South Atlantic Fishery Management Council Habitat
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SOUTH ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL HABITAT ADVISORY PANEL MEETING Charleston Marriott Hotel Charleston, South Carolina November 15-16, 2011 Summary of Minutes Habitat AP: Pace Wilber, Chair Anne Deaton Dr. Christopher Elkins John Ellis Terry Pratt Steve Trowell Sera Drevenak Priscilla Wendt Mark Caldwell Susan Hilfer Jenkins Mikell Cameron Sebastian Patrick Geer John Duren Alice Lawrence Terry Gibson Dr. Amber Whittle Todd Kellison Carter Watterson Council Members: Duane Harris Dr. Wilson Laney Dr. Michelle Duval Council Staff: Bob Mahood Roger Pugliese Anna Martin Rachael Silvas Observers/Participants: Tina Udouj Carolyn Boltin-Kelly Jennifer Dorton Rua Mordacai Carter Watterson Dr. Marcel Reichart Brian Hooker Laura Busch Additional Attendees Attached Habitat AP Meeting North Charleston, SC November 15-16, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Call to Order, Chairman Pace Wilber………………………………………………… 1 Approval of Agenda and November 2010 Minutes…………………………………... 1 South Atlantic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Implementation Meeting Tasks……………. 3 South Atlantic EFH and Ecosystem Based Management…………………………….. 4 Navy Fleet Force Command Presentation……………………………………………. 35 NOAA Fisheries Habitat Mapping and Ecosystem Research……………………….. 45 Fishery-Independent Research……………………………………………………….. 52 Alternative Energy Research Outline………………………………………………… 61 Engaging Stakeholders in Identification of Fisheries Oceanography Needs………..... 70 Update on State Mapping Information……………………………………………….. 71 South Atlantic Habitat and Ecosystem Web Services and Digital Dashboard………. 80 South Atlantic Eco-Regional Partner Coordination Meeting…………………………. 88 SECOORA Strategic Plan, State and Regional Coordination………………………… 89 SAA Action Plan………………………………………………………………………. 102 SAA Living Implementation Plan…………………………………………………….. 108 SALCC Charter, Committee and Project Funding……………………………………. 113 SALCC Optional Landscape Conservation Strategy…………………………………. 119 SARP Projects, Programs and Tools………………………………………………….. 126 SAFMC Regional Spatial Habitat and Ecosystem Management Tools………………. 130 Navy Fleet Forces Command Ongoing and Planned Activities………………………. 147 BOEM Alternative Energy Research Program……………………………………….. 152 Panel Member and Partner Roundtable Discussion…………………………………… 163 2 Habitat AP Meeting North Charleston, SC November 15-16, 2011 The Habitat and Environmental Protection Advisory Panel of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council convened in the Charleston Marriott Hotel, Charleston, South Carolina, Tuesday morning, November 15, 2011, and was called to order at 9:00 o’clock a.m. by Chairman Pace Wilber. MR. MAHOOD: I just wanted to welcome everybody. For those that don’t know me, I am Bob Mahood, the executive director of the council. We just want to welcome you all to Charleston. We appreciate the good turnout. I think you know that the habitat issues we are dealing with in the South Atlantic are very critical to our mission of managing the fisheries resources. Unfortunately maybe the only credit we do get is for the good work we have done with a lot of the habitat. We have had to be so restrictive here lately on the fisheries harvest and reducing overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks that we have – I guess as of probably today there are fewer fish that you can actually pursue out there than I think we have had in the past. We are not particularly popular with the recreational and commercial fishermen, but some of the things that have had its basis here with the Habitat Committee, such as some of the big area closures to protect the coral and the habitats off the coast, we have been getting some accolades about that. I don’t know if you are aware but we received an award out in – where was it, Duane? What was the award that you went out there to pick up out in Denver, Colorado. It was an award of the Professional Science Association, which was kind of nice, and that was relative to the large area closures to protect the deepwater corals off our southeast coast. A lot of the basics that come out of this group here have had some very positive image effects for us whereas some of our management activities on fish have not had such a popular – provide such a popular image for us. I do appreciate the work you all do and I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules and coming here to the meeting. I hope you have a good one, and I know Pace and Roger will lead you through it. MR. WILBER: Okay so before we get into the meat of the agenda, it would be good if we kind of went around the room and everyone introduced themselves and said who they work for; and since we will probably do this in kind of a U-shaped fashion, if Pat would kind of start us off we will go around the U. MR. GEER: I am Pat Geer. I am from Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources down in Brunswick, Georgia. DR. REICHERT: I am Marcel Reichert. I am with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. MR. WATTERSON: I am Carter Watterson, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, U.S. Department of Navy. MS. LAWRENCE: Alice Lawrence, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Athens, Georgia. 