Economic

Perspectives

Volume 8 An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State Number 1

OVERFISHING

JANUARY 2003

OVERFISHING

A GLOBAL CHALLENGE

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ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

OVERFISHING: A GLOBAL CHALLENGE

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1

From the editor:

As representatives from more than 100 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) member countries meet in

Rome February 24-28, 2003, they face a crisis in the ocean's fisheries that gets surprisingly little attention from the

world's press. By FAO estimates, more than 70 percent of those fisheries are depleted or nearly depleted even as

more and more of the world's people depend on those fish stocks for food and livelihoods. Competition between

countries over access to fishing grounds has already spawned confrontation, even violence. This issue of Economic

Perspectives presents 10 articles from governments, industry and the environmental community providing

background information about this problem and possible solutions.

The FAO's Committee on Fisheries (COFI) has an opportunity at its February meeting to bring overfishing under

control if its members can agree on ways to implement existing agreements, Assistant Secretary of State John

Turner says in the lead article. Alice Mattice of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) says that

World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiators can effect part of that implementation if they can agree on

eliminating subsidies that encourage overfishing. Commander John Davis of the U.S. Coast Guard describes how

U.S. and Russian patrol boats cooperate with each other to enforce the global moratorium on driftnet fishing.

Angela Somma of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) describes the economic and environmental costs

of overfishing; David Balton of the State Department outlines the complex web of multinational agreements and

regional organizations aimed at managing and conserving fisheries, and NMFS' Dean Swanson tells how the U.S.

government implements its international obligations on marine conservation. Four articles on overfishing are from

non-U.S. government experts. The FAO's David Doulman says countries need to demonstrate political will to

halt overfishing. Scott Burns of the World Wildlife Fund suggests three discrete sets of actions to make marine

conservation work. Justin LeBlanc of the National Fisheries Institute warns that marine conservation cannot work

without participation by all the relevant markets. And Paul Nichols, an adviser to the Namibian government, tells

how one developing country has stopped illegal overfishing in its 200-mile coastal zone.

Other sections provide background information, links to relevant Internet sites, and selected readings about

overfishing. We hope that this journal will contribute to the international discussion of this important issue.
3

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State

CONTENTS

OVERFISHING: A GLOBAL CHALLENGE

❏ FOCUS

CURRENT CHALLENGES IN INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES 6

By John Turner, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs

When the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Committee on Fisheries meets in February, it has an

important opportunity to improve conservation in the world's battered fisheries, says John Turner, assistant secretary of

state. FAO already has an impressive array of agreements with which to work — the time has come to implement them,

with special attention to halting illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, he says.

ELIMINATING FISHING SUBSIDIES AS A WAY TO PROMOTE CONSERVATION 9

By Alice Mattice, Director for Trade and Environmental Policy Planning, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

The payment of government subsidies to the fisheries sector is clearly a major reason for overfishing in the high seas,

according to Alice Mattice of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Mattice argues in this article that current

World Trade Organization negotiations offer the best opportunity for imposing discipline on fishing subsidies.

HOW INTERNATIONAL ENFORCEMENT COOPERATION 

DETERS ILLEGAL FISHING IN THE NORTH PACIFIC 11

By Commander John Davis, Chief, Fisheries Enforcement Division, U.S. Coast Guard

Multinational cooperation is essential in enforcing conservation of fisheries over the vast distances of the ocean, says

Commander John Davis, chief of fisheries enforcement for the U.S. Coast Guard. Davis describes how U.S. cooperation

with Russian and Chinese authorities has achieved a steep drop in illegal driftnet fishing in the North Pacific.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES AND ECONOMIC COSTS 

OF DEPLETING THE WORLD'S OCEANS 14

By Angela Somma, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service

Overfishing can not only reduce the stocks of targeted and non-targeted species but also wreak havoc with the marine

ecosystem, according to Angela Somma of the Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service. Moreover,

she says, overfishing and mismanagement of fisheries cost billions of dollars a year in potential revenue to the industry

while government subsidies to unsustainably large fishing fleets cost billions more.

INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS FOR INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES 17

By David Balton, Director of the Office of Marine Conservation, U.S. Department of State

The past decade has seen a burst of international rules and voluntary guidelines for fishing in coastal waters and on the

high seas. In this article David Balton, director of the State Department's Office of Marine Conservation, summarizes

developments from the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development to the 2002 U.N. World Summit for

Sustainable Development.
4

CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES 

CONSERVATION AGREEMENTS 21

By Dean Swanson, Chief, International Fisheries Division, National Marine Fisheries Service

The way the United States approaches negotiation and implementation of fisheries agreements could serve as a model for

foreign government fisheries management, says Dean Swanson of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The inclusive,

transparent process means all the difference in achieving results, he says.

❏ COMMENTARY

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON DEVELOPMENTS IN WORLD FISHERIES 23

By David J. Doulman, Senior Fishery Liaison Officer, Fisheries Department, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization

Governments of fishing countries need to demonstrate the political will to halt overfishing, says David Doulman of the

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Developing countries could well fall further behind developed

countries as management of fisheries becomes ever more complicated, he says.

AMERICA'S STAKE IN THE CONSERVATION OF FISHERIES AND THE OCEANS 26

By Scott Burns, World Wildlife Fund

Managing the world's fisheries in a sustainable way would assure their productive capacity for the millions who work in

them and the many more who depend on them for food, says Scott Burns of the World Wildlife Fund. What the oceans

need now, he says, are stronger management of migratory fish stocks, reduction of fishing fleet overcapacity by

eliminating subsidies, and strict protection for the most biologically important marine regions.

THE GLOBAL FISH MARKET AND THE NEED FOR MULTILATERAL FISHING DISCIPLINES 30

By Justin LeBlanc, Vice President for Government Relations, National Fisheries Institute

Without participation by all relevant markets, fisheries conservation schemes have no chance to succeed, says Justin

LeBlanc of the National Fisheries Institute. A powerful existing international convention for protecting endangered

species might help enforce conservation measures some day, but for now it lacks expertise, he says. 

A DEVELOPING COUNTRY PUTS A HALT TO FOREIGN OVERFISHING 33

By Paul Nichols, Special Adviser to the Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, Namibia

Foreign fishing fleets drastically overfished the waters off Namibia before that country gained independence in 1990,

according to Paul Nichols, special adviser to the Namibian fisheries ministry. Since then, he said, the government has

taken strong regulatory actions that have brought overfishing under control and allowed depleted fish stocks to rebuild. 

❏ FACTS AND FIGURES

A LOOK AT RECENT FAO GLOBAL DATA ON THE STATE OF FISH STOCKS 36

INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS 40

FISHERIES AND THE WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 41

❏ INFORMATION RESOURCES

KEY CONTACTS AND INTERNET SITES 44

ADDITIONAL READINGS 45
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 5

U.S. Department of State

Office of International Information Programs

January 2003

The Office of International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State provides products and services that explain U.S. policies, society,

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ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State Volume 8, Number 1, January 2003

Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Judith Siegel

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When the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO)

Committee on Fisheries meets in February, it has an

important opportunity to improve conservation in the world's

battered fisheries, says John Turner, assistant secretary of state.

FAO already has an impressive array of agreements with

which to work — the time has come to implement them,

with special attention to halting illegal, unregulated and

unreported fishing, he says. Turner describes new approaches

FAO could try, including cooperation with multilateral trade

and conservation organizations. FAO members and other

donors should donate the money developing countries need to

build the capacity for enforcing marine conservation, he adds.

A CHALLENGE FROM OUR LEADERSHIP

The 25th meeting of the FAO Committee on Fisheries

(COFI) that will take place in February 2003 comes at a

critical time in the quest for sustainable fisheries.

Meeting in Johannesburg at the World Summit on

Sustainable Development in 2002, world leaders

acknowledged the vital role of marine fisheries to

economic and food security and to biodiversity in

general. Leaders established a number of fisheries

commitments for the world community, including a call

"to maintain or restore stocks to levels that can produce

maximum sustainable yield with the aim of achieving

these goals for depleted stocks on an urgent basis and

where possible not later than 2015."

The mission of FAO in the field of fisheries is to facilitate

and secure the long-term sustainable development and

utilization of the world's fisheries and aquaculture. Many

of the issues on the agenda for the 2003 COFI meeting

will contribute directly to the goal of restoring depleted

fish stocks and to advancing other commitments.

If we are to fulfill these commitments, we must take

concerted actions and set clear priorities. The most

recent FAO statistics indicate that over 70 percent of

fisheries are either overfished or are fished at their

maximum capacity. In coming years, production from

many key fisheries will likely decline. Demand for

fisheries products, however, will continue to increase.

The prospect of this growing shortfall poses our greatest

fisheries challenge today.

IMPLEMENTATION OF EXISTING AGREEMENTS

The past decade saw the development of new agreed

standards to guide us on the path toward sustainable

fisheries. Top among these initiatives are two global

fisheries treaties, the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement

and the 1993 FAO Compliance Agreement. Further

progress depends on all states ratifying or acceding to

these agreements and implementing them fully. COFI

will have an opportunity to address issues relating to these

treaties, particularly the capacity building provisions of

the Fish Stocks Agreement.

FAO has also made great contributions through its

adoption of the 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible

Fisheries and its four associated International Plans of

Action (IPOAs). The upcoming COFI meeting will give

all FAO members an opportunity to demonstrate the

progress they have made, individually and collectively, in

implementing these agreements.

The two treaties, the Code of Conduct and the four

IPOAs provide a comprehensive and compelling

blueprint for action. Our chief focus today must be to

hold governments accountable for their efforts to

implement these agreements. We must find ways to

ensure that the provisions that we have worked so hard to

negotiate and adopt do not remain mere words on paper.

A FOCUS ON IUU FISHING

To this end, we must ensure that all players abide by the

same rules. Fundamental fairness demands further

measures to eliminate "illegal, unreported and

unregulated" (IUU) fishing. The 2001 FAO

International Plan of Action on IUU Fishing, adopted at

the previous meeting of COFI, offers a toolkit for use by

6

❏ CURRENT CHALLENGES 

IN INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES

By John Turner, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International Enviromental and Scientific Affairs, 

U.S. Department of State

FOCUS
all FAO members, both in their general capacities as

states as well as in their more particular capacities as flag

states, port states, coastal states, and market states and as

members of regional fishery management organizations.

Many of these tools are readily available and cost

effective. For example, the International Monitoring,

Control, and Surveillance Network for Fisheries Related

Activities (MCS Network) is a worldwide association of

MCS professionals who assist each other in handling both

general matters and particular cases. COFI should

consider ways to promote further advances in MCS,

including through a conference or technical consultation

that would provide training opportunities for developing

countries, increase dialogue at the regional level, and

promote membership in the voluntary MCS Network.

The recent FAO expert meeting on port state controls has

produced valuable recommendations for COFI as well.

By inspecting vessels and withholding port privileges,

port states can help greatly in the fight against IUU

fishing. It is time to make port state regimes in fisheries

more stringent, perhaps through the development of

binding agreements at the regional or global level.

FAO also has the capacity to work with states that continue

to offer flags of convenience (and which serve as ports of

convenience) to make them more aware of their

responsibilities under the IPOAs and to assist them in

carrying out those responsibilities. Typically, such states fail

to exercise their responsibilities for the control of the vessels

that fly their flags, or fail to exercise controls over fish and

fish products landed in their ports. These practices

encourage unscrupulous fishers to continue IUU fishing.

As the international community uses the toolkit to solve

IUU problems, the most useful tool may be a mirror,

however. In this mirror, each of us can see that nationals

and vessels from all states engage in IUU fishing and that all

FAO members can do more to eliminate it. We can also see,

conversely, that each of us is a victim of IUU fishing. In

short, all FAO members must recognize that the successful

control of IUU fishing will require cooperative and

coordinated action, rather than rhetoric that blames others

for the problems that result from IUU fishing.

SOME NEW ISSUES AND APPROACHES

CITES-FAO. For nearly three years, FAO has been

working with the Convention on International Trade in

Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to

help develop appropriate listing criteria for commercially

traded fish species. FAO and CITES must enhance this

cooperation further on issues of mutual concern. COFI

will have the opportunity to give initial approval to a

draft memorandum of understanding for CITES-FAO

cooperation as well as approve a draft work plan for FAO

developed at the last meeting of the COFI Subcommittee

on Fish Trade. 

Enhanced cooperation with FAO will make CITES a more

effective regime for stopping illegal trade in certain fisheries

products, particularly from fisheries not currently under the

purview of a regional fishery management organization.

Cooperation with FAO will also allow better scientific

analysis to inform CITES decisions on the listing of fish

species and provide additional capacity building

opportunities for developing countries on science and lawenforcement issues. The recent listing of two sharks species

and all seahorses on Appendix II of CITES underscores the

importance of FAO involvement in CITES activities to

ensure that sustainable fisheries principles are incorporated

into the work of CITES. COFI should therefore approve

the MOU and work plan and direct FAO to undertake

inter-session work with CITES.

Status and Trends Reporting. COFI should also move

forward on the FAO Draft Strategy for improving

information on the status and trends of capture fisheries,

which will better guide the conservation and management

of fisheries within ecosystems. The Draft Strategy

combines a number of initiatives, including increased

capacity building for developing countries in science and

data collection, broadening and deepening the scope of

FAO fisheries statistics to include fish stocks and

ecosystems not currently covered, and a push for a global

inventory of fish stocks. Effective implementation of the

strategy will require substantial coordination within the

FAO Fisheries Department, among donor states, and

with interested donor organizations.

Ecosystem Approach. In the same vein, COFI should

maintain the momentum created by the 2001 Reykjavik

Conference on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine

Ecosystem. The World Summit on Sustainable

Development called for application of the "ecosystem

approach" to fisheries management by 2010, drawing on

the guidance for applying the ecosystem approach

contained in the Reykjavik Declaration and decision V/6

taken by the Conference of Parties to the Convention on

Biological Diversity. As recognized in the Reykjavik

Declaration, the ability of management regimes to

7
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 8

achieve this goal will depend first and foremost on

advancing scientific knowledge about marine ecosystems

in general and about the interaction of fish stocks with

other components of those ecosystems in particular. FAO

is developing guidelines to assist in this undertaking.

One aspect of the "ecosystem approach" that demands

urgent attention is the problem of "by-catch" in fisheries.

Too often, fishers unintentionally catch fish and other

marine animals that are not their real targets. We must

work with the fishers to make their gear and fishing

techniques more selective, particularly to avoid catching

species that are endangered or threatened, such as sea

turtles and seabirds.

