ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE WORLD'S FISHERIES 193 



herence of other governments. The multilateral approach is also represented by 

 the International Convention for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, which was 

 developed in February, 1949, by representatives of Canada, Denmark, France, 

 Iceland, Italy, Newfoundland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom 

 and the United States (Anon., 1949d). It has since been accepted by the United 

 States Senate. 



At the Geneva Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization in 1947 it 

 was recommended that FAO, through its Fisheries Division, "Take action to 

 initiate the formation of regional councils for the scientific exploration of the sea 

 in parts of the world not now actively served by similar bodies, giving primary 

 consideration to the following areas: Northwestern Atlantic, Southwestern Pacific 

 and Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous waters. Northeastern Pa- 

 cific, Southeastern Pacific, Western South Atlantic, Eastern South Atlantic, and 

 Indian Ocean. The boundaries of these areas, and the constitution of the covincils 

 should be left open for discussion and determination by the nations concerned" 

 (Anon., 1947). The first of these— the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council— was es- 

 tablished in March, 1949, with Burma, France, India, the Netherlands, the Re- 

 public of the Phihppines, the United Kingdom, and the United States as members 

 (Anderson, 1948). An agreement to establish a General Fisheries Council for 

 the Mediterranean, developed at Rome in September, 1949, by countries interested 

 in the area, has been approved by FAO (Anon., 1949b), and a Latin American 

 Regional Council has been proposed. 



Interest in the international aspects of the world's fisheries is increasing. But no 

 simple and universally satisfactory solution to certain obvious problems, economic 

 and otherwise, seems to be at hand. If the proposed multilateral discussions are 

 unsuccessful, possession and exploitation of the world's fishery resources may be- 

 come a much more serious matter, particularly since so much stress is being laid 

 on the world's increasing population— 55,000 new mouths to feed each day ac- 

 cording to the Director-General of FAO. Some even doubt the ability of the land 

 to produce after years of erosion and ill-advised farming practices. However, 

 what the land has lost, the sea has gained. Though relatively unexplored, its 

 fishery resources are probably on the threshold of their ultimate development 

 and, therefore, are of economic importance far beyond the casual current 

 conception. 



Fishing Areas 



The fishery resources of the world, as they have been developed or as we 

 know them, are not equally distributed throughout the waters of the globe. In 

 general it appears that abundance is linked to areas where the continental shelf 

 is broad and the waters relatively shallow and productive of food. The temperate 

 zones support tremendous populations of fish, consisting of relatively few species. 

 The tropic zones have a great number of species, but no single species is com- 

 parable in volume to the cod, mackerel, herring, or salmon found in the colder 

 zones. What the deeper ocean waters contain is a mystery, made only more 

 fascinating by occasional research reports. 



Sandberg reported on the status of the world's fisheries prior to the war and 

 found that of the 37 billion pound catch, 98 per cent was taken in the northern 

 hemisphere (Sandberg, 1945a). Forty-seven per cent of the catch was made in 



