底栖生物栖息地和渔业的影响

研讨会摘要:法律要求地址渔业影响基本鱼类栖息地:阈值限定符,举证责任

a·里斯

doi:https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569605.ch139

1996年可持续渔业法案(SFA)要求渔业BOB国际体育管理者描述和识别的重要鱼类的栖息地在美国专属经济区鱼类资源管理。法律也需要经理的减少程度上可行的不利影响等造成的栖息地钓鱼。除了实用性语言,国家林业局的钓鱼任务是合格的影响行为的总体要求,保护和管理措施应当基于最好的科学信息。国家海洋渔业服务的(NMFS) 1997 EBOB国际体育FH指导方针,要求议会缓解当时的证据的可识别的不利影响,”给小额外的理解的门槛的不利影响,将引发缓解措施的必要性。第一代EFH修正案,实用性标准没有发挥作用,因为大部分委员会得出结论有科学信息不足海底和渔具的影响在他们的区域,保证缓解措施的发展,是否可行。环保组织对秘书的五个地区委员会的批准EFH修正案,声称委员会没有考虑日益增长的科学共识,底拖网和疏浚可以有显著的生态效应。政府律师捍卫部长的行动使法庭相信修正案是足够的,因为该机构解释SFA的EFH和最好的科学的标准需要因地制宜科学信息,特定的捕鱼行为或齿轮有可识别的影响在特定的栖息地在安理会的地区。在推迟了这个解释,法院因此建立,1996年的规定需要更详细的科学证据跨越的门槛比当时“副作用”用于每个地区。然而,更重要的是,法院的结论是,批准EFH修正案的决策过程是缺乏根据国家环境政策法案(NEPA)因为NMFS未能采取“硬”看捕鱼行为和齿轮的环境后果。NEPA要求该机构分析更广泛的可行的替代保护EFH捕鱼活动比现状选择推荐的议会。 Under a court-approved settlement agreement, NMFS and the councils must prepare new environmental impact statements that will improve their EFH identifications and consider a range of alternative approaches to the fishing effects question. This second generation of EFH actions is likely to differ significantly from the first for several reasons. First, NMFS has directed the councils to consider all scientific information currently available regarding fishing effects, a body of literature that has increased considerably since 1997- 98 when the first EFH amendments were prepared and approved. Moreover, NEPA does not have a ‘best available science’ requirement, a standard NMFS used implicitly to justify its limited efforts to require protective EFH amendments. The councils will also need to consider the National Academy of Sciences’ 2002 report, ‘The Effects of Trawling and Dredging on Seafloor Habitat,’ which concludes that seafloor habitat should and can be effectively protected from gear impacts in the absence of site-specific information. The report describes a comparative risk analysis process that NMFS and the councils can use in the face of scientific uncertainty. This risk analysis process is a form of structured decision-making the National Academy of Sciences’ panel on science and the Endangered Species Act recommended agencies use when conservation decisions must be made with incomplete information and where conflicting social values are at play. There is also a strong possibility that Congress will soon amend the EFH and fishing effects mandate as well as the ‘best available science’ requirement. The 107th Congress is considering competing bills that would define in more detail how science-based fishery management decisions are to be made in the face of uncertain scientific information. Thus, the next round of EFH amendments and bycatch provisions are likely to be reviewed for approval under very different thresholds, qualifiers, and burdens of proof.