Responsible Aquaculture. COFI also has the

opportunity to promote the development of responsible

aquaculture, building on the ambitious agenda of the first

meeting of the FAO COFI Subcommittee on

Aquaculture, held in Beijing in April 2002. Through

COFI, FAO can make progress in dealing with issues of

human and animal health associated with aquaculture

and in maximizing the contribution of aquaculture to

rural development. To make such progress, there must be

improved data collection and reporting on aquaculture

products.

In this regard, states in the Inter-American region are

developing a formal cooperative mechanism on

aquaculture issues, with assistance from both FAO and

the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. This

cooperative mechanism could follow the model provided

by the Network of Aquaculture Centers in Asia, a treatybased technical cooperation network in Southeast Asia

that has contributed greatly to the sustainable expansion

of aquaculture in that region. To further this effort, FAO

member states from the Americas could meet on the

margins of COFI at the political level.

IMPROVING THE TRADING SYSTEM

Subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing

must end. In the 2001 World Trade Organization

(WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, and in other

fora, the international community has made the

commitment to reduce these harmful subsidies. Most

recently, at the World Summit on Sustainable

Development, leaders committed "to eliminate subsidies

that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated

fishing and to over-capacity while completing the efforts

undertaken at WTO to clarify and improve its disciplines

on fisheries subsidies, taking into account the importance

of this sector to developing countries." FAO held an

expert consultation on government financial transfers in

December. 

The time may also be ripe for FAO to consider once

again the difficult issue of "ecolabeling" of fisheries

products, building on groundwork laid by the FAO

Subcommittee on Fish Trade. Ecolabeling schemes have

been proliferating, without particular guidance from

FAO. Now, however, both importing and exporting

states support renewed FAO attention to this matter.

CAPACITY BUILDING FOR DEVELOPING

COUNTRIES

FAO members must do more to help developing

countries fulfill their commitments. FAO has recently

sought to organize the extra-budgetary contributions it

receives on implementation of the Code of Conduct for

Responsible Fisheries into a comprehensive program

known as FishCODE. Several donor countries have now

made specific contributions to the FishCODE program,

which offers a way to rationalize donor activities in FAO

and reduce overlap and gaps in work. Through COFI,

FAO should also extend its outreach to donor

institutions, in particular the World Bank and Global

Environment Facility. 

The recent entry into force of the 1995 UN Fish Stocks

Agreement has provided a new opportunity to channel

assistance to developing countries that are parties to that

treaty. The 2002 UNGA Fisheries resolution on the Fish

Stocks Agreement calls upon FAO to take an active role

in the development of a voluntary trust fund to promote

implementation of the agreement by developing states

parties. COFI should support this activity and encourage

the Secretariat to continue sending a representative to

informal meetings of parties where this trust fund is to be

discussed. Work in this area will encourage more

developing states to ratify the Fish Stocks Agreement and

to do their part in the achievement of sustainable fisheries

worldwide. ❏
9

A number of practices are responsible for overfishing, and

payment of government subsidies to the fisheries sector is

clearly one of them, according to Alice Mattice of the Office

of the U.S. Trade Representative. Mattice argues in this

article that World Trade Organization negotiations offer the

best opportunity for imposing discipline on fishing subsidies.

In November 2001, trade ministers from more than 140

countries met at the Fifth Ministerial meeting of the

World Trade Organization (WTO) in Doha, Qatar, to

establish an ambitious agenda for new global trade talks.

Among the decisions made in Doha was to begin

negotiations that "aim to clarify and improve WTO

disciplines on fisheries subsidies, taking into account the

importance of this sector to developing countries." The

negotiations mark a considerable milestone for the WTO.

For the first time, not only traditional trade concerns but

also concerns for environmental conservation and

sustainable development have played a major role in the

launch of a trade negotiation. 

The fisheries subsidy negotiations have broad support,

not only from the United States and other developed

countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Iceland,

but also from a large number of developing countries —

a reflection of the critical role the fisheries sector plays in

supplying food and a source of livelihood for their

people. The importance of the negotiations was recently

underscored at the World Summit on Sustainable

Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, where

world leaders called for action on a number of fronts to

maintain or restore world fish stocks to sustainable levels,

including the elimination of harmful subsides. It should

be noted, however, that a limited number of key WTO

members (notably Japan, Korea and, to a lesser degree,

the European Union) continue to question the link

between subsidies and harm to the environment and

sustainable development.

THE SUBSIDIES PROBLEM AND WHY THE 

WTO IS ADDRESSING IT 

There can be little doubt that overcapacity in the world

fishing fleet is a major cause of the depletion of the

world's fish stocks. Simply put, there are "too many

boats chasing too few fish."

There has been some debate, however, concerning the

contribution subsidies make to the problem.

Overcapacity and overfishing have many causes,

prominently including ineffective fisheries management

regimes in many cases. Beginning in the mid-1990s,

however, fisheries experts and intergovernmental

organizations began increasingly to recognize the role of

subsidies.

Shortly after the founding of the WTO, its Committee

on Trade and Environment (CTE) — a non-negotiating

body created to explore the environmental implications 

of trade — began discussions on the role government

subsidies play in the fisheries sector. During the same

period, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization

(FAO) began to give considerable attention to the role 

of subsidies. The FAO in 1999 adopted a voluntary

International Plan of Action on the Management of

Fishing Capacity, which called upon FAO members to

reduce and progressively eliminate subsidies contributing

to overcapacity. Meanwhile, studies by other

intergovernmental organizations, including the World

Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) and the Asia Pacific Economic

Cooperation (APEC) forum, attempted to estimate the

levels of subsidies worldwide. Environmental nongovernmental organizations such as the World Wildlife

Fund also identified work on subsidies as a high priority

and pressed for the WTO to address the issue.

While there are many gaps in the data and difficulties in

interpreting them, widely accepted (and conservative)

estimates place global fishing subsidies in the range of

$10 billion to $15 billion annually — possibly more than

25 percent of the annual $56 billion trade in fish.

Subsidies at these high levels certainly exacerbate

❏ ELIMINATING FISHING SUBSIDIES 

TO PROMOTE CONSERVATION

By Alice Mattice, Director for Trade and Environmental Policy Planning, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

❏ ELIMINATING FISHING SUBSIDIES 

TO PROMOTE CONSERVATION

By Alice Mattice, Director for Trade and Environmental Policy Planning, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 10

management failures. Such subsidies operate to reduce

fixed and variable costs, enhance revenues, and mitigate

risks. They therefore encourage even more added effort

and investments in overfished and depleted fisheries,

which tend to predominate in the developed world.

Moreover, once a fishery is overfished, subsidized vessels

turn to previously unexploited or uneconomic fisheries or

go further offshore, often to the fishing grounds of

developing countries. While these countries may wish to

develop their own fisheries, they are hindered from doing

so by overfishing on the part of subsidized distant-water

fleets and by a lack of law-enforcement resources to

effectively monitor fishing in their waters.

While the problem of overfishing and overcapacity is

obviously a multifaceted one, the WTO is the body with

the expertise on subsidies and the ability to impose

binding disciplines on them. The WTO therefore has an

important role to play in helping to address one part of

the puzzle. At the same time, the WTO must remain

within its core competency, and its efforts should be

carefully coordinated with other fisheries work in the

FAO, regional fisheries management organizations and

other fora with appropriate expertise. 

CURRENT ISSUES AND STATUS

The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing

Measures already prohibits certain subsidies (particularly

those directly designed to promote exports) and

establishes some controls over most others. However, the

existing rules have not limited trade-distorting fishery

subsidies and clearly do not adequately address subsidies

that can contribute to the actual depletion of the resource

and consequent denial of access to producers from other

countries. Nor are they well equipped to address

problems with an exhaustible natural resource that

migrates across jurisdictional boundaries. The

negotiations now under way will seek to identify the gaps

in WTO rules and suggest possible solutions.

One important issue in the negotiations will be to find

ways to distinguish between harmful subsidies that

contribute to overcapacity and subsidies that do not.

Many government programs — such as those that

support sound environmental conservation and welldesigned "buy-backs" aimed at decommissioning fishing

vessels — may help to eliminate overcapacity or

overfishing.

Negotiations now under way in the WTO Negotiating

Group on Rules are at a preliminary stage. The objective

of proponents of improved rules is to suggest concrete

ways to move forward by the time of the WTO

ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September

2003. The negotiations are scheduled to conclude in

2005. The United States continues its efforts to address

overfishing concurrently on other fronts in the FAO,

regional fisheries management organizations, and other

appropriate fora. ❏
11

Multinational cooperation is essential in enforcing

conservation of fisheries over the vast distances of the ocean,

says Commander John Davis, chief of fisheries enforcement

for the U.S. Coast Guard. Davis describes how U.S.

cooperation with Russian and Chinese authorities has

achieved a steep drop in illegal driftnet fishing in the North

Pacific.

Preventing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)

fishing on the high seas is a daunting task. Vast areas of

ocean to monitor, enforcement resource limitations, and

the sheer number of fishing vessels plying the seas only

make the situation worse. The result of illegal fishing is

further depletion of the world's fish stocks, natural

resources and food reserves. No single nation can stamp

out IUU fishing. If nations work together and unify

their enforcement efforts, however, IUU fishing can be

deterred in many regions.

A shining example of this sort of international

cooperation is the North Pacific Anadromous Fish

Commission. The cooperation, planning and

commitment of enforcement resources by all member

states are a model for all other regional fisheries

management organizations to follow.

The Convention for Conservation of Anadromous Stocks

in the North Pacific Ocean, signed in February 1992 and

entered into force in February 1993, created the North

Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission to promote

conservation of anadromous stocks — fish that are born

in fresh water, migrate to the ocean to grow as adults, and

then return to fresh water to spawn — as well as

ecologically related species in the North Pacific.

Commission contracting parties are Canada, Japan,

Russia, and the United States. In addition to

conservation of anadromous fish stocks, commission

member states also work closely together to enforce the

1991 United National General Assembly moratorium on

large-scale high-seas driftnet fishing, prohibiting the use

of nets greater than 2.5 kilometers in length.1 These

“curtains of death” have a devastating impact on marine

life, from whales to sea birds to the anadromous species

that the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission was

chartered to conserve.

The commission is the only regional organization whose

charter specifically addresses enforcement agency

interoperability. The cooperative enforcement efforts of

the parties have been successful in reducing illegal fishing

operations within the Convention Area2 from the 1998

high of 24 known vessels to virtually no known IUU

fishing over the past few years. This type of

multinational enforcement cooperation is the key to

future protection of the world's natural resources.

PLANNING AND COORDINATION OF

ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES

Planning and coordination of enforcement activities

within the Convention Area is the responsibility of the

Committee on Enforcement. This committee holds

annual workshops to coordinate patrol activities and to

confirm notification procedures in the event illegal

fishing activity is discovered. The results of these

workshops are evident during the peak fisheries period for

high-seas driftnet enforcement operations. Canadian CP140 and U.S. Coast Guard C-130 aircraft deploy out of

Alaska to patrol the Convention Area, frequently with

enforcement agents of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries

Service on board. Furthermore, during the Canadian

CP-140 deployments, a Canadian Department of

National Defense officer also works out of the U.S. Coast

Guard office in Juneau to coordinate patrols and response

to sightings.

Enforcement interoperability of the parties was further

enhanced in 2001 when a Joint Operations Information

Coordination Group was established to exchange

enforcement-related information for protection of salmon

resources and prevent high-seas driftnet fishing in the

Convention Area. The group comprises designated

enforcement officials of each of the North Pacific

Anadromous Fish Commission parties. Coordination

Group points of contact communicate with each other at

least once each month to ensure open lines of

❏ HOW INTERNATIONAL ENFORCEMENT COOPERATION 

DETERS ILLEGAL FISHING IN THE NORTH PACIFIC

By Commander John Davis, Chief, Fisheries Enforcement Division, U.S. Coast Guard
communications and to coordinate dissemination of

information with appropriate government agencies or

entities.

Continual evaluation and improvement of enforcement

activities was further enhanced with the establishment of

an Enforcement Procedures Working Group in October

2002. This group has begun work on threat analysis and

vessel profiling. The U.S. Coast Guard has been the

primary agency providing threat assessment information

to the Enforcement Committee, using past fishing

activity, market conditions, political factors, and deterrent

measures to determine the threat level in the Convention

Area for each year. The Coast Guard has also developed a

CD-ROM for all parties that contains photographs of

research, enforcement, and high-seas driftnet vessels. The

group is working towards integrating information from

all parties into the threat assessments and vessel profiling

data.

China provides ancillary enforcement support within the

Convention Area although it is not a signatory to the

Convention. The Chinese cooperate with the United

States by way of a 1993 Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU) that established a boarding/shiprider agreement.

This agreement provides non-flag-state enforcement

authority and establishes boarding procedures for lawenforcement officials of either country to board U.S.- or

China-flagged vessels suspected of illegal driftnet fishing

on the high seas. The MOU allows Chinese fisheries

enforcement officials to embark on U.S. Coast Guard

cutters during each driftnet season.

As a bilateral enforcement agreement, the MOU

facilitates and expedites investigations of suspicious vessels

when they are encountered on the high seas. Chinese

shipriders have been based in Kodiak, Alaska, every year

since 1994 and have been instrumental in a number of

high-seas driftnet boardings and seizures. These

shipriders participate in Coast Guard C-130 high-seas

driftnet surveillance flights and deploy on Coast Guard

cutters responding to high-seas driftnet vessel sightings.

SUCCESSES IN ENFORCEMENT

Multinational enforcement cooperation by parties of the

North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission has enabled

remarkable success in interdicting and deterring illegal

large-scale high-seas driftnet fishing. In 1998, four of 24

vessels suspected of such driftnet fishing sighted in the

Convention Area were interdicted and seized by U.S.

Coast Guard and Russian Federal Border Service vessels.

In 1999, three of 10 vessels suspected of illegal driftnet

fishing sighted within the Convention Area were

interdicted and seized through the coordination of

Canadian, Russian, American, and Chinese enforcement

resources. In 2001 only one vessel was sighted,

interdicted, and seized for illegal fishing operations in the

Convention Area, and in 2002, none, although one vessel

was detected fishing illegally just outside the Convention

Area and inside the Russian 200-mile exclusive economic

zone (EEZ). The Russian Federal Border Service

interdicted that vessel.

The following cases demonstrate the international

cooperation necessary to interdict and seize vessels

engaging in illegal fishing operations over the past three

years:

• On April 18, 1999, a Canadian surveillance aircraft

observed a fishing vessel conducting large-scale high-seas

driftnet fishing operations approximately 500 nautical

miles southwest of Attu, Alaska. The following day, the

vessel was sighted with 10 miles of a net in the water.

