Turning Fishery Information Needs into Performance Standards for an Electronic Monitoring Program

Several U.S. commercial fisheries are considering implementing electronic monitoring (EM) systems as an alternative to human observers for at-sea catch and compliance monitoring.  Fishery managers, scientists, fishermen, and other partners are in the throes of developing program designs, performance standards, and technical specifications that would meet their objectives, as well as legal requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other statutes.  They are looking to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for guidance on what specific requirements and minimum standards must be met.  In some cases, NMFS is breaking new ground in application of some Federal statutes to EM systems, which have only been implemented on a limited scale in U.S. fisheries.  This talk will address the following questions, drawing on examples from current efforts to implement EM in West Coast and Northeast fisheries: What legal and policy “boxes” are managers trying to check when evaluating a prospective EM program?  How can these needs be translated into meaningful performance standards for an EM program?