NORTH PACIFIC FISHERIES ENVIRONMENT: INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

I. INTRODUCTION In 1995, ratification of the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) legalized pre-existing coastal and island state expropriations of about 90% of world marine resources located in vast tracts of offshore Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) real estate. Resources that had been open-access to the users of all nations became open only to the users of the owner nations or their licensees. Early in the EEZ enclosure movement, Eckert (1972) cited its potential to enhance efficiency in marine resource usage through property right definition. However, clearer national ownership did not guarantee efficient national management or efficient management in the high seas. This paper reviews the results occurring in the North Pacific marine environment with respect to China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, the Russian Far East (RFE), and the Pacific United States. II. ECONOMIC THEORY AND BASIC DATA A. Economic Considerations Fishers of all coastal and island nations work in four areas: (i) land-based fresh water [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] and coastal regions, (ii) national marine coastal and offshore areas, (iii) the coastal and offshore areas of other nations, (iv) the High Seas. The EEZs and UNCLOS III enlarged the second and third at the expense of the fourth and significantly changed the relative costs of fishing in all four areas. Obviously, fishers reduce effort where relative costs have risen and increase effort where they have fallen. The changes manifested themselves differently to the fishers of different nations and were modified by differing regulatory regimes. B. Basic Data A variety of institutional rigidities and the unequal distribution and productivity of the acquired zones have made adjustments to the changing realities very uneven. Tables 1 and 2 assume a potential EEZ for all countries using data and a similar assumption from the Word Resources Institute (1994). Of the six countries, the United States, North Korea, the Russian Federation, and (recently) Japan have declared EEZs. China and South Korea are in the declaration process (Dzurek, 1996b). Table 1 shows the highly unequal distribution of EEZ areas and productivity. The United States has the world's largest EEZ, mostly in the Pacific. Japan's EEZ - assumed the same as its Fishing Limit (FL) - lies wholly in the Pacific, exceeds China's, and is almost as large as Russia's. China's is the smallest of the large countries' EEZs (excluding the South China Sea), occupying about one-third the size of Japan's, albeit with twice the shelf area. Shelf areas tend to yield more fish than do deep waters. Thus, the size of an EEZ's shelf areas has significant resource implications. China's immense productivity in freshwater fisheries and aquaculture (table 2) has made it the world's largest producer of fishery products. Its total output of 18.3 million metric tons (mmt) in 1993 increased in 1994 (but stagnated in 1995) at over 23.5 mint each year (ACIBa, 21, p. 11). Japan's and Korea's efforts at coastal and freshwater aquaculture have trailed China's because of population density, high coastal land costs, and sufficient marine catches. Japanese and Korean aquacultural joint ventures proliferate in land-rich Russia despite the abundant, good quality fresh water flowing from their own forests and mountain ranges. However, recent trends in Japanese seafood output are generally negative; only aquaculture has grown, although it remains less than 20% of the total (ACIBa, 19, p. 6). In terms of shelf areas, the real winners are Russia and the United States with China close behind. Russia and the United States also enjoy the lowest coastal population densities relative to their shelf areas. The data also indicate that Japan and Korea with declining trends and China with flattened trends may have reached the limits of their marine sector productivity. However, Russian output consistently has grown at double digit rates (ACIBa, 20, p. …