That information was passed to the U.S. Coast Guard

and the Russian Federal Border Service. On April 19, 

the Coast Guard Cutter Rush intercepted the vessel,

identified as the Russian-flagged Lobana-1. During the

boarding, seven tons of salmon were discovered. On

April 21, custody of the Lobana-1 was transferred to the

Russian Federal Border Service vessel Brest for

enforcement action.

• On April 25, 1999, the Coast Guard Cutter Rush

observed the Ying Fa, flying China's flag, conducting

driftnet fishing operations approximately 800 nautical

miles southwest of Attu. The Ying Fa was boarded under

the authority of the U.S.-China boarding/shiprider MOU

with the assistance of a Chinese shiprider on the Rush.

The boarding revealed 6.2 tons of salmon and a 10-mile

driftnet. The master stated he intended to fish until 

40-50 tons of salmon were caught. The government of

China refuted the registration claim of the Ying Fa, and 

it was assimilated to a vessel without nationality, seized,

and escorted to Adak, Alaska, for enforcement action

under U.S. law.

• On May 1, 1999, a U.S. Coast Guard C-130

surveillance flight observed the Tayfun-4 conducting

large-scale high-seas driftnet fishing operations 450

nautical miles southwest of Attu, Alaska. The Coast

Guard Cutter Rush intercepted and boarded the Russian12
flagged vessel on May 3 and discovered two tons of

salmon. On May 6 custody of the Tayfun-4 was

transferred to the Russian Federal Border Service vessel

Barrs for enforcement action.

• On May 12, 2000, the Coast Guard, with authorization

from the government of Honduras, seized the Honduranflagged fishing vessel Arctic Wind for illegal driftnet

fishing within the Convention Area. At least three

driftnets totaling 20 miles were left behind by the Arctic

Wind, and one whale was entangled in the net. The

Arctic Wind was sold at auction for $226,600. More

than half of the vessel's catch proved to be salmon from

Alaskan spawning areas as determined by National

Marine Fisheries Service genetic testing.

• On May 16, 2001, delegates from all parties attending

the annual North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission

enforcement coordination meeting participated in the

first high-seas driftnet patrol flight of the Convention

Area by a Coast Guard HC-130 aircraft patrol staged out

of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia. A trawler

converted into a driftnet-fishing vessel — later identified

as the Russian-flagged Sakhfrakt-3 — was observed

driftnet fishing 15 nautical miles inside the Russian EEZ

just outside the Convention Area. The Russian Federal

Border Service ship Dzerzhinsky was contacted and

immediately diverted to intercept the Sakhfrakt-3. Upon

boarding, the Federal Border Service found the vessel was

equipped for driftnet fishing, having on board radio

buoys, five driftnets with a combined length of 17

nautical miles, processing equipment and shipping boxes.

The Dzerzhinsky directed the vessel to recover its

driftnets containing 1,460 salmon. The Sakhfrakt-3 was

escorted to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and charged with

multiple violations of Russian law. The master of the

Sakhfrakt-3 had his license to fish suspended for three

years and was fined 1.2 million rubles (approximately

US$41,000).

• In 2002, Canadian surveillance flights detected three

vessels matching the profile of a driftnet vessel.

Investigation revealed that one of the vessels, the MYS

Nord, was a large-scale driftnet vessel operating just

inside the Russian EEZ. Canada provided copies of the

MYS Nord evidence package to the North Pacific

Anadromous Fish Commission parties in May 2002.

Russia conducted an investigation of the MYS Nord and

found no evidence of high-seas driftnet fishing although

it proposed to include the vessel in the North Pacific

Anadromous Fish Commission database of suspected

large-scale high-seas driftnet vessels. 

CONCLUSION

Activity in the high-seas driftnet high-threat area has been

quiet in 2001 and 2002. Although this may be due in

part to deteriorating global salmon market conditions,

aggressive enforcement coordination by North Pacific

Anadromous Fish Commission parties and wellpublicized interdiction successes over the past three years

undoubtedly have been significant deterrents to illegal

high-seas fishing activity. This multinational enforcement

cooperation is necessary to overcome the vast ocean

distances and jurisdictional issues associated with illegal

fishing on the high seas. The commission continues to

improve and refine its enforcement success and is an

excellent model for other regional fisheries management

organizations aiming to protect the oceans’ valuable

natural resources. ❏

1. In support of this resolution, the United States enacted The High

Seas Drift Net Enforcement Act.

2. The Convention Area is defined as “the waters of the North Pacific

Ocean and its adjacent seas, north of 33 degrees north latitude beyond

200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the

territorial sea is measured.”

Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 13
14

Overfishing can not only reduce the stocks of targeted and

non-targeted species but also wreak havoc with the marine

ecosystem, according to Angela Somma of the National

Marine Fisheries Service of the U.S. Department of

Commerce. Moreover, she says, overfishing and

mismanagement of fisheries cost billions of dollars a year in

potential revenue to the industry while government subsidies

to unsustainably large fishing fleets cost billions more. 

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, world marine and

inland capture fisheries production increased steadily, on

average by as much as 6 percent per year. In the 1980s,

the rate of growth slowed considerably, and in the 1990s

harvests leveled off. Around 1990, global fish production

plateaued at about 100 million tons annually and hasn't

moved much in the succeeding years. While aquaculture

output continued to grow, yields from fisheries harvesting

wild stocks from the oceans and inland waters were

uneven and began to stagnate. A consensus emerged that

the stagnation was the result of widespread overfishing.

This paper examines the environmental and economic

costs of that overfishing.

Over the past decade, it became increasingly clear that

fisheries resources that were once thought of as nearly

inexhaustible had been severely overfished as one fishery

after another experienced serious decline. The onceabundant fisheries of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod in

New England and eastern Canada were decimated, giant

tuna species in the Atlantic were depressed to levels that

jeopardized rebuilding, and several species of Pacific and

Atlantic salmon were placed on the U.S. endangered

species list. And the problem persists. In October 2002,

an international scientific advisory commission

recommended that all fisheries targeting cod in the North

Sea, Irish Sea and waters west of Scotland be closed.

Overfishing has obvious detrimental effects on the stocks

being overharvested, but it can also harm the ecosystem

in which those stocks live and cause economic hardship

to fishermen and their communities.

The problem of overfishing is widespread throughout

both the developed and developing worlds. The United

Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

estimates that of the major marine fish stocks or groups

of stocks for which information is available, 47-50

percent are fully exploited, 15-18 percent are overexploited, and 9-10 percent have been depleted or are

recovering from depletion. Thus, close to 75 percent of

the world's major fisheries are fully exploited, or worse.1

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF

OVERFISHING

The environmental consequences of overfishing are many

and include reduced harvests of the targeted fish;

excessive unintentional harvest of non-targeted,

undersized or protected species, and ecosystems changes.

Persistent overfishing can lead to the elimination of the

largest and oldest individuals from a population or stock.

Overfished populations are characterized by lessproductive fish that eventually lead to a decline in stocks.

In the United States, recent average yields of all U.S.

fisheries resources are roughly 60 percent of the best

estimate of long-term potential yield from these

resources.2

Alternatively, if overfishing is curtailed and fishery

resources sustainably managed, fisheries become more

productive, the cost per fish harvested declines, and

harvests rise substantially. For example, in 1999 the

International Commission for the Conservation of

Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) established a 10-year rebuilding

program for overfished North Atlantic swordfish. Catch

reductions were integral to stock recovery. Four years

into the rebuilding program, the stock size is estimated to

be at 94 percent of its healthy level. With the program

well on track, ICCAT was able to increase catch levels at

its 2002 meeting.

Harvest of non-targeted animals, or bycatch, is estimated

to constitute about one-quarter of the global fish catch.

Bycatch comprises all of the animals that are caught but

not wanted or used, or are required to be discarded by

❏ THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES AND 

ECONOMIC COSTS OF DEPLETING THE OCEANS

By Angela Somma, Natural Resource Specialist, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service
management regulation. It may include specially

protected species such as marine mammals or endangered

species, juvenile individuals too small to be marketed, or

other species of fish without commercial or recreational

value to the fisher. The unwanted species are usually

discarded, often dead, either at sea or on shore. Various

types of fishing gear are non-selective and can ensnare

unwanted catch. Purse seine nets can catch juvenile fish

and marine mammals such as dolphins. Longlines catch

seabirds, sea turtles, and non-targeted fish along with the

targeted catch. Gillnets can also catch seabirds, and lost

or discarded gillnets can continue to catch and kill

marine animals through what is known as "ghost fishing."

Trawls are a particularly non-selective type of gear and

can take considerable bycatch of many different species.

In addition, concern is also growing about the changes

trawls can make to fish habitat. They are often dragged

along the bottom of the seabed and may damage habitat.

Overfishing can have broader adverse effects on the

ecosystem as well. As noted above, in the 1990s total

world catch reached a plateau. In some cases, this plateau

in production was maintained by changes in species

composition and by "fishing down the food chain." Top

predatory species tend to be fished for first. Once

depleted, fishing moves down the food chain and can

simplify the marine ecosystem. This, along with

environmental changes to important habitat areas, can

affect future fish production levels.

Overfishing can cause changes in marine food webs,

adversely affecting other species. For example, the decline

of Steller sea lions in Alaska has been attributed in part to

overfishing of the Stellers' main food sources: pollock,

cod, and mackerel. Overfishing also has the potential to

indirectly change ecosystems such as coral reef

ecosystems. When plant-eating fish are removed from

coral reef ecosystems, grazing is reduced, allowing the

algae that coexist with corals to flourish and potentially

take over, especially if the water contains high levels of

nitrogen. Because they often reduce light that enters the

water, these algae contribute to the loss of corals, which

depend upon light.

ECONOMIC COSTS

In addition to the numerous environmental costs,

overfishing has significant economic costs as well. If

fishery resources were sustainably managed, total harvests

could rise an additional 10 million metric tons, adding

$16 billion to worldwide gross revenues annually.3 In the

United States, rebuilding currently overfished stocks and

preventing overfishing in other fisheries could generate an

additional $2.9 billion in revenue each year.4 Current

revenues are $3.0-3.5 billion. Thus, sustainably

managing marine fisheries in the United States' 200-mile

exclusive economic zone (the source of most of the U.S.

catch) could nearly double revenues in this sector of the

economy.

Ineffective management and overfishing have caused the

fishing industry to underperform. In 1992, the FAO

estimated that worldwide revenue at first-hand sales was

approximately $70 billion while the total operating cost

for the world's fishing fleet was $85 billion. Thus, the

fleet was operating at an annual deficit of $15 billion.5

The operating deficit can be traced to marked growth in

the world's fleet between 1979 and 1989 — estimated by

FAO to have increased by 322 percent without a

concomitant increase in the resource.6 In fact, during this

period world fisheries harvests grew at only about half the

rate as the fleets, causing overcapacity in the world's

fishing fleet. Overcapacity in fisheries in which anyone

can participate often leads to "derby" fishing in which all

the fishers attempt to catch as much as they can as

quickly as they can before the quota is reached. This

often creates a temporary market glut and lowers prices

for fishers while creating longer-term supply problems for

buyers. It also leads to overcapacity in the processing

sector and reduces economic benefits to consumers.

Excessive bycatch, which often accompanies overfishing,

imparts economic costs on the sector as well. Those

economic costs include reduced food production in

fisheries directed at the adult species of juveniles

discarded in another fishery, reduced employment in

fisheries and processing plants, and corresponding losses

to fishery-dependent communities. 

The fishing sector is not the only sector to experience

economic costs associated with overfishing. There can be

significant costs to the public as well. A recent study by

the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) found that the cost of fisheries

services among the 30 OECD member governments

(research, management, and enforcement services)

accounts for approximately 36 percent of total

government financial transfers to the fisheries sector.7

The cost of those services totaled approximately $2.5

billion in 1999.8 It is difficult to know how much of this

cost is attributable to overfishing, but as stocks become

15
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 16

overfished, management regulations generally become

increasingly complex with greater need for enforcement,

thus increasing costs to the public sector to manage these

dwindling resources.

The costs to the public of providing subsidies to the

fishing sector are receiving ever-greater attention.

Worldwide, subsidies to the fishing sector are estimated

to cost somewhere between $14 billion and $20 billion

annually.9 Subsidies that reduce fixed and variable costs

or increase revenues distort trade and undermine

competition in global seafood markets. Because of

subsidies, the level of production is higher, resulting in

decreases in prices. As a species becomes overfished,

reduction in supplies can eventually lead to higher prices.

The costs of reducing overcapacity, if borne by the public

through publicly funded vessel buyback programs, can be

substantial as well. In the United States, all but one

buyback program in 1994-2002 was federally funded, at

a total cost of $65 million.10 A recent study of the costs

of a buyback program to eliminate overcapacity in five

federally managed fisheries in the United States (New

England and West Coast groundfish, East Coast

swordfish, Atlantic longline shark, and Gulf of Mexico

shrimp fisheries) estimated those costs to total $999.6

million.11

Clearly, overfishing has substantial economic as well as

environmental costs. Stopping overfishing and allowing

the stocks to rebuild would increase the productivity of

the stocks and maximize revenues to the industry in the

long run. Such action is necessary to stabilize both the

resource and the industry. ❏

1. FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Agriculture, 2000.

2. NMFS, Our Living Oceans: Report on the Status of U.S. Living

Marine Resources, 1999, June 1999, pg. 43.

3. FAO, Marine Fisheries and the Law of the Sea: A Decade of Change,

in The State of Food and Agriculture, 1992, pg. 29-30 (using 1989

global fisheries data).

4. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, NOAA Strategic Plan: A Vision for 2005, 1996, pg. 89.

5. FAO, World Fisheries Situation, 1992, pg. 7.

6. S.M. Garcia and C. Newton, "Current Situation, Trends and

Prospects in World Capture Fisheries," paper presented at the

Conference on Fisheries Management, Global Trends, Seattle, 14-16,

June 1994, pp. 20-21.

7. OECD, Fisheries Management Costs Study: Experiences and

Insights from OECD Countries, 2002, pg. 5.

8. Ibid, pg. 6.

9. Milazzo, Matteo, Subsidies in World Fisheries, A Reexamination,

1998, pg. 73.

10. NMFS, Draft United States National Plan for the Management 

of Fishing Capacity, November 2002, pg. 15.

