National Standard 1 Technical Guidance for Designing, Evaluating, and Implementing Carry-Over and Phase-In Provisions

Revisions to the National Standard 1 (NS1) guidelines published in 2016 included two provisions that added flexibility in the process of specifying annual catch limits (ACLs). One provision allowed the unused portion of an ACL to be carried over to the following year. A second provision allowed changes in catch limits to be phased in over a period of time not to exceed 3 years. Both provisions required that overfishing is still prevented every year. This added flexibility may have a number of benefits including increasing safety and economic performance and reducing social disruptions by creating stability in harvests over time. However, policies that allow acceptable biological catch (ABC) to be set closer to the overfishing limit (OFL) also have the potential to increase biological risk and should be properly analyzed and adopted with caution. This technical memo is meant to support the implementation of the carryover and phase-in provisions as described within the NS1 guidelines. It provides examples of how carry-over and phase-in provisions have been implemented in fisheries so that we can learn from past experiences, describes some possible approaches to design and implement carry-over and phase-in provisions, and identifies characteristics of fish stocks, fisheries, and management approaches that may impact the benefits and risks of applying carry-over and phase-in provisions.

Holland D, Lambert D, Schnettler E, Methot R, Karp M, Brewster-Geisz K, Brodziak J, Crosson S, Farmer N, Frens K,et al. 2020. National Standard 1 Technical Guidance for Designing, Evaluating, and Implementing Carry-over and Phase-in Provisions. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-203, 51 p.  [Link]