Standards for fishery conservation and management; fishery management plans.
Miss. Code Ann. § 49-15-2
in effectAny fishery management plan, and any regulation promulgated to implement that plan or promulgated under the state seafood laws, shall be consistent with the following standards for fishery conservation and management:
Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available;
If it becomes necessary to allocate or assign fishing privileges among various fishermen, that allocation shall be (i) fair and equitable to those fishermen, (ii) reasonably calculated to promote conservation, and (iii) carried out in a manner that no particular individual, corporation or other entity acquires an excessive share of the privileges;
Conservation and management measures shall, where practicable, consider efficiency in the utilization of fishery resources, but no measure shall have economic allocation as its sole purpose;
Conservation and management measures shall take into account and allow for variations among, and contingencies in, fisheries, fishery resources, and catches;
Conservation and management measures shall, where practicable, minimize costs and avoid unnecessary duplication;
Conservation and management measures shall, consistent with the conservation requirements of this state (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities in order to (i) provide for the sustained participation of the communities, and (ii) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on those communities;
Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (i) minimize bycatch, and (ii) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of that bycatch; and
Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, promote the safety of human life at sea.
Source: Public.Resource.Org MS CodeURL: https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ms/transforms/ms/ocms/r78/gov.ms.code.title.49.htmlFetched: 6/9/2026