11. NMFS, The Estimated Vessel Buyback Program Costs to Eliminate

Overcapacity in Five Federally Managed Fisheries, June 2002.
17

The past decade has seen a burst of international rules and

voluntary guidelines for fishing in coastal waters and on the

high seas. In this article David Balton, director of the State

Department’s Office of Marine Conservation, summarizes

developments from the 1992 U.N. Conference on

Environment and Development to the 2002 U.N. World

Summit for Sustainable Development.

Profound changes have reshaped the world of marine

fisheries in the past decade. In the early 1990s, the

international community was forced to recognize that the

capacity of harvesting operations in many key fisheries

had outpaced both the reproductive capacities of those

resources as well as the tools being used by governments

and international organizations to regulate those fisheries

to achieve sustainability. Unresolved jurisdictional

disputes between states over certain valuable fish stocks

were producing heightened conflict and inhibiting

effective conservation.

The 1992 Cancun Conference on Responsible Fishing

and the 1992 United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development (UNCED) set in motion

a series of steps designed to address these problems. At

the global level, these included the negotiation of two

new treaties to regulate ocean fisheries as well as the

adoption of a non-binding “code of conduct.” The

United Nations established a moratorium on the use of

large-scale driftnets (longer than 2.5 kilometers) on the

high seas, which became effective in 1993. Several new

regimes governing ocean fisheries in specific regions have

also arisen.

The international community has developed some

additional measures to address more particular concerns,

including non-binding instruments aimed at reducing

fishing capacity, conserving sharks, minimizing by-catch

of seabirds in long-line fisheries, and combating illegal

fishing.

A number of regional fisheries management organizations

have also taken steps to control fisheries in their

respective regions more effectively. Some of these

organizations now require their members to prohibit fish

from being landed or transshipped in their ports in

situations where the fish may have been harvested

illegally. Others require their members to restrict

international trade in such circumstances. Other trends

include calls for fisheries to be managed as part of

ecosystems, reduction and elimination of harmful

subsidies to the fisheries sector, and eco-labeling schemes.

A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS

Following is a brief summary of the major international

instruments, both binding and non-binding, that relate to

the management of ocean fisheries today. A number of

websites contain significantly more information,

including that of the Food and Agriculture Organization

of the United Nations (FAO), www.fao.org/fi/default.asp,

and the Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law,

www.oceanlaw.net/guide.htm.

1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. This

treaty, which entered into force in 1994, contains general

provisions for the governance of ocean fisheries. These

provisions have also served as the framework for

developing more specific rules in subsequent international

instruments.

In the decades leading up to the 1982 Convention, many

states had advanced new claims to jurisdiction over

significant ocean areas off their coasts. The 1982

Convention recognized this practice and codified the

status of the “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ). Under

the 1982 Convention, coastal states may claim EEZs

extending up to 200 miles (about 322 kilometers) from

their shores and may exercise full control over fisheries in

their EEZs. Because at least 90 percent of all marine

harvests occur within 200 miles of shore, the 1982

Convention effectively placed the vast majority of fishery

resources at the disposal of coastal states.

In exchange for this enormous benefit, coastal states have

certain responsibilities under the 1982 Convention. Each

coastal state must determine the allowable catch of living

resources in its EEZ, protect such resources against over-

❏ INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS 

FOR INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES

By David Balton, Director, Office of Marine Conservation, U.S. Department of State
18

exploitation, take certain measures to reduce by-catch,

promote optimum utilization of such resources,

determine its capacity to harvest such resources, and give

other states access to any surplus resources in its EEZ.

Beyond the EEZs lie the remaining high seas, which, if all

coastal states claimed EEZs out to 200 miles, would still

cover more than 21 percent of the earth’s surface and

approximately 70 percent of all ocean area. The 1982

Convention reaffirms the traditional right of all nations

for their nationals and vessels to fish on the high seas but

makes this right subject to a number of important,

though general, additional conditions.

The 1982 Convention authorizes each coastal state to

enforce its fishery laws within its EEZ against any vessels

that may be fishing there. Fishing vessels on the high

seas, generally speaking, remain under the exclusive

jurisdiction of the flag state (that is, the state in which the

vessel is registered), although the flag state may consent to

have enforcement action taken by another state.

FAO Compliance Agreement. This treaty — known

formally as the Agreement to Promote Compliance with

International Conservation and Management Measures

by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (the Compliance

Agreement) — was adopted by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1993. The

agreement has two primary objectives:

• to impose upon all states whose fishing vessels operate

on the high seas an array of obligations designed to make

the activities of those vessels consistent with conservation

and management needs;

• to increase the transparency of all high-seas fishing

operations through the collection and dissemination of

data about high-seas fishing vessels and their activities.

Perhaps the most groundbreaking aspects of the

agreement are three new rules contained in it regarding

high-seas fishing operations:

Rule #1: Each flag state must ensure that its vessels do

not engage in any activity that undermines the

effectiveness of international fishery conservation and

management measures, whether or not the flag state is a

member of the regional fishery organization that adopted

such measures.

Rule #2: No vessel is to be used for fishing on the high

seas without specific flag state authorization.

Rule #3: No flag state shall grant such authority to a

vessel unless the flag state is able to control the fishing

activities of that vessel.

These three rules represent a new vision for high-seas

fisheries. To abide by these rules, flag states must actively

oversee the high-seas fishing operations of their vessels.

They must decide case by case whether to authorize any

vessel to fish on the high seas. Most importantly, they

may not permit any vessel to fish on the high seas at all

unless they are able to prevent the vessel from

undermining agreed high-seas conservation rules.

In order for the Compliance Agreement to enter into

force, 25 states must deposit instruments of acceptance

with FAO. As of this writing, FAO has received only 23

instruments of acceptance.

U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement. This treaty — known

formally as the Agreement for the Implementation of the

Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law

of the Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the

Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks

and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks — also responded to a

recommendation arising out of UNCED, which called

for specific new measures to deal with problems of

“straddling” fish stocks and “highly migratory” fish

stocks.

Straddling fish stocks are those that cross between the

EEZs of one or more coastal states and into adjacent

high-seas areas. Among these are valuable stocks of cod

in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and pollock in the

Bering Sea. Highly migratory fish stocks are those that

migrate extensively across the high seas and through the

EEZs of many coastal states. Examples of this type are

tuna and swordfish.

The agreement builds upon certain basic provisions of the

1982 U.N. Convention relating to these two categories of

fish stocks with the aim of ensuring that they are

conserved and managed on a sustainable basis. Among

other notable features, the agreement prescribes a

precautionary approach to fishery management. This

approach generally calls upon fishery managers to proceed

cautiously in regulating fish harvests when information is

uncertain, unreliable, or inadequate. The absence of

adequate information is no reason to postpone (or to fail
19

to take) measures to conserve fish stocks. The agreement

also reinforces the roles played by regional fisheries

organizations in managing these stocks. In order for

states to have access to these fisheries, they must either

join the organizations or, at a minimum, apply the

fishing rules established by these organizations to their

own vessels. Disputes arising under the agreement are

subject to compulsory and binding dispute settlement.

The United Nations adopted the U.N. Fish Stocks

Agreement in 1995 after three years of negotiation. The

agreement entered into force in 2001 and, as of this

writing, has 32 parties.

FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. The

FAO adopted this comprehensive blueprint for the

management of fisheries in 1995. Although the code is

voluntary, certain parts of it are based on relevant rules of

international law, including those reflected in the 1982

U.N. Convention.

The code sets forth principles and standards applicable to

the conservation, management and development of all

fisheries. It also covers the capture, processing and trade

of fish and fishery products, fishing operations,

aquaculture, fisheries research and the integration of

fisheries into coastal area management.

Among the objectives of the code are:

• to establish principles for responsible fishing and

fisheries activities, taking into account all their relevant

biological, technological, economic, social, environmental

and commercial aspects;

• to establish principles and criteria for the elaboration

and implementation of national policies for responsible

conservation of fisheries resources and fisheries

management and development;

• to serve as an instrument of reference to help states

establish or improve the legal and institutional framework

required for the exercise of responsible fisheries and to

formulate and implement appropriate measures;

• to provide guidance that may be used where

appropriate in the formulation and implementation of

international agreements and other legal instruments,

both binding and voluntary;

• to facilitate and promote technical, financial and other

cooperation in conservation of fisheries resources and

fisheries management and development;

• to promote the contribution of fisheries to food

security and food quality, giving priority to the

nutritional needs of local communities;

• to promote protection of living aquatic resources and

their environments and coastal areas;

• to promote the trade of fish and fishery products in

conformity with relevant international rules and to avoid

the use of measures that constitute hidden barriers to

such trade;

• to promote research on fisheries as well as on associated

ecosystems and relevant environmental factors;

• to provide standards of conduct for all persons involved

in the fisheries sector.

FAO International Plans of Action. In 1999, FAO

adopted three non-binding instruments, known as

International Plans of Action (IPOAs), to address three

specific problems in ocean fisheries.

The most complex and far-reaching of these instruments

concerns the management of “fishing capacity” — the

ability (or capacity) of the world’s fishing fleet to harvest

fish in the oceans. Many studies have indicated that, on

a worldwide basis, total fishing capacity is too great and

must be reduced. There are simply too many vessels

chasing too few fish. Although excess capacity does not

exist in each individual fishery, the problem of excess

capacity is growing. Many key fish stocks cannot sustain

any increase in harvesting but face increased capacity

from new vessels and improved technology. The IPOA

on the Management of Fishing Capacity commits the

international community to address this problem and sets

standards for bringing fishing capacity in line with

sustainable fishing.

Another of these IPOAs concerns the conservation and

management of sharks while the other deals with the

problem of seabird by-catch in longline fisheries. A final

IPOA, adopted by FAO in 2001, concerns the growing

incidence of “illegal, unreported and unregulated”

fishing.
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 20

World Summit for Sustainable Development. Ten

years after UNCED, the world’s leaders met at the World

Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in

Johannesburg, South Africa, to review progress achieved

in meeting the goals of UNCED. WSSD produced a

new Plan of Implementation, which includes several

commitments related to international fisheries. The most

significant of these commitments is a call to rebuild

depleted fish stocks on an urgent basis and no later than

2015. ❏
21

The way the United States approaches negotiation and

implementation of fisheries agreements could serve as a

model, says Dean Swanson of the National Marine Fisheries

Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The inclusive,

transparent process means all the difference in achieving

results, he says.

A remarkable process has evolved in the United States for

negotiating and implementing international agreements

for the conservation and management of living marine

resources. It is remarkable for the close partnerships that

have evolved between federal agencies, Congress, state

governments, constituent groups, and the general public.

It is remarkable for a process wherein lead responsibility

for negotiations and implementation is constantly shifting

among key agencies. And it is remarkable for the

leadership exercised by the United States in achieving

good negotiated agreements over decades.

THE PARTNERSHIPS

A key ingredient to the inspiration, negotiation, and

implementation of international agreements is a

transparent and inclusive process. The inclusion of

constituent representatives at all stages of the negotiation

enriches the process itself, particularly in position

development, communication, and intelligence gathering.

It is not only because most such agreements will be

subject to the advice and consent to ratification of the

U.S. Senate that it is important to consult with

congressional staffs; working with these staffs ensures that

legislative programs are well informed and that a broader

constituent base is reached.

The partnerships nurtured between the Department of

State, the National Marine Fisheries Service of the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA Fisheries), and the U.S. Coast Guard are central

to negotiating these agreements. The State Department

provides negotiating authority and expertise; NOAA

Fisheries provides information on the state of the living

marine resource; and U.S. and foreign fishers provide

perspectives on implementation of the prospective

agreement, including aspects of enforcement. The U.S.

Coast Guard has primary responsibility for monitoring

and enforcing international agreements on living marine

resources on the water. In some cases, state governments

and U.S. native peoples also participate. Bringing

together these complementary responsibilities and sources

of expertise is the sine qua non of success in producing

these agreements.

SHIFTING RESPONSIBILITIES 

Creation of an international agreement is achieved in

three phases: pre-negotiation, negotiation, and

implementation.

In the pre-negotiation phase, the State Department

typically takes the lead, using its foreign policy authority

and responsibility for handling communication through

diplomatic channels to organize the negotiation activity,

collect intelligence, and coordinate the development of

U.S. positions. Among the involved federal agencies,

NOAA Fisheries provides information and expertise

regarding the resource and its users, implementation, and

enforcement while the U.S. Coast Guard provides advice

and expertise based on its enforcement responsibilities.

Representatives of these three agencies, other agencies,

state governments and constituent groups typically

become a team that plans for the negotiation and, with

congressional input, serves as the U.S. delegation during

the negotiation phase. Reaching agreement can take

anywhere from a single session to decades.

If such a negotiation concludes successfully,

implementing the agreement requires different

responsibilities. Legislation from Congress for

implementing the agreement usually confers living

marine resource conservation and management duties on

the secretary of commerce, who oversees NOAA Fisheries.

NOAA Fisheries typically drafts this legislation and

promulgates the regulations. Senior NOAA Fisheries

officials assume decision-making roles on behalf of the

U.S. government in any organization or arrangement

created by the new agreement, such as serving as a U.S.

❏ CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL

FISHERIES CONSERVATION AGREEMENTS

By Dean Swanson, Chief, International Fisheries Division, National Marine Fisheries Service
commissioner. While leadership shifts during the

implementation stage, the agencies and groups

participating in the process stay the same.

The monitoring and enforcement part of the

implementation process becomes a shared responsibility

with the U.S. Coast Guard responsible at sea and NOAA

Fisheries onshore. When violations occur, NOAA

Fisheries investigates and, in cooperation with the Coast

Guard and the Department of Justice, prosecutes the

cases. NOAA Fisheries collects data on the resource and

its utilization, providing conservation and management

activities with the best available scientific advice.

PRODUCTION OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL

AGREEMENTS

This team approach has produced numerous state-of-theart living marine resource conservation and management

agreements over recent decades. The approach evolved as

national jurisdiction over the seas was extended in the

1970s and 1980s. It evolved further in the 1990s as

fisheries management had to start considering

sustainability, food security and fair trade. One recent

effort to assess progress made over the last decade may 

be found online at:

www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/international/Reportcard_final.pdf.

By any reckoning, the transparent, inclusive approach 

to creating and implementing living marine resource

conservation and management agreements is a resounding

success. Intrinsic to it is recognizing and employing the

unique responsibilities and expertise of the involved

federal agencies, Congress, and a wide variety of privatesector organizations and individuals. Working together,

they will continue to secure the international cooperation

necessary to provide for the conservation and

management of living marine resources. ❏

Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 22
23

COMMENTARY

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations(FAO) has taken a number of steps to tackle the

problems of overfishing, says David Doulman of FAO's

Fisheries Department. Governments need to demonstrate the

political will to halt overfishing, he says. Developing

countries could well fall further behind developed countries as

management of fisheries becomes ever more complicated, he

says.