3 Habitat AP Meeting North Charleston, SC November 15-16, 2011 MS. DEATON: Anne Deaton, Marine Fisheries, North Carolina. MR. PRATT: Terry Pratt, commercial fisherman from North Carolina, one of the ones that is dissatisfied with what Bob was talking about what he is doing. MR. TROWELL: Steve Trowell with the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management. MR. DUREN: John Duren, and I am the recreational fishery representative from Georgia. MR. JONES: Tom Jones, but I am here with John. MR. HARRIS: Duane Harris; I am a council member from Georgia. MR. LANEY: I am Wilson Laney. I am the council representative from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. MR. WILBER: I am Pace Wilber from NOAA Fisheries, Southeast Region, based here in Charleston, South Carolina. MR. PUGLIESE: Roger Pugliese. I am with South Atlantic Council staff who works on habitat and all our ecosystem coordination efforts. MR. KELLISON: Todd Kellison, NOAA Fisheries, Beaufort, North Carolina. MR. GIBSON: Terry Gibson, Florida Recreational Fishing. MS. DREVENAK: Sera Drevenak, Pew Environment Group. MR. ELKINS: Chris Elkins, North Carolina Recreational. MS. UDOUJ: Tina Udouj. I work for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, but I live in Arkansas. MS. WENDT: Pricilla Wendt, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources here in Charleston. MR. MIKELL: Jenks Michael. I am the conservation representative from South Carolina. I live on Edisto Island, about 50 miles away from here. MS. HILFER: Susan Hilfer. I am the recreational fisherman from Beaufort, South Carolina. MS. WHITTLE: Amber Whittle with the Fish and Wildlife Commission in Florida, in St. Pete. MR. ELLIS: John Ellis, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Raleigh, North Carolina. 4 Habitat AP Meeting North Charleston, SC November 15-16, 2011 MR. WILBER: Okay, we have a few folks in the back to introduce. David, do you want to begin? (Whereupon, introductions were made from the audience.) MR. WILBER: Okay, thank you, and again echo Bob’s welcome to everyone and thank you for coming and participating in the advisory panel meeting today and tomorrow. This is actually the first meeting where I have been like the official chair, so I am sure I am going to forget all kinds of Robert Rules of Order kind of things, so feel free to point those out. I also probably have a tendency to participate more than I should as the Chair. If I start to kind of yak too much, somebody just kind of give me the evil eye. I know some people in the room are pretty good at that, so feel free to go ahead and do so. The first order of business actually is to accept the agenda for today’s meeting and the minutes from the previous meeting. I am sure you have all looked at that 145-page set of minutes and you have marked it up. You have got all kinds of typos that have been flagged. MR. MIKELL: I so move. MR. WILBER: I guess the agenda and the minutes have been accepted, first motion. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is for Roger to talk about the Implementation Plan Tasks and Products. MR. PUGLIESE: First of all, I would like to again thank everyone for making the special effort to be with us today and tomorrow. I think it is going to be a very productive and forward- thinking meeting. What we want to do is try to focus on some longer-term efforts and tasks, opportunities that we have developing with our coordination with the council and with partners in the region as you see with the second day being integrating the ecosystem coordination meeting. Today what we wanted to do was to highlight a number of different sessions; the first session being addressing essentially a step forward from where we were with the development of EFH originally and the original fishery ecosystem plan. The intent is to look at how some of the different things have progressed to address the EFH five-year review and then looking to the future for the next generation of a fishery ecosystem plan. In addition, that would also entail looking into the development and the status of Comprehensive Ecosystem-Based Amendment 2, as well as some input on the preliminary stages of the development of Comprehensive Ecosystem Amendment 3. The focus of the first session today really is going to probably ultimately – the most important part is some input specifically on any recommendations on what is on the table, comments, thoughts, other items that the council may need to address. The idea is that we’re at the early stages. Later in the afternoon we are really going to get into discussions on mapping, research, and observing, and policy, and look at how a number of these different – get pretty much updates on the scopes of the different components within our region and provide guidance on really looking at where we need to focus efforts on mapping additional research and trying to build – to a great 5 Habitat AP Meeting North Charleston, SC November 15-16, 2011 degree a number of these different ones are really going to be setting the stage for some actions that we can integrate where we can work with individual AP members, individual state AP Chairs to look to some products in the future.