine the best monitoring tool for the Alaska fixed gear fisheries, through the Observer Annual Deployment Plan. Through that process, the Council and NMFS will consider how to optimize observer and EM deployment for fisheries in the partial coverage category each year, based on an analysis of costs, budget, and fishing effort.
The public review draft of the EM Integration analysis was distributed in early November. Substantive changes to the document have been fairly discrete, and are listed on the inside cover of the analysis. These include:
• Identification of the Council’s preferred alternative, and rationale for the Council’s choice
• Description of the IFQ in multiple areas option added by the Council at the October 2016 Council meeting
• Additional description of the EM selection pool as part of the Annual Deployment Plan, and timeline for developing the process for allocating funding between the EM and observer pools
• Updated language to discuss how the regulations would address chronic EM system failures
• Discussion of NMFS’ favored implementation approach, namely to seek continued Federal funding to bridge the gap in 2018 between pre-implementation and an operational EM program funded by observer fees, and to bundle EM and observer provider service into a single, multi-party, multi-year contract that would begin in 2019
At this meeting, the Council will decide whether to affirm the preferred alternative, and whether or not to include the IFQ in multiple areas option as part of the preferred alternative. The EM Workgroup is meeting on November 28-29, 2016, and their report will be available at the Council meeting. The Workgroup is scheduled to discuss the EM analysis, as well as to finalize the 2017 Pre-implementation Plan that was approved in draft by the Council in October 2016.