Council prioritizes pilot work on IF/THEN rules, local knowledge tools and targeted EFP process fixes

The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to prioritize short‑term work on three strands of a new “adaptive management and flexibility” initiative: (1) better ways to collect and use local and indigenous knowledge, (2) review and careful pilot of IF/THEN and inseason regulatory triggers, and (3) targeted improvements to exempted fishing permit (EFP) procedures.

Council staff outlined Special Project One as a multi‑part program, saying the work “could be focused both on decreasing the length of time required to finalize key council actions as well as on increasing the council’s ability to develop management responses tailored to the speed of unanticipated changes in the marine environment,” (Gilly Lions, staff).

Members agreed to immediate steps: scope a workshop to design “fishery performance” reports that combine ecosystem signal and structured fisherman observations, and to develop a pilot on‑the‑water feedback tool to gather standardized observations from fishermen. The council explicitly asked staff to craft a workshop that brings fishermen, state and federal scientists, tribes and advisory bodies together to define usable local‑knowledge inputs and a timetable for delivering those inputs where they will best inform stock assessments and harvest decisions.

On IF/THEN statements — pre‑defined triggers that automate parts of inseason management — the council directed a two‑phase approach. The council will first commission a review of how IF/THEN rules are used nationally and in NOAA regulations; then it asked advisory bodies to explore IF/THEN candidates for their FMPs. Groundfish and HMS advisory bodies are prioritized to examine potential IF/THEN actions; the council deferred broader work for CPS and asked habitat advisers to help identify IF/THEN ideas tied to environmental signals (temperature, dissolved oxygen, unusual mortality events).

Finally, the council asked staff to build on Fisheries Innovation Work Group (FIW) deliberations and to return with focused EFP process improvements: clearer FMP‑level guidance for applicants, an umbrella EFP Council Operating Procedure with FMP subsections, options to front‑load environmental analysis, and checkpoint schedules so mature EFPs are either advanced to regulation or deprioritized. The council emphasized it is not removing the agency’s role; rather, the goal is to reduce unnecessary delays and create transparent, consistent expectations for applicants.

Why this matters: council members said a combination of standardized local knowledge streams and pre‑agreed triggers could reduce lag between ecosystem change and management action, while targeted streamlining of EFPs could make experiments faster and more useful without rolling back scientific review or public process.

What’s next: staff will scope the workshop, pull together comparative IF/THEN reviews, and coordinate with the FIW and NMFS on EFP edits, returning options in September 2026. The council requested that tribes be fully integrated into any IF/THEN or local‑knowledge design.