Posted on November 25, 2024
Alaska Marine Conservation Council (AMCC) and our partners in the Halibut Defense Alliance are happy to announce that on November 8, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska (Judge Gleason) issued a decision upholding Amendment 123 to the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Groundfish Fishery Management Plan.
The ruling, which rejected challenges by the Groundfish Forum, affirms the adoption of Abundance-Based Management (ABM) of halibut bycatch by the Amendment 80 (A80) non-pelagic trawl sector. As a result, the abundance-linked bycatch limits in Amendment 123, which went into effect in January 2024, will remain in effect, benefiting halibut users, fishing families and halibut-dependent communities throughout the BSAI and beyond.
In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, the federal district court rejected each of A80’s challenges to the new limits - holding that Amendment 123 did not violate the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the Administrative Procedure Act or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The court rejected A80’s claim that Amendment 123 violated MSA National Standard 4, which requires any “allocation of fishing privileges” to be “fair and equitable” and “reasonably calculated to promote conservation.” The court rejected A80’s claims that the reduced limits violated National Standard 9 and agreed with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that Amendment 123 was “practicable.” Finally, the court rejected A80’s claim that NMFS violated NEPA by improperly focusing only on the A80 sector.
AMCC, along with most Alaskans, supported ABM for halibut bycatch and a broader, ecosystem-based approach to fishery management. ABM is responsive to the abundance of fish stocks and aims to protect not just individual species but the health of entire marine ecosystems. Managing halibut bycatch through static, fixed caps is outdated compared to the dynamic, abundance-driven management strategies used for other fisheries like groundfish and crab.
For six years, AMCC and our partners and allies supported efforts by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) to move forward with management changes to address these inequities and better align halibut bycatch management with the principles of abundance and ecosystem health. The NPFMC spent six years discussing the issue and, in December 2021, came out with the balanced Amendment 123 rule based on stakeholder input and comprehensive analytical documents. We are elated that the court upheld it.
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