See FAO data on global fish stocks on page 36.

It is difficult to pinpoint a single overriding reason why

many of the world's marine capture fisheries — those

harvesting wild fish stocks in the oceans and seas — have

become so overfished. Rather, there is a suite of

interrelated reasons that have contributed to a greater or

lesser extent in different situations. Generally, these

reasons include:

• Access to a large share of the world's capture fisheries,

and in particular small-scale fisheries, remain open or

quasi-open. Even where efforts are made to manage these

fisheries, measures are often inadequate to limit or roll

back fishing effort. Moreover, management measures are

often poorly enforced with sanctions insufficiently severe

to discourage irresponsible fishing.

• Political support is lacking for unpopular decisions that

underlie fisheries management. Governments tend to

take a short-term view and defer difficult management

decisions because of their social and economic

consequences. Regrettably, such procrastination occurs

even in the face of declining catches and declining

financial returns.

• Fisheries biology has been the primary focus while

management of the fishers has received relatively little

attention. This syndrome continues despite widespread

recognition that the human dimension of fisheries

management and the need to promote behavioral change

on the part of fishers is essential.

• Capacity and institutional constraints, especially in

developing countries, restrict implementation of effective

management arrangements in capture fisheries.

However, capacity and institutional strengthening cannot

be pursued in isolation: They presuppose the existence of

a governance framework that will enable technical and

financial assistance efforts to take root and flourish.

• Fisheries management systems become centralized with

little stakeholder participation in decision making. It is

recognized widely, and certainly within FAO, that smallscale fisheries, especially in developing countries, cannot

be managed effectively through a centralized process. In

industrial fisheries, the merits of co-management have

been demonstrated, with fishers and industry groups

seizing the opportunity to participate in assessing and

developing management measures and in turn

monitoring their implementation. Where industry

groups contribute to determining research programs,

fishers and their organizations are usually willing to

contribute to their cost. However, bureaucrats

administering fisheries often find it difficult to work

comfortably in an environment where fishers, fishing

communities and industry groups share power in making

decisions about how fisheries should be managed.

• In fisheries where resources are shared and jointly

exploited on a regional basis, major differences among

participants in objectives and approach can inhibit

effective management. While the 1982 U.N. Convention

on the Law of the Sea underscores the duty of states to

cooperate in fisheries management, international

cooperation often falls short of the level required to

achieve rational and sustainable outcomes. Furthermore,

perceptions of what constitutes management vary

between parties to an arrangement, depending often on

their particular interests and pressures from fishers.

❏ SOME OBSERVATIONS ON DEVELOPMENTS

IN WORLD FISHERIES

By David J. Doulman, Senior Fishery Liaison Officer, Fisheries Department, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
• Fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) is

often inadequate. Only in the past five years has MCS

been recognized widely to be an integral part of fisheries

management and not a military or police function.

Without MCS there can be no certainty that predetermined management objectives will be realized.

MCS systems should be bolstered and enhanced through

the exchange of information, regional cooperation and

the introduction of cost-effective technologies such as

vessel monitoring systems. 

Regional fisheries are managed cooperatively through

regional fishery management organizations (RFMOs).

There is no realistic alternative approach. The 1995

U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement places RFMOs at center

stage for management of straddling fish stocks and

highly migratory fish stocks. RFMOs have to foster

cooperation among their member countries for adopting

and implementing management measures. Where

necessary, they have to encourage non-members to join or

at least refrain from engaging in activities that undermine

regional management efforts.

With a strong international focus on dealing effectively

with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing,

several RFMOs are taking positions against some of their

own members as well as non-members that would not

have been contemplated five years ago. So called "name

and shame" strategies adopted by RFMOs mean that the

polite, soft diplomatic measures of the past, where

members and other countries were not named, are no

longer in vogue. Information made available on the

Internet provides lists of vessels that have engaged in IUU

fishing, their flags and other related information. There

is evidence that making such information available

publicly has a positive impact on vessel and fleet behavior

and encourages some countries that offer "flags of

convenience" to rein in offending vessels that damage the

countries' reputation. 

FAO'S ROLE IN PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE

FISHERIES

FAO has a mandate to monitor and assess developments

in fisheries globally and to make this information

available to the international community. The

Organization must also promote responsible, long-term

sustainable outcomes in fisheries. To this end FAO

actively encouraged a number of important initiatives,

some of which include:

• The 1992 Cancùn Conference on Responsible

Fisheries, hosted by the government of Mexico, which

provided input for the 1992 U.N. Conference on

Environment and Development (UNCED), or "Earth

Summit."

• Conclusion of the 1993 FAO Compliance Agreement.

This seeks to ensure that all vessels operating on the 

high seas are properly authorized and that national and

international records of such vessels are maintained. This

Agreement is expected to take effect by mid-2003. It is

an integral component of the 1995 FAO Code of

Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

• Elaboration of the Code of Conduct. This voluntary

code takes a holistic approach to promoting responsibility

in fisheries by urging structural change in the fisheries

sector. It provides the umbrella for the FAO fisheries

work program and a reference point for the work of

national fishery administrations. Indeed, some countries

have adopted national codes of practice based on the

FAO Code.

• Conclusion of four international plans of action

(IPOAs) designed to address specific issues addressed 

by the Code of Conduct. These IPOAs concern

management of fishing capacity, management of sharks,

interaction between seabirds and longline fisheries, and

IUU fishing. FAO members are encouraged to implement

these IPOAs through national plans of action. Progress

by countries towards implementation has varied.

• More recently, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable

Development (WSSD) adopted the Johannesburg Plan of

Implementation. The plan sets deadlines for completing

certain actions, including 2015 for the restoration of

depleted stocks. Apart from providing goals for

achievement of certain outcomes, the plan presses the

international community to move towards greater

responsibility and sustainability in fisheries. FAO will

play a key role in this process.

POINTS TO PONDER

UNCED's Agenda 21 pointed out that 50 percent of the

world's population lived within 60 kilometers of a coast

in 1992 and that the proportion would increase to 75

percent by 2020. This population will put all living and

non-living resources in coastal zones under increasing

pressure. The poverty and job insecurity characteristic of

many fishing communities in developing countries will

24
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 25

therefore make implementing responsible practices in

fisheries and aquaculture all the more difficult.

About 90 percent of fishing activity takes place in areas

under national jurisdiction even though high-seas

fisheries remain important for exploiting certain highvalue stocks. Nonetheless, the most intense and severe

fisheries management problems are to be found in the

200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs). This

situation will not change in the foreseeable future. A

focus on management of these fisheries, which are critical

for food security, is necessary.

In developing countries, inshore and inland capture

fisheries are the main source of protein for many of the

world's poor and socially disadvantaged. Under current

scenarios of resource usage, expectations are that, despite

the resilience of fish stocks, capture fisheries production

will continue to drift downwards. Despite growth in

aquaculture production, fish prices for the poor are likely

to go up, thereby increasing food security vulnerability

for the poor. 

Fisheries management is becoming much more

complicated. Countries with capacity and institutional

constraints are likely to lag ever further behind their more

affluent counterparts. Following are some of the concepts

now finding general international acceptance:

• ecosystem approach to fisheries management, which

involves taking into consideration the impacts of fisheries

on the marine ecosystem and the impact of the marine

ecosystem on fisheries, should be the baseline for

management;

• fisheries should be exploited in a precautionary

manner: That is to say that when there is uncertainity

about the effects of fishing on stocks and on the marine

ecosystem, caution should be exercised until better

information becomes available; and

• indicators should be used to measure progress towards

achieving responsible and sustainable fisheries. 

Although these concepts are relatively unambiguous in

theory, they are difficult to put into practice. Moreover,

they place a major additional burden on fisheries

administrators in collecting and analyzing data and then

developing and implementing management plans.

Developed countries occasionally point out the

implementation burden of the ecosystem approach to

management — additional stock assessments require

more staff development and training. Where does this

leave developing countries? One can reasonably conclude

that implementation of sophisticated new approaches to

fisheries management will further increase the alreadywide gap between developing and developed countries 

in management performance. 

Fisheries administrations are notorious for responding to

management problems only after they have become

entrenched. There is often a reluctance to take

responsible and pre-emptive measures to restrict fishing

effort because of the social and economic impact of such

action. For example, policy makers in some developed

countries are under intense political pressure not to

implement fleet reductions even though the science

demonstrates that current levels of fishing effort cannot

be sustained. To defer introduction of these reductions in

fishing capacity, even for five years, would be

irresponsible. Policy makers should stand firm and insist

on the reductions despite the political ramifications. By

taking such a position these policy makers will send a

positive signal to the international community that these

fisheries are ailing and in need of both preventive and

curative care. ❏

Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect

the views or policies of the U.S. government or of FAO or any of its

members.
26

Managing the world's fisheries in a sustainable way would

assure their productive capacity for the millions who work in

them and the many more who depend on them for food, says

Scott Burns of the World Wildlife Fund. What the oceans

need now, he says, are stronger management of migratory fish

stocks, reduction of fishing fleet overcapacity by eliminating

subsidies, and strict protection for the most biologically

important marine regions.

The fate of the earth's oceans is inextricably tied to U.S.

economic and national security interests. The oceans

provide a source of employment and income for millions

worldwide. When sustainable management of marine

resources is ignored, the long-term interests of coastal

communities suffer and the economic engine upon which

so many people depend is undermined. In major

fisheries around the world, critically important resources

are being depleted, and coastal economies threatened.

Managing marine resources sustainably, however, will

maximize economic return, strengthening local

communities and our national economy.

ASSESSING THE THREATS

As we look abroad, as ocean resources are depleted, we

have seen that competition between countries or sectors

intensifies and can trigger confrontations, including

violent ones. The recent incident at the maritime

boundary between North and South Korea — triggered

by a disagreement over access to fishing grounds — is a

case in point and underlines the strong U.S. interest in

peaceful resolution of maritime disputes around the

world. 

The well being of some of our country's most important

allies will be determined in part by how successful they

are in conserving ocean wildlife. The Philippines, for

example, is located at the heart of the world's most

biologically important coral region. Corals and the

remarkable diversity of ocean life they support are an

essential element in the Philippines economy. 

Yet, these critical coral communities are disintegrating,

part of a global collapse of coral ecosystems. Human

activities threaten nearly 90 percent of Southeast Asia's

coral reefs, jeopardizing their biological and economic

values to the local people. Left unchecked, this coral crisis

can only have a further destabilizing impact on coastal

nations in the tropics, nations that are already in some

cases politically and economically fragile.

ALARMING TRENDS

The trends in international fisheries are truly alarming.

Notable cases include depletion of bluefin tuna

populations worldwide, rampant — and often illegal —

overfishing of Patagonian toothfish populations, and

depletion of coastal fish populations in some of the

poorest regions of the world by distant-water vessels from

Europe and elsewhere.

In the United States, foreign fishing has a direct impact

on some of our most important fish populations. The

pollock, salmon, and other species caught in Alaska make

up roughly half the U.S. fish catch. Yet many of these

important fish populations are shared with Russia, and

illegal fishing in the Russian waters of the Bering Sea

poses a significant threat to the continued viability of

these fisheries.

As consumers, as employers, as citizens, we all depend on

oceans and their resources. The sea's bounty ranges from

the ubiquitous fish fillet sandwich to limulus amebocyte

lysate (LAL), a compound derived from the blood of

horseshoe crabs used to test all injectible drug products

and medical devices for the presence of endotoxin — a

bacterium that can be fatal to humans. 

If we use the sea wisely, the benefits it provides can

increase over time. Unfortunately, the threats facing

ocean wildlife and ecosystems have never been greater.

Of the world's major fisheries, more than 70 percent are

either overfished or fully exploited.

Addressing the problems of our oceans requires a shift in

priorities: a redoubled effort to strengthen the

❏ AMERICA’S STAKE IN THE CONSERVATION

OF FISHERIES AND THE OCEANS

By Scott Burns, World Wildlife Fund
international management of migratory fish populations,

new initiatives to create market signals that are consistent

with ocean sustainability, and a global program to protect

the most biologically important marine regions for future

generations. 

IMPROVING INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES

MANAGEMENT

For every example of effective fisheries management there

are too many cases of mismanagement, overfishing, and

depletion. There is no single formula or solution to this

problem. Wise fisheries management requires a

combination of political will, prudent thinking,

adherence to scientific advice, and a focus on what makes

sense over the long term rather than what is merely

expedient today. 

Unfortunately, current international fisheries

management regimes fall short of what's needed to

address these concerns. Acquiescence to overfishing is the

rule rather than the exception. In too many instances

fishery managers have chosen to maximize short-term

returns and put the long-term potential of the fisheries

they manage at risk. Recently, the United States played a

leadership role in shaping the new United Nations

agreement that governs fishing for highly migratory and

straddling fish stocks (the U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement).

The agreement embodies important principles meant to

assure the sustainability of fish stocks and the protection

of marine life and mandates new measures to promote

more effective and timely international cooperation and

assure transparency in decision-making. But present

regional fisheries conventions — and the organizations

that implement them — are often directly at odds with

the ideals of the U.N Fish Stocks Agreement.

The International Convention for the Conservation of

Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), for example, has been a vehicle

for mismanaging some of the Atlantic Ocean's most

valuable fish populations. The North Atlantic Salmon

Conservation Organization (NASCO) has regularly

ignored scientific advice and presided over the demise of

once-important commercial fisheries and the extinction

of many historic salmon runs.

The U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement also explicitly calls on

regional fisheries management organizations to do

business in a transparent fashion. These bodies have

done business behind closed doors for too long. A lack of 

public scrutiny has encouraged shortsighted decisionmaking. 

Exposing international fisheries governance to the light of

day can only help assure accountability and better protect

the fisheries resources.

The United States was one of the first major fishing

nations to ratify the U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement. Now

we have to put our money where our mouth is and take

steps to assure that this principle is incorporated — and

adhered to — in every international fishing body that 

we are party to.

What can be gained from more conservative management

of fish populations? More jobs, higher catches, healthier

oceans. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization

(FAO) has projected that fish catches could increase

significantly in the future if overfishing is reined in now. 

ADDRESSING THE IMPACT OF FISHING ON

THE ENVIRONMENT

The U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement and other international

instruments recognize the importance of reducing

fishing's harmful effects on ocean species and ecosystems.

Fishing's unintended consequences include an estimated

20 million tons of bycatch a year and in some cases the

destruction of habitats that serve as cornerstones of

marine productivity and biological diversity. For

example, bycatch is by far the most important threat to

populations of dolphins and other cetaceans.

