Guam American Samoa

On the basis of this proposal, NMFS would authorise each US Pacific Area to award up to 1,000 mt of its 2,000 mt Great Eye Ethiopian Threshold to US longliners allowed to operate under the Fishery Ecosystem Plan for Pelagic Fisheries of the Western Pacific. "Nor will the scheme put a significant number of small units or a small unit sector at a significant unfair advantage over large units in terms of competition," explains Chris Oliver, Deputy Fisheries Manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.

The NMFS will account ably control the capture of bigeye tuna by longlining in each US Pacific area, as well as the capture of US longliners that operate under certain fishery arrangements, Oliver said. "If the NMFS were to project that a local capture or assignment threshold would be achieved, the NMFS would ban the capture and maintenance of bigeye tuna by ships in the area concerned (if the local capture threshold is to be reached) and/or by ships in a specific fishery arrangement (if the assignment threshold is to be reached)", the NMFS said.

Meanwhile, the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council is assessing its 2016 judgment to restrict the area declared invalid by a Hawaiian Supreme Administrative Tribunal to large ships along the American Samoa coastline. In March, the court's verdict was in response to an action brought by the Samoa-American authorities, which called into question the NMFS's determination to contract the area with the large ships 12-mile off the shore.

Since 2002, the fisheries of the small boats fleets have been maintained from the coast to 50 nautical mileage and the tribunal accepted that this was in line with the effort to safeguard the Samoan culture as indicated in the instruments of assignment. "It is currently evaluating the rules (protected area for long vessels), which include the possibility of defining American Samoa fisheries culture permissions for conservation and protection," said NMFS.