Inventory Atlas

Supplement 1b. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Program Description and Status Summary

Program Mission. The mission of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is to rebuild and maintain sustainable fisheries, promote the recovery of protected species, and protect and maintain the health of coastal marine habitats. To this end, NMFS establishes protected areas as one of several tools to conserve and manage the marine resources that it is responsible for.

Authorizing Legislation. NMFS is responsible for the conservation and management of living marine resources under various authorities, including the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act. Under the MSFCMA, NMFS has established sites for resource protection and fishery management in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ: 3-200 nautical miles from shore). NMFS has also instituted MPAs to protect endangered/threatened species and, under the ESA, designated critical habitat for listed species.

Management. NMFS sites have all been established by Federal regulations in accordance with the MSFCMA, ESA, MMPA, and/or ACFCMA. Citations to the regulations can all be found in the Code of Federal Regulations. These regulations afford NMFS sites with protections to promote fisheries sustainability, habitat protection/restoration, and/or species protection/recovery year-round on a continuing basis for a minimum of four years.

The MSFCMA established eight Regional Fishery Management Councils that submit recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce in the form of Fishery Management Plans (FMPs). The NMFS Highly Migratory Species Division also functions similarly to a Council and develops FMP proposals for Atlantic tuna, swordfish, and other pelagic species. To date, NMFS has approved and implemented 41 FMPs. Regulations implementing these FMPs may include area-based management measures designed for such things as preventing overfishing or habitat destruction; protecting spawning aggregations or juvenile nursery habitat; or allowing stocks to rebuild. These areas may have restrictions on gear, catches, fish size or time of year when fishing is allowed. Commercial and recreational fishing is allowed in most sites, but certain gear and fishing practices may be prohibited.

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The ESA provides for designation of “critical habitat” for listed species and includes physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species. Critical habitat may require special management considerations or protection. Critical habitat designations affect only federal agency actions or federally funded or permitted activities. Protecting critical habitats may be accomplished through regulations directly under the ESA, as in the three nautical mile buffer zones around Stellar sea lion rookery sites in Alaska. In other cases, such as the protection of important foraging areas for monk seals or Steller sea lions, sites may be implemented to restrict fishing in the EEZ, implemented through regulations in FMPs under the MSFCMA and may even extend beyond the areas of critical habitat. Alternatively, sites for northern Atlantic right whale critical habitat have been implemented through the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Types of Areas Protected. All sites are located in state or federal waters, between 0 and 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The size and protections afforded to these sites vary greatly depending on the objectives for which each site was established. The majority are gear-restricted areas (i.e., areas that prohibit the use of one or more gear types) established to protect habitats, fishery stocks or species assemblages, and/or promote the recovery of threatened or endangered species. A few sites, for instance, the Hind Bank Marine Conservation District in the Caribbean region, prohibit all fishing and anchoring within their boundaries. Additionally, NMFS sites may contain zoned areas that afford increased protections to a specific subset of the larger site (i.e., the Experimental Oculina Research Reserve within the Oculina Bank Habitat Area of Particular Concern). In the majority of cases, NMFS sites represent areas that contain important ecological or biological features, such as spawning aggregation sites. NMFS could also include particularly valuable habitats such as coral reefs or other habitats essential to the life history characteristics of particular managed species. Types of species protected by NMFS sites include marine and anadromous managed fish species, invertebrates, aquatic plants, marine mammals, and sea turtles.

Inventory Status of Program Sites. Currently, NMFS has 36 sites included in the inventory. NMFS sites fall under three major categories: Federal Fisheries Management Zones, Federal Threatened and Endangered Species Protected Areas, and Federal Threatened and Endangered Species Critical Habitats.

Other designated areas of critical habitat (such as Johnson’s seagrass beds in Florida; sea turtle areas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico; and the seaward extent of endangered or threatened salmon migratory routes off the West Coast of the United States) may not have additional federal regulations (i.e. beyond their designation as critical habitat), and have therefore not been included in the initial inventory.

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