Reducing bycatch and mitigating fishing's other impacts

on the environment makes business sense as well. In

many cases bycatch consists of commercially valuable fish

species, caught before they have reached marketable size.

In the Gulf of Mexico, for example, bycatch in shrimp

fisheries has played a major role in undermining red

snapper populations.

Fortunately, there are plenty of good examples of

fishermen and managers working together to solve

bycatch problems. In the eastern Pacific tuna fishery, the

bycatch of dolphins dropped by more than 98 percent

through a concerted effort by fishermen and regional

governments. If we set priorities for fisheries where

bycatch poses a major problem and work aggressively to

solve it, we can achieve similar results elsewhere.

27
28

This will only happen in international fisheries if relevant

conventions are modified to explicitly mandate bycatch

reduction and habitat protection — and if there is the

political will to assure that these new mandates are

actually carried out.

CREATING A HOSPITABLE ECONOMIC

ENVIRONMENT FOR OCEAN CONSERVATION

Conservation policies are most likely to be embraced if

they are in synch with the economic signals that shape

commercial behavior.

Today, though, economic incentives are more often than

not inconsistent with the stated objectives of current

ocean policy. This lack of harmony is most pronounced

in the fisheries sector, where economic incentives

encourage the expansion of fishing fleets that are already

too large and stimulate a race for fish that is neither

biologically sound nor economically prudent.

The United States should play a stronger role in

encouraging the development of measures to address the

problem of fishing fleet overcapacity. Overcapacity is a

root cause of the collapse of New England's cod

population and is at the heart of the crises in the Pacific

rockfish and Alaska crab fisheries. It also poses a major

threat to the health of international fisheries that are of

critical importance to U.S. fishermen and markets.

Overcapacity, spurred by massive government supports on

the scale of $15 billion to $20 billion annually, also is

linked to poverty and underdevelopment where

subsidized fleets from developed countries compete with

fledgling local industries. The subsidies have helped

underwrite cycles of mismanagement that have ultimately

left thousands of fishermen in developing countries

unemployed.

Where overcapacity exists, fishermen must fish harder

and spend more to catch fewer fish but earn less.

Overcapacity also increases habitat destruction and the

bycatch of marine life. While reducing the size of fleets is

perhaps the single most important step that can be taken

to improve the long-term viability of fisheries and protect

biological diversity and the economic interests of

fishermen, international efforts to better manage fleet size

have made little progress. The FAO Plan of Action for

managing fishing capacity is largely a paper exercise. In

those few cases where steps are being taken to control

fleet growth, they are "too little, too late."

In the Inter-American Tropical Tunas Commission, for

example, present capacity-control measures are plainly

inadequate despite clear evidence that overcapacity is

already threatening tuna populations and eroding

economic returns. In other important international

fisheries no concrete measures at all have been established

to address the problem of burgeoning fleets. The

continued failure to address this issue will inevitably

result in additional depletions, lower profits and

exacerbated tensions between competing fishing groups

and countries.

In 1997, WWF began an international campaign to

eliminate government subsidies that drive overfishing. 

A critical goal of that campaign has been to achieve

binding and effective new rules under the World Trade

Organization (WTO) to discipline fishing subsidies. 

Last November, in an important step, trade ministers

meeting in Doha, Qatar, agreed to include negotiations

on fishing subsidies in the new round of WTO

negotiations. 

CONSERVING THE MOST BIOLOGICALLY

IMPORTANT MARINE AREAS 

In addressing the threats to the integrity of our oceans, it

makes sense to begin with the most pressing problems

and focus first on the habitats that are most critical to life

in the sea and the marine areas that house the greatest

biological wealth. At the global scale, WWF has worked

with leading scientists around the world to identify a set

of ecosystems that are most important to life on earth. In

the marine realm, these biological priorities include the

Bering Sea (home to America's richest fisheries); the SuluSulawesi seas at the center of the oceans' most biologically

diverse region, and the Galapagos archipelago, a unique

and highly productive marine system. Such places of

special biological importance should be considered as the

United States develops its ocean conservation priorities.

Within these biologically important regions, the United

States should play a leadership role in promoting the

creation of networks of protected areas to conserve the

oceans' web of life. Marine protected areas are well

established as the most effective tool for safeguarding

marine biological diversity. The problem is that existing

protected areas are too few, too dispersed, and, frankly,

too small to provide large-scale conservation benefits. At

present less than 1 percent of the world's oceans and

coasts are under any form of effective management or

protection.
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 29

Recent scientific studies from Florida and the Caribbean

demonstrate that protected areas can play an important

role in the rebound of fisheries. Linked together in

networks, they can serve as the centerpiece for initiatives

to conserve large-scale seascapes — like the one the

United States has started in the Florida Keys. In the Dry

Tortugas, for example, WWF worked with fishermen and

other stakeholders to create the largest fully protected

marine reserve in the United States. Our experience there

and our review of the latest science convinces us that

well-designed protected areas can help secure the longterm objectives of all parties. ❏

Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect

the views or policies of the U.S. government.
30

Without participation by all relevant markets, fisheries

conservation schemes have no chance to succeed, says Justin

LeBlanc of the National Fisheries Institute. A powerful

existing international convention for protecting endangered

species might help enforce conservation measures some day,

but for now it lacks expertise, he says. The National

Fisheries Institute represents fishing vessel owners,

aquaculturalists, processors, importers, exporters, distributors,

retailers and restaurants.

U.S. commercial fishers are often challenged by the low

prices of an increasingly competitive global marketplace

while at the same time bearing substantial conservation

burdens imposed by strict U.S. laws and regulations.

These burdens, whether based on sound science or other

policy objectives, may place U.S. fishers at a considerable

disadvantage by increasing costs, decreasing yields, or

both. Making U.S. fishermen more competitive by

relaxing these conservation requirements is unlikely and,

in many cases, undesirable.

Increasing the conservation commitment of the world's

other commercial fishers to levels approaching that of

U.S. fishers is a complicated task involving rigorous

conservation and management regimes, education and

training, and the participation of major markets for fish

and seafood products. In recent years, international

fisheries bodies have begun to supplement traditional

conservation and management measures with

controversial market-based constraints in response to the

challenges (financial and logistical) of enforcing

conservation and management measures, particularly on

the high seas. 

In general, market-access restrictions must be consistent

with the international trade rules of the World Trade

Organization (WTO), should be multilateral, and should

be initiated by the relevant fisheries management

authority. To be truly effective, market constraints must

be adopted by all countries participating in that market—

a situation that can be difficult to attain. Existing highseas fisheries management regimes often fail to secure 

such full participation. A new mechanism may be

needed.

THE GLOBAL NATURE OF SEAFOOD TRADE

AND THE U.S. SEAFOOD MARKET

Thousands of forms of fish and seafood products are

traded internationally. The United Nations Food and

Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that international

trade in fishery commodities has exceeded $50 billion a

year in recent years and is approaching $55 billion a year.

According to FAO, approximately one-third of all global

fish and seafood production enters international trade.

The United States is the fifth-largest fishing nation in the

world, with commercial landings of 4.3 billion kilograms

valued at $3.2 billion in 2001, according to the National

Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the U.S.

Department of Commerce. NMFS also reports that the

United States is the third-largest importer, with seafood

imports valued at $9.9 billion in 2001, while U.S.

seafood exports of $3.2 billion for the same year rank the

U.S. as the third-largest exporter.

This trade deficit can be even more acute in certain

species. For example, U.S. commercial shrimp landings

have remained relatively stable over the past 10 years at

about 91 million kilograms while shrimp imports have

increased from 318 million kilograms to 544 million

kilograms in 2001. U.S. swordfish fishers land

approximately 7 million kilograms per year while facing

imports of 14 million kilograms. Other popular seafood

products in the United States, such as Chilean sea bass,

are totally import dependent and may compete for the

so-called "center of the plate" with domestically produced

substitutable products.

U.S. CONSERVATION BURDENS

While confronting a market often dictated by imports,

U.S. fishers carry considerable obligations to protect the

environment from the potential negative impacts of

commercial fishing. These obligations often carry

considerable economic consequences by requiring new

❏ THE GLOBAL FISH MARKET AND THE NEED 

FOR MULTILATERAL FISHING DISCIPLINES

By Justin LeBlanc, Vice President for Government Relations, National Fisheries Institute
fishing gear, closing productive areas or times to fishing,

or otherwise changing fishing operations to make them

less efficient and, therefore, less profitable.

All federal U.S. fisheries are governed by the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

(MSFCMA), which requires all fishery management plans

to prevent overfishing, minimize bycatch, and protect

essential fish habitat. In addition, NMFS requires

application of the precautionary principle — simply put,

the less certain you are the more cautious you should 

be — to fishery management decisions. All fishery

management plans must also have an associated

environmental impact statement prepared under the

National Environmental Policy Act.

Certain marine species, such as sea turtles, are protected

by the Endangered Species Act, which requires incidental

takes of these animals by commercial fishing operations

to be reduced to levels that do not jeopardize the survival

of the species. Hence, U.S. shrimpers must install turtle

excluder devices (TEDs) in their fishing nets, losing

anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of their shrimp catch

through the hole, and U.S. swordfish fishers have had

vast tracts of productive ocean denied to them as fishing

grounds to reduce sea turtle interactions. Marine

mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal

Protection Act, which requires commercial fishing takes

of marine mammals to be reduced to levels approaching

zero, regardless of the status of the marine mammal

population.

These obligations are among the strictest sets of

environmental standards for commercial fishing in the

world and are by and large effectively enforced by NMFS

and the U.S. Coast Guard. For example, the Gulf of

Mexico shrimp fishery is 99-percent compliant with

TEDs requirements. Most U.S. commercial fishers are

committed to conservation and generally support the

goals of these laws and regulations if not their actual caseby-case application. While some are interested in easing

the conservation burdens these laws impose, others are

more interested in getting other nations to impose similar

burdens on their commercial fishing fleets in order to

"level the playing field" in this global marketplace.

UNILATERAL ACTIONS HAVE LIMITATIONS

Recognizing that not all nations have the resources and

infrastructure of the United States to enforce conservation

and management measures, one approach to level the

playing field supported by some sectors of the U.S.

commercial fishing industry is to prescribe conditions for

or even proscribe access to the U.S. market for products

that are not caught in compliance with conservation and

management measures or do not meet the threshold of

conservation imposed on U.S. fishers. That is why all

shrimp imports into the U.S. must be turtle safe, why the

debate continues on market access for tuna not eligible

for a dolphin-safe label, and why juvenile Atlantic

swordfish imports are prohibited.

Such unilateral actions must be consistent with WTO

trade rules, thereby making them more difficult to design

and implement. They may prompt retaliatory trade

restrictions by major export markets for U.S. seafood

products. Most importantly, while such actions may

make U.S. consumers feel good about the products on

their dinner plates, they do little for true conservation on

the water as producers simply shift to less-restrictive

markets. Hence, juvenile swordfish go to the European

Union instead of the United States, and turtle un-safe

shrimp is diverted to markets that do not require turtle

protection. In addition, unilateral measures may be

implemented not for true conservation reasons but rather

to use conservation as a guise for protectionist measures.

MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS DO MORE

Given these inherent limitations to the utility of

unilateral trade actions, a better approach is to seek a

multilateral agreement among interested countries to

collectively limit access to their markets. For high-seas

fisheries, regional fishery management organizations pose

the ideal venue for developing and implementing such

multilateral arrangements, but other arrangements are

possible. The advantages of multilateral agreements are

obvious: A greater percentage of the marketplace is placed

off limits to non-compliant producers. The opportunity

for such producers to shift distribution to avoid marketaccess restrictions is lessened. And the competitive

position of seafood traders relative to other buyers in the

global marketplace is maintained. 

Multilateral instruments — such as the catch

documentation scheme for Chilean sea bass developed by

the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic

Marine Living Resources — can be particularly effective

at combating illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU)

fishing as called for by an FAO international plan of

action. Making such schemes effective requires standards

for implementation to create familiarity with and

31
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 32

confidence in the systems. But such systems can also

have limitations, especially where major market countries

do not participate in the conservation and management

of the resource and therefore have no incentive to comply

with the trade restrictions.

MAKING AGREEMENTS MORE MULTILATERAL

Since not all multilateral trade agreements can engage all

market countries to the fullest extent possible, some are

calling for other mechanisms to be applied to global

seafood trade. Recently, there has been considerable

interest in submitting seafood to the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

CITES offers promising and potentially powerful

mechanisms to engage all market countries in restricting

market access for fish and seafood products. CITES

members agree to ban all trade in certain species, such as

tigers, that are threatened or endangered with extinction.

Unfortunately, CITES is currently ill equipped to

contend with the complexities of international trade in

what is primarily a food product. Fundamental questions

about the applicability of CITES to fish and seafood

remain. Overfishing, IUU fishing, and unsustainable

fishing practices can certainly threaten the productivity of

fishery resources, but they rarely threaten these resources

with extinction.

Serious questions remain about how CITES would work

with commercial fish and seafood.

For example, CITES says species that "look alike" to

species of concern should also be listed and subjected to

trade mechanisms. To avoid such listings, a layperson

must be able to distinguish between the species. This can

be extremely difficult for even trained scientists when it

comes to fish species, let alone processed whitefish fillets.

The CITES convention cannot deal with so-called "split

listings," that is, the listing of a portion of a species but

not the entire species — for example, listing Russian

pollock but not U.S. pollock.

CITES also lacks clear mechanisms to de-list a species 

for which it bans trade. Fisheries are dynamic and can

change rapidly and sometimes suddenly. CITES is not

equipped to address these rapid changes with de-listing

procedures that can respond to stock recovery.

CONCLUSION

Before CITES can become meaningfully involved in

regulating trade of commercial fish and seafood products,

it must gain access to fish and seafood expertise. At a

minimum, such expertise should be sought through a

consultative process with the FAO, the only international

venue where government fisheries experts regularly

convene at a global level. This consultative process

should be highly structured as called for by the FAO

Subcommittee on Fish Trade. Even better, CITES should

be amended to require CITES to defer to the expertise of

relevant regional fishery management organizations.

Only then will the capacity of CITES to affect market

access combine with fisheries conservation and

management expertise to become truly effective. ❏

Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect

the views or policies of the U.S. government.
33

Foreign fishing fleets drastically overfished the waters off

Namibia before that country gained independence in 1990,

according to Paul Nichols, special adviser to the Namibian

Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources. Since then, the

government has taken strong regulatory actions that have

brought overfishing under control and allowed depleted fish

stocks to rebuild while gaining strong support for the policy

among Namibia's commercial fishers.

