Department of Commerce February 3, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NMFS is reallocating the projected unused amounts of the Aleut Corporation's pollock directed fishing allowance and the Community Development Quota from the Aleutian Islands subarea to the Bering Sea subarea directed fisheries. These actions are necessary to provide opportunity for harvest of the 2011 total allowable catch of pollock, consistent with the goals and objectives of the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area.

This notice: (1) Announces the addition of four MPAs managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service in consultation with the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council to the National System of MPAs (national system), thereby updating the List of National System MPAs; and (2) corrects a Federal Register notice published on December 27, 2010 announcing the nomination of 38 existing marine protected areas to the national system. In August 2010, NOAA and the Department of the Interior (DOI) invited Federal, State, commonwealth, and territorial marine protected area (MPA) programs with potentially eligible existing MPAs to nominate their sites to the national system. The national system and the nomination process are described in the Framework for the National System of Marine Protected Areas of the United States (Framework), developed in response to Executive Order 13158 on Marine Protected Areas. The final Framework was published on November 19, 2008, (73 FR 69608) and provides guidance for collaborative efforts among Federal, State, commonwealth, territorial, Tribal and local governments and stakeholders to develop an effective and well coordinated national system of MPAs that includes existing MPAs meeting national system criteria as well as new sites that may be established by managing agencies to fill key conservation gaps in important ocean areas.