APPENDIX VI APPENDIX VI 
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of these conventions. The study is not intended to be a final, defin- 
itive analysis of the international implications of the 200-mile fishery 
zone. Rather, its purpose is to add to information which will provide 
an insight into the complexities of the problem of arriving at accommo- 
dations between coastal nations and foreign nations fishing in coastal 
waters. Our examination of this potentially difficult development 
emphasizes the problems inherent in the United States’ unilateral exten- 
sion of jurisdiction over fisheries to 200 miles off our coast. The 
report will discuss the issues by geographic areas approximately equiv- 
alent to those covered by the regional councils established under the 
1976 Fishery Conservation and Management Act. 
THE PROBLEM 
The United States has great potential as a fish producing nation. 
It has the fourth longest coastline of any nation in the world (13,112 
nautical miles). In addition, it has a continental shelf area of 
860,600 square nautical miles (the third largest in the world). The 
waters lying off the North Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the 
Pacific coast of the United States and Alaska (including the Bering 
Sea), are among the richest and most productive regions of the world 
oceans. However, the United States produces only approximately 2 million 
metric tons of fish per year from the waters off its coast and the catch 
has varied but little over the past thirty years. The question of why 
this is so is a continuing problem. 
Before 1950, there were virtually no foreign vessels fishing off 
the coast of the United States except a handful of Canadian boats 
fishing salmon, black cod and halibut off the coasts of Washington and 
Alaska and an occasional Canadian groundfish and scallop vessel off the 
coast of New England. Since that time foreign fishing off the coast of 
the United States has increased a hundred-fold, and the number of foreign 
flag fishing fleets has increased to over twenty.! The world fish catch 
during this period (1950-1975) has increased to about seventy millions 
of tons by 1975, increasing since the end of World War II at a rate 
slightly above 5 percent per year (Fig. 1, Table 1). The world catch 
dropped in the early 1