The history of Namibia's fisheries is characterized by

massive and uncontrolled fishing, primarily by European

and Eastern bloc fleets, followed by near collapse of many

stocks. This period was followed by a dramatic recovery

of the resources following independence in 1990 and the

implementation of a resource-management system that

incorporates a highly effective, cost-efficient system of

monitoring, control and surveillance. Namibia's

successful post-independence track record bears testimony

to what a young developing nation can achieve if

sufficient resources and political will are provided in

support of fisheries management.

Largely as a result of up-welling of the nutrient-rich

Benguela Current, Namibia's waters are highly

productive. Prior to Namibian independence in 1990,

uncontrolled fishing on a massive scale — perpetrated

mainly by Spanish and Soviet vessels, and to a lesser

extent vessels from Portugal, South Africa, Romania,

Poland, Bulgaria, and Cuba — greatly reduced the

abundance of all the major fish stocks.

During the 1960s South African factory ships undertook

fish processing at sea outside the then-22-kilometer

jurisdiction of Namibia's fisheries administration. First

over-exploitation caused pilchard catches to plummet;

when the ships turned to anchovy, that stock also

plummeted.

From 1964 foreign interest in Namibia's offshore fishing

grounds grew rapidly with the advent of long-distance

freezer trawlers. For example, in 1964 a mere 47,600

metric tons of hake were caught, but by 1972 hake

catches were reported to be 820,000 metric tons although

the true catch figure was probably much higher.

The International Commission for Southeast Atlantic

Fisheries (ICSEAF), established in 1969 with the intent

of good management, was in reality used by many of its

17 member states to legitimize plundering of fish stocks

in the southeast Atlantic, and particularly in Namibian

waters. Namibia declined to become a member of

ICSEAF at independence, and the organization is now in

the process of being formally disbanded.

BUILDING A MANAGEMENT REGIME 

Finding itself at independence with a heritage of

systematically depleted fish stocks, the newly elected

government moved quickly to establish a fisheries

administration — the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine

Resources — and to develop policy goals and broad

strategies in order to rebuild the fish stocks and build a

national fishing and processing industry with real

involvement of Namibians.

One of the first acts of Parliament was the Territorial Sea

and Exclusive Economic Zone of Namibia Act of 1990,

underlining the importance attached to fisheries. In

1992 Parliament passed the Sea Fisheries Act. Namibia

subsequently signed a number of international fisheries

conventions, agreements and arrangements. These new

international obligations prompted a revision of the 1992

Act, which was replaced in 2001 by the Marine Resources

Act. Key elements of the management system defined in

the Act are outlined below.

MANAGEMENT MEASURES

• Fishing rights, or rights of exploitation, are the central

element of the fisheries management regime. Fishing

rights limit entry to the fisheries so as to protect the

fisheries resources and maintain sustainable operations.

Currently there are 152 right holders. Fishing rights are

granted for a period of 7, 10, 15 or 20 years depending

on various factors, in particular the level of investment

and the level of Namibian ownership. Fishing rights are

not freely transferable in Namibia in line with the

❏ A DEVELOPING COUNTRY PUTS A HALT 

TO FOREIGN OVERFISHING

By Paul Nichols, Special Adviser to the Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, Namibia
government's goals of Namibianisation and

empowerment within the sector.

• All vessels are required to obtain a license in order to

fish commercially within Namibia's 200-mile exclusive

economic zone (EEZ). A Namibian flag vessel must also

have a specific license to harvest any marine resources in

waters outside of the Namibian EEZ.

• To ensure sustainable fishing, a total allowable catch

(TAC) is set for each of the major species, based on

recommendations made by fisheries scientists employed

by the ministry.

• To give companies enough information to plan for the

fishing season, a TAC is distributed among the right

holders in each fishery in the form of quotas. Quotas are

not permanently transferable.

• Fees earn revenue for the government and create

incentives for achieving goals of both conservation and

Namibianisation. The most important fees are those

payable on allocated quota. By-catch fees are used to

discourage capture of non-target species but are not set so

high as to encourage dumping — a certain percentage of

by-catch is not levied because a reasonable amount of bycatch cannot be avoided. A Marine Resources Fund levy

is imposed per ton of landed catch to finance fisheries

research and training initiatives. Also, owners of fishing

vessels pay license fees to fish legally within Namibia's

waters; each year between 300 and 350 vessels are

licensed.

• The Namibian fishing industry is not subsidized.

Namibia strongly opposes the use of subsidies by other

countries, which cause overcapitalization, distort trade

unfairly, and ultimately lead to overfishing and encourage

illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing

practices. Instead Namibia's rights-based system and

associated quota fees have led to healthier stocks,

improved compliance and an efficient industry that

supports responsible fisheries management and earns

healthy profits.

• Namibia implements its obligations to international

fisheries organizations, arrangements and conventions by

publishing them in the national Gazette.

MONITORING, CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE

On the day in 1990 that Namibia's 200-mile EEZ was

declared, more than 100 foreign vessels were fishing

illegally in Namibian waters. When other small coastal

states had found it impossible to effectively control such

operations in their EEZs, they faced little real alternative

than to sanction continuation of the foreign operations

through licensing arrangements that did not leave them

in real control.

Namibia, however, decided to put in place measures to

reap the gains from sustainable utilization of its fisheries.

During 1990 and 1991, 11 Spanish trawlers and one

Congolese trawler were arrested for illegal fishing and

successfully prosecuted; most of them were forfeited to

Namibia by the Namibian courts. These actions sent a

clear message to the international fishing community that

Namibia was serious about establishing sovereignty over

its new EEZ. There were a few further incidents of

poaching after this, but effective monitoring, control and

surveillance (MCS) and enforcement deterred poachers

and improved compliance by licensed vessels.

Namibia's MCS system has evolved over the years into

what is today widely regarded by the international

community as a very effective system. A crucial element

has been the financial, human and material support from

the Namibian government. The costs to government and

industry of MCS and other management activities have

been kept commensurate with the value of the sector.

From 1994 to 1997, the full cost to the Namibian

government of fisheries management, including fisheries

research and MCS, was about 6 percent of landed value;

that fell to 4.9 percent in 1998 and 3.6 percent in 1999,

due to the increasing value of landed catch. This cost is

appropriate to the economic value of the fisheries sector

and reasonable when compared with the cost of other

comprehensive and effective fisheries management

systems elsewhere in the world.

An integrated program of inspection and patrols at sea,

on land, and in the air ensures continuing compliance

with Namibia's fisheries laws. The major features of the

program are described below:

• Virtually complete coverage of larger vessels by

onboard observers serves both to ensure compliance and

collection of scientific data. The establishment of the 

34
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 35

new Fisheries Observer Agency under the Marine

Resources Act will improve current capacities in this

regard.

• Systematic sea patrols aim to ensure compliance with

fishing conditions by licensed vessels through regular atsea inspections. Air patrols detect and deter unlicensed

fishing vessels and monitor the movement and operations

of the licensed fleet. Shore patrols ensure compliance by

both recreational and commercial fishers with

conservation measures for inshore resources.

• Complete monitoring of all landings at the two

commercial fishing ports, Walvis Bay and Luderitz, by

onshore inspectors ensure compliance with quota limits

and fee payments.

• All vessels are required to supply EEZ exit and entry

reports as well as daily catch and effort reports in the

form of vessel log-sheets.

• Namibia is well advanced in implementing a national

satellite-based vessel monitoring system (VMS). Once

fully operational the system will benefit fisheries

management in real-time monitoring of vessel movement

and activities. The system that has been chosen is already

in use in the United Kingdom, Germany, United States,

Morocco, and, closer to home, South Africa and

Mozambique. Namibia is fully supportive of

collaborating in the development of a cost-effective,

regional VMS.

REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL

COOPERATION

Regional co-operation in fisheries management is

enhanced through a number of mechanisms. The

Southern African Development Community (SADC) is

implementing two regional programs of particular

relevance: the Regional Fisheries Information System

Program, which aims to capture and disseminate timely,

relevant, accessible, useable and cost-effective information

to improve the management of marine fisheries resources

in the SADC region; and the Regional Fisheries MCS

Program, which aims to improve national capacity for

efficient, cost-effective and sustainable MCS and to

enhance regional co-operation on MCS and fisheries

management.

A recent initiative is the SADC Protocol on Fisheries,

which aims to promote responsible and sustainable use of

the living aquatic resources and aquatic ecosystems within

the SADC region.

A convention to establish the South-East Atlantic

Fisheries Organization (SEAFO) was signed by nine states

in Namibia on 20 April 2001, the first such convention

to be signed following the establishment of the 1995 UN

Fish Stocks Agreement. SEAFO establishes a

management regime for conservation and sustainable

utilization of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and other

sedentary species in the high-seas portion of what is

essentially FAO Statistical Area 47. It excludes those

sedentary species that are subject to the fishery

jurisdiction of coastal states and tuna and tuna-like

species that fall under the jurisdiction of the International

Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas

(ICCAT). Namibia joined ICCAT in 1999 and abides

by its comprehensive management tools to curb IUU

fishing targeting tunas.

As a member of the Commission for the Conservation of

Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), Namibia

complies fully with the CCAMLR catch documentation

scheme to reduce IUU fishing in Antarctic waters. 

CONCLUSION

Since independence, Namibia has successfully put in

place a policy, legal and management framework for its

marine fisheries that has worked well. The sector

contributed US$221.1 million to gross domestic product

in 2000. The value of fish exports was US$354 million

in 2001. The number of whitefish-processing plants has

grown from zero in 1991 to more than 20 in 2002, and

employment in the sector has grown to about 14,000

people. Total capital investment in vessels and shore

infrastructure, including new fish-processing factories, has

exceeded US$200 million since 1990.

Namibia's rights-based fisheries management system

incorporates an effective MCS system at a cost that is

commensurate with the socio-economic value of the

sector. As a result, Namibia enjoys very high levels of

compliance by its fishing industry, a situation very

different from 1990. ❏

Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect

the views or policies of the U.S. government or of the government of

Namibia.
36

FACTS AND FIGURES

❏ A LOOK AT RECENT GLOBAL DATA 

ON THE STATE OF FISH STOCKS

In his opening address at the 2001 Reykjavik Conference

on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem, Jacques

Diouf, Director-General of the U.N. Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),

summarized as follows the state of world fisheries:

"The great oceans are exhaustible. Despite the fact that

the majority of all resources are now fully exploited, access

to these resources remains open in far too many fisheries

around the world. Over-investment in the fishing

industry exacerbates the problem .... Today there are too

many vessels chasing too few fish .... The task at hand is

to examine how to manage fisheries with a view to

ensuring sustainable utilization of the food available in the

oceans for the benefit of present and future generations

without harming the ecosystem's capacity to support

human life."

For more than three decades the international community

has grappled with achieving sustainable fisheries. Indeed,

the 1947 London Conference on Overfishing, although

not reaching agreement on how to deal with overfishing,

aimed to address a problem that had already progressively

worsened over years. Had pre-emptive action been taken

following the London Conference, the 1990s collapse of 

one of the world's oldest and best-known commercial

fisheries, the North Atlantic cod fishery, might have been

averted. A decade after the collapse, scientific evidence

indicates that cod stocks of North Atlantic have still not

recovered to a level to permit resumption of even limited

commercial fishing.

In 1982, following lengthy and complicated negotiations,

the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982

Convention) was concluded. It was widely believed that

the convention would lead to the rational and optimum

use of fish stocks. However, current assessments of the

state of world fisheries indicate that the convention has

not achieved its intended results in fisheries. This

situation can be attributed to several factors, including: 

• a lack of national implementation of the 1982

Convention, and

• little or no change in the behavior and attitude of fishers

towards achieving responsible and sustainable outcomes in

fisheries.

In the late 1980s, concern over environmental degradation

led to a number of regional and global initiatives, most

importantly the convening of the 1992 United Nations 

Table 1: Marine capture fishery production (in millions of metric tons) as a proportion of total world 

fishery production in 1995, 1999 and 2001

Production category 1995 1999 2000 2001p

Total world fishery production 116.4 126.7 130.4 128.8

Total marine capture fisheries production 84.7 84.7 86.0 82.5

Total marine capture fisheries

production as a percentage of total

world fishery production 73 67 66 64

Source: FAO. Data for 2001 are provisional.
37

Conference on Environment and Development

(UNCED), or "Earth Summit," and the adoption of the

Rio Declaration and Agenda 21. One outcome was

agreement that utilization of all natural resources should

be based on long-term sustainability. 

WHAT DO RECENT FISHERIES DATA SHOW?

Total world fisheries production (which includes both

capture fisheries and aquaculture production) has

fluctuated upwardly over the 1990s and into the new

millennium. 

Table 1 reveals that the level of marine capture fisheries as

a proportion of total production has declined since 1995.

With harvest in the capture fisheries stagnating, more

and more total fisheries production increases come from

aquaculture. There is little reason for now to anticipate a

change in this trend.

Table 2 shows that:

• The Pacific Ocean ranks clearly as the most important

area of production, followed by the Atlantic and Indian

oceans. The Southern Ocean, in global production

terms, is insignificant.

• FAO assessments indicate no likely dramatic change in

the ranking of capture fishery production by ocean over

the next decade.

The top 10 world marine capture fisheries producers have

largely maintained their rankings since 1995. 

From table 3, it is clear that:

• China is ranked first, followed by Peru. Peru's catches,

much of them Peruvian anchovy, are subject to wide

annual fluctuations, however.

• Production by the eight other leading world producers

has generally remained static or trended downwards. 

• The 10 major producers account for about 65 percent

of total marine fisheries production. 

• In the foreseeable future radical change in the ranking

of the top world capture fisheries producers is unlikely.

Table 4 shows how total world fish production is

consumed. In 1995, 72 percent of total production was

directed to food consumption. In 1999 and 2000 the

proportion directed to food consumption strengthened,

but provisional data for 2001 indicate the proportion

weakened slightly. 

The table indicates that:

• People, on average, are eating more fish. More

sophisticated analysis is required to determine who is

eating more fish: people with higher disposable incomes

or poorer people out of necessity because fish may be the

only protein source available to them or within their

financial reach. 

• Generally, fish consumption in higher-income countries

is strengthening, partly for health reasons. There are real

fears that, if management of fish stocks overall is not

improved, the poorer and economically weaker segments 

Table 2: World marine capture fisheries production (in millions of metric tons) 

by Ocean in 1995, 1999 and 2000

Ocean 1995 1999 2000

Tons Tons Tons Percent

Pacific Ocean 53.3 52.9 53.8 63

Atlantic Ocean 23.5 23.2 23.5 27

Indian Ocean 7.8 8.5 8.6 10

Southern Ocean 0.1 0.1 0.1 ..

Total marine capture fisheries production 84.7 84.7 86.0 100

Source: FAO.
38

of the world's population will find themselves facing an

ever-decreasing supply of fish and protein. 

STATUS OF WORLD FISH STOCKS

FAO evaluates periodically the status of world fish stocks.

In its most recent assessment, undertaken in 2000, FAO

said that:

• 25 to 27 percent of world marine fish stocks are underexploited or moderately exploited and thus are the main

potential source for expansion of total capture fisheries

production.

• 47 to 50 percent of stocks are fully exploited and are

therefore producing catches that have either reached, or

are very close to, their maximum limits with no room

expected for further expansion.

• 15 to 18 percent of stocks are overexploited and have

no potential for further increase. Moreover it is likely

that catches from these stocks will decrease if remedial

action is not taken to reduce or reverse overfishing.

• 9 to 10 percent have been depleted or are recovering

from depletion. 

With 71 to 78 percent of fish stocks fully exploited,

overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion,

responsible management of fish stocks has become ever

more urgent.

FAO said in its 2000 global assessment that over the past

decade there has been little change in the status of stocks

despite strong international efforts after UNCED to

promote more responsible behavior in fisheries. 

Lack of improvement during the 1990s might be

attributed to many factors, including insufficient time to

realize substantive improvements. The apparent halt in

deterioration suggests, at least, that implementation of

conservation measures are not entirely ineffective but

require more time than expected to demonstrate

measurable progress towards stock recovery. A contrary

view is that conservation measures have achieved no

effect but that stocks are more resilient to heavy fishing

pressure than had been realized.

An estimated 90 percent of the world's capture fisheries

fall under national jurisdiction, and a significant

proportion of these fisheries are found within 50

kilometers of the coast. Many of these fisheries operate

on a small scale. They are responsible for producing

Table 3: World marine capture fisheries production (in millions of metric tons) by major producing country in

1995, 1999 and 2000

Country 1995 1999 2000

Tons Tons Tons Ranking

China 11.0 15.0 14.8 1

Peru 8.9 8.4 10.6 2

Japan 5.9 5.1 4.9 3

United States of America 5.2 4.7 4.7 4

Chile 7.4 5.0 4.3 5

Indonesia 2.7 3.7 3.8 6

Russian Federation 4.1 3.8 3.7 7

India 2.7 2.8 2.8 8

Thailand 2.8 2.7 2.7 9

Norway 2.5 2.6 2.7 10

Sub-total 53.2 53.8 55.0

Other countries 31.5 30.9 31.0

Total 84.7 84.7 86.0

Major ten producers as a percentage of total

marine capture fisheries production 63 64 64

Source: FAO.
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 39

about 50 percent of global capture production for

consumption, supplying nearly all the fish consumed in

developing countries. These fisheries are critical in the

world food security equation. More than 400 million

people in developing countries are employed directly or

indirectly in these small-scale fisheries. 

As a consequence of the concentration of capture fisheries

in 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs), most

fisheries management problems are found in areas under

national jurisdiction and a large proportion of them in 

developing countries. A focus on improving EEZ

fisheries management continues to have high priority. ❏

Source: David J. Doulman, Senior Fishery Liaison Officer, Fisheries

Department, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The views

expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the views of FAO

or any of its members.

Table 4: Utilization of total world fishery production (in millions of metric tons) and per capita consumption

(in kilograms) in 1995 and from 1999 to 2001

Use/production 1995 1999 2000 2001p

Direct food consumption 84.3 94.4 96.7 99.4

Non-food uses 32.1 32.2 33.7 29.4

Total world fishery production 116.4 126.7 130.4 128.8

Direct food consumption as a

proportion of total world fishery production 72 75 74 77

Per capita supply (Kg) 14.9 15.8 16.0 16.2

Source: FAO. Data for 2001 are provisional. Some totals may not add due to rounding.
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 40

ATLANTIC OCEAN

International Convention for the Conservation 

of Atlantic Tunas

(Basic Instrument for the International Commission 

for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas — ICCAT)

http://www.iccat.es/

Convention for the Conservation of Salmon 

in the North Atlantic Ocean

(Basic Instrument for the North Atlantic Salmon

Conservation Organization — NASCO)

http://www.nasco.int/

Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation 

in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries 

(Basic Instrument for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries

Organization — NAFO)

http://www.nafo.ca/

PACIFIC OCEAN 

Convention for the Establishment of an Inter-American

Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)

http://oceanlaw.net/texts/iattc.htm

Convention for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery

of the Northern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea 

(Basic Instrument for the International Pacific Halibut

Commission — IPHC)

http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/default.htm

Convention for the Conservation of Anadromous 

Stocks in the North Pacific Ocean

(Basic Instrument for the North Pacific Anadromous 

Fish Commission — NPAFC)

http://www.npafc.org/

Treaty Between the Government of the United States 

of America and the Government of Canada Concerning

Pacific Salmon

(Basic Instrument for the Pacific Salmon Commission —

PSC)

http://www.psc.org/index.htm

Convention on the Conservation and Management of

Pollock Resources in the Central Bering Sea

http://www.oceanlaw.net/texts/bering.htm

Treaty Between the Government of the United States of

America and the Government of Canada on Pacific

Coast Albacore Tuna Vessels and Port Privileges

Treaty on Fisheries Between the Governments of

Certain Pacific Island States and the Government of 

the United States of America 

(South Pacific Tuna Treaty — SPTT) 

SOUTHERN OCEAN 

Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine

Living Resources 

(Basic Instrument for the Commission for the Conservation

of Antarctic Marine Living Resources — CCAMLR)

http://www.ccamlr.org/

Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS) 

http://www.oceanlaw.net/texts/seals.htm

GREAT LAKES 

Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries Between the

United States and Canada 

(Basic Instrument for the Great Lakes Fishery

Commission — GLFC) 

GLOBAL 

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

http://www.biodiv.org/

Convention on International Trade in Endangered

Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

http://www.cites.org/

International Whaling Commission (IWC)

http://www.iwcoffice.org/

Source: National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of

Commerce

❏ INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL FISHERIES 

MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS
41

Following is an excerpt from Fisheries and the World

Summit on Sustainable Development, prepared by the

U.S. Department of Commerce National Marine Fisheries

Service for the July-August 2002 summit in Johannesburg.

The excerpt describes steps taken by the U.N. Food and

Agriculture Organization (FAO) and FAO members to

promote fisheries conservation. The entire article can be

viewed at

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/international/Reportcard_final

.pdf.

The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries

The concept for the Code of Conduct was discussed at

the Rio Summit in 1992 and subsequently developed as a

set of principles and international standards of behavior

for responsible fishing practices. It was adopted by the

Twenty-eighth Session of the FAO Conference on 31

October 1995. The Code of Conduct recognizes all

aspects of fisheries, including economic, social, biological,

and environmental and the multitude of interests of users

of the resource while providing for the effective

conservation, management, and development of living

aquatic resources.

International Plans of Action (IPOAs)

Four IPOAs have been developed under the framework of

the Code of Conduct. The IPOAs have been developed

to address pressing issues facing international fisheries

management and include the IPOA for Reducing

Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (IPOASeabirds), the IPOA for the Conservation and

Management of Sharks (IPOA-Sharks), the IPOA for the

Management of Fishing Capacity (IPOA-Capacity), and

the IPOA to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal,

Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IPOA-IUU).

IPOAs are voluntary; however, they are useful in

providing an international focus on pressing issues within

the fisheries community and providing guidance for

individual nations, regional fishery management

organizations, and other regimes on tackling these issues

within their respective frameworks.

The Rome Declaration on the Implementation of the

Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries

The Rome Declaration was adopted by the FAO

Ministerial Meeting on Fisheries in March 1999. In

addition to its call to implement the Code of Conduct,

the Declaration highlights a number of key issues in

fisheries management including the use of the ecosystem

approach to achieve sustainable fisheries and aquaculture,

reducing waste and destructive fishing practices,

addressing trade and environment issues related to

fisheries, implementation of the Fish Stocks Agreement

[see below], and the implementation of International

Plans of Action (IPOAs). The Declaration also called for

FAO to develop a global plan of action to deal effectively

with all forms of illegal, unregulated, and unreported

fishing which ultimately led to the development of the

IPOA-IUU.

DEVELOPMENTS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

UNCLOS

Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions

of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the

Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the

Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish

Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (Fish Stocks

Agreement)

As envisioned in Agenda 21, the United Nations

convened a 3-year negotiating process that culminated in

the adoption of the U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement in 1995.

The United States participated actively in those

negotiations and became one of the first states to ratify.

The Agreement, which entered into force in December

2001, is recognized as an important instrument for

achieving sustainable fisheries around the globe. As a

management regime, it sets out principles for the

conservation of straddling and highly migratory fish

stocks. It also introduces new principles and concepts to

fisheries management including the precautionary

approach, vessel monitoring systems (VMS),

compatibility of conservation and management measures,

transparency of activities within subregional and regional

fishery management organizations, compliance of

❏ FISHERIES AND THE WORLD SUMMIT 

ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
nonmember states with fishery management

organizations measures, high seas boarding and

inspection, port state measures, and data collection and

sharing standards.

Agreement to Promote Compliance with International

Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing

Vessels on the High Seas (Compliance Agreement)

This 1993 Agreement was one of the first responses to

Agenda 21. It reaffirms the provisions of the U.N.

Convention on the Law of the Sea that flag states must

exercise effective control over their vessels fishing on the

high seas. It elaborates this obligation by requiring that all

such vessels be licensed to conduct such fishing, that the

licenses be conditioned on the vessel abiding by

internationally agreed conservation and management

measures, and sets up the FAO as an archive and clearing

house for information on such fishing vessels, particularly

those that have broken applicable rules and been

punished for it. The United States contributed

significantly to the development of this agreement and

became one of the first states to deposit an instrument of

acceptance for it.

Reykjavik Declaration on Responsible Fisheries in the

Marine Ecosystem

The Reykjavik Conference, held in October of 2001 and

organized by the FAO, sought to gather and review the

best available knowledge on marine ecosystem issues and

identify means by which ecosystem considerations can be

included in capture fisheries management. The

declaration adopted at the conference reflected this

imperative and called for the integration of ecosystem

considerations in fisheries management, not only from

the standpoint of the impact of fisheries on the

ecosystem, but the impact of the ecosystem on fisheries.

It sought to integrate ecosystem considerations into the

workings of regional and international fisheries

management organizations, to advance the scientific basis

for incorporating ecosystem considerations, to encourage

technology transfers that allow for the incorporation of

ecosystem considerations, and to develop technical

guidelines for introducing ecosystem considerations into

fisheries management.

Efforts to Combat and Deter Illegal, Unreported, and

Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Activities

It is widely recognized within the international fisheries

management arena that IUU fishing can jeopardize and

sometimes undermine management and conservation

efforts for sustainable fisheries. Raising concerns

regarding IUU fishing activities within many regional

fishery management organizations (RFMOs) and the

recognition of the inability of existing international

instruments to effectively address illegal, unreported, and

unregulated fishing led to the development of an IPOA

to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing. The IPOAIUU encourages states and RFMOs to use all available

measures in accordance with international law to combat

IUU fishing, including port state measures, coastal state

measures, market-related measures, national legislation,

sanctions, economic incentives, education, monitoring,

control, and surveillance (MCS) systems, and

internationally agreed market-related measures. In

addition, the recently established Monitoring, Control,

and Surveillance Network (MCS Network), is a

significant contribution to global efforts to combat IUU

fishing as nations voluntarily join their resources to

increase their effectiveness in enforcing conservation

measures designed to protect world fisheries and

ecosystems.

Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance (MCS)

Network

A network of national organizations and institutions

joined together to create the International MCS Network

to coordinate efforts to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU

fishing. The objectives of the International MCS

Network are to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of

fisheries-related MCS activities through enhanced

cooperation, coordination, information collection and

exchange among national organizations/institutions

responsible for fisheries-related MCS. It is intended to

give agencies support in meeting national fisheries

responsibilities as well as international and regional

commitments in relation to the U.N. Convention on the

Law of the Sea, the Code of Conduct, the Fish Stocks

Agreement, and the IPOA to combat IUU fishing.

Following is an excerpt from Key Outcomes of the

Summit, prepared by the United Nations following the

summit:

42
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 43

OCEANS AND FISHERIES

Encourage the application by 2010 of the ecosystem

approach for the sustainable development of the oceans.

On an urgent basis and where possible by 2015, maintain

or restore depleted fish stocks to levels that can produce

the maximum sustainable yield. 

Put into effect the FAO international plans of action by

the agreed dates:

• for the management of fishing capacity by 2005; and 

• to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and

unregulated fishing by 2004.

Develop and facilitate the use of diverse approaches and

tools, including the ecosystem approach, the elimination

of destructive fishing practices, the establishment of

marine protected areas consistent with international law

and based on scientific information, including

representative networks by 2012 .

Establish by 2004 a regular process under the United

Nations for global reporting and assessment of the state

of the marine environment.

Eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported

and unregulated fishing and to over-capacity. ❏
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 44

U.S. Department of Commerce

National Marine Fisheries Service

NOAA Fisheries

1315 East West Highway

SSMC3

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Telephone: (301) 713-2276

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/international/index.htm

U.S. Department of State 

Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental 

and Scientific Affairs

2201 C Street NW 

Washington, DC 20520

Telephone: (202) 647-2335

http://www.state.gov/g/oes/ocns/

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

Trade and Environment

600 17th Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20508

Telephone: (202) 395-7320

http://www.ustr.gov/environment/index.shtml

INFORMATION RESOURCES

KEY CONTACTS AND INTERNET SITES

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 

Food and Agriculture Organization of the 

United Nations

http://www.fao.org/fi/default.asp

Greenpeace

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/oceans/

National Fisheries Institute

http://www.nfi.org/issues/management.php

Organization for Economic Cooperation

and Development

http://www.oecd.org/EN/home/0,,EN-home-159-

nodirectorate-no-no-no-1,00.html

World Bank Group

http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/essdext.nsf/26ByDo

cName/FisheriesAquacultureCaptureFisheries

World Wildlife Fund

http://www.worldwildlife.org/commerce/fishing.cfml

NON-U.S. GOVERNMENT
Economic Perspectives • An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State • Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2003 45

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df

ADDITIONAL READINGS ON OVERFISHING
Economic

Perspectives

Volume 8 An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State Number 1

OVERFISHING

JANUARY 2003

OVERFISHING

A GLOBAL CHALLENGE

}