existing and potential threats to diminishing that value seriously, and (3) 

 the costs of developing and using information and analysis to preserve that 

 value and to mitigate or avoid problems. 



First, let us investigate the value of tuna fisheries to the /\merican 

 citizen, consumer, worker, businessman, and taxpayer. Estimates put the 

 total annual retail value to the United States (in the form of canned 

 products of U.S. catches and foreign (whole) fish imports for canning) at 

 $1,288,000,000 - nearly $1.3 billion annually. 



The existing and potential threats to the maintenance of this $1.3 

 billion annual value to the U.S. are varied and complex. This value, which 

 is based on a living renewable resource, is threatened with diminution from 

 inadvertent or willful overfishing by foreign or domestic fisheries - 

 perhaps in pursuit of small short-term gains at great long-term costs to 

 future Americans. Major threats to preserving this value can occur if U.S. 

 fishermen are denied access to fishing grounds within the fishing or 

 economic zones established by foreign countries - fish caught by U.S. 

 fleets are an important factor in avoiding a "fish OPEC" situation. 

 Similar threats to limit the world's total supply of tuna (which supports 

 the U.S. supply of imported fish for processing in American canneries) can 

 occur on a multi-national scale. Thus, the success of the tuna fisheries 

 of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are of interest to the U.S. as well. The fact 

 is that all the tuna stocks and fisheries of the world are linked, if not 

 by principles of nature and the biological responses of the tuna resource 

 to fishing and environmental changes, then by the complexities of 

 international economics, demographics, and markets on a global scale. 



The U.S. tuna fishery - its supply, harvest, processing, and marketing 

 - is carried out within the world-wide multi-national arena of foreign 

 affairs. On the international scale, one cannot negotiate fishing access 

 to foreign waters, negotiate international conservation measures, or 

 negotiate for long-term larger annual benefits in place of smaller 

 diminishing short-term gains without being prepared, and being prepared 

 means being informed. Information about the world's tuna stocks and the 

 world's tuna fisheries is vital to the effort to preserve the resource and 

 the valuable U.S. tuna industry and its products for the benefit of all 

 Americans. 



The annual cost incurred by the SWFC in obtaining information on tuna 

 resources and the fishery is $1.2 million - about 15% of the Center's 

 budget and less than one-tenth of one percent (0.01%) of the annual value 

 of the U.S. fishery. 



David J . Mackett 

 Workshop Chairman 

 Southwest Fisheries Center 

 La Jolla, California 



