Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) is one of eight regional councils established under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) in 1976 to manage offshore fisheries. The WPRFMC’s jurisdiction includes the US exclusive economic zone (EEZ) waters (generally 3–200 miles offshore) around the State of Hawaii; US Territories of American Samoa and Guam; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and the US Pacific remote island areas of Johnston, Midway, Palmyra and Wake Atolls; Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands; and Kingman Reef. This area of nearly 1.5 million square miles is the size of the continental United States and constitutes about half of the entire US EEZ. It spans both sides of the equator and both sides of the dateline. The WPRFMC also manages domestic fisheries based in the US Pacific Islands that operate on the high seas.

The council is based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The WPRFMC fulfills a central role in the management of the nation’s marine fisheries resources. Its primary role is to prepare, monitor and amend management plans for offshore fisheries based in the Western Pacific Region. Each plan contains a suite of management measures and associated regulations that have been implemented to support sustainable fisheries, reduce and mitigate interactions with protected species, and conserve marine habitat and ecosystems.

The plans and fishery regulations are dynamic and reflect the WPRFMC’s adaptive management, which monitors and addresses changing conditions based on the best available information. In developing these plans, the WPRFMC provides a public forum for decision-making and works closely with communities, local governments, federal agencies and local and international organizations.

The MSA authorizes fishery management councils to create Fishery Management Plans (FMP). Since the 1980s, the WPRFMC has managed fisheries throughout the Western Pacific Region through separate species-based FMPs – the Bottomfish and Seamount Groundfish FMP., the Crustaceans FMP, the Precious Corals FMP, the Coral Reef Ecosystems FMP and the Pelagic FMP

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