The council said that the decision to close purse seine fishing in the CNMI increased the worries that the revitalization of the US purse seine fleet. According to the council the closure around the CNMI and Guam would include all federal waters out to 200 miles off shore. The council said that the revitalization of the U.S. purse seine fleet, combined with the likely constraints on purse seine fishing effort in the Western and Central Pacific, may lead to increased interest by U.S. purse-seiners to fish in the U.S. EEZ surrounding the entire Mariana Archipelago.
According to the council the new vessels augmenting the U.S. purse seine fleet will be based primarily in the far west of the region in Micronesia. It is found that purse-seine fishing method is not good for tuna as it uses large nets to target skipjack tuna to be processed as canned tuna. It is said that the closure around American Samoa would span 3 to 75 miles offshore.
The council has decided to ban longline fishing in federal waters out to 30 miles from the shore surrounding the CNMI. The council also reviewed and upheld its prior vote to reopen the permit application period for the limited entry of American Samoa longline fishery for one year. The council has reviewed its decision but did not revote on non-regulatory action items including squid permits, main Hawaiian Island bottomfish risk analysis, annual catch limits and the Community Development Programme.
