Metric tons (thousands) 



China 



Japan 



Korea 



Taiwan 



iDriftnet □ Squid Jigging Dluna Longliner 



iTuna Purse Seine D North Pacific Trawler □ Trawler-Other 



Figure /. - Asia. Disianl-wxuer fish caich. by fleet and quantity. 1985. 



water fleet will continue to increase for the foreseeable 

 future as China attempts to reach an o\erali fisheries 

 catch goal of 20 million tons (t) by the year 2000. 



Other coimtries in the Asia-Pacific region which 

 possess fishing vessels capable of distant-water fishing 

 operations include: Australia. Bangladesh. Hong Kong. 

 India. Indonesia. Iran, the Democratic Republic of 

 Korea (DPRK). Malaysia, the Maldives, the Federated 

 States of Micronesia (FSM). Nauru. New Zealand, the 

 Philippines, the Solomon Islands. Sri Lanka, Thailand. 

 Vanuatu, and Vietnam.' With the exception of distant- 

 water mna vessels operated by Indonesia, the 

 Philippines, and Vanuatu, however, these vessels 

 operate primarily in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic 

 Zone (EEZ) of their respecnve countries. Vessels 

 from these three countries concentrate their distant- 

 water fishing efforts primarily in Pacific Ocean tuna 

 fisheries. 



Although .Asian distant-water fishing fleets have 

 engaged in numerous fisheries over the past 30 years. 

 the following four major distant-water fisheries will be 

 analyzed: 1) the distant-water trawler fisheries. 2) the 

 high-seas pelagic driftnei fisheries. 3) the squid jigging 

 fisheries, and 4) the distant-water tuna fisheries. 



A. Trawlers 



North Pacific: Tlie primary North Pacific distant- 

 water trawler fishery has taken place in the high-seas 

 area of the central Bering Sea known as the "donut 

 hole." Tliis fishery began during tlie early 1980s and 

 has been conducted by stem factory trawlers from 

 Japan, the ROK. China. Poland, and the former Soviet 

 Union Russian Federation. Japan and the ROK staned 

 fishing in die donut hole during 1981-82, and China 

 followed in early 1985. Tlie nimiber of vessels fishing 

 in the donut hole increased dramatically during the 

 1980s, from only a few exploratory vessels in 1981. to 

 over 300 in 1990. The donut hole catch peaked in 

 1989 at 1.4 million metric tons (t). but decreased 

 precipitously in the succeeding three years to 11.000 t 

 in 1992 (appendix D).- 



The dramatic decline in Alaska pollock catches in 

 the donut hole provided the inipems for a series of 

 nmltilateral negotiations in the early 1990s. In 1992, 

 a \oluntary moratorium on fishing within die donut 

 hole during 1993-94 was declared. The closure of die 

 donut hole has caused the distant-water Nordi Pacific 

 trawler fleets of East Asia to disperse to odier 

 fisheries. The large Japanese fishery companies have 

 sold most of dieir factory trawlers to foreign joint 

 venture partners or transferred the vessels to fisheries 

 in the South .Atlantic and Pacific, the so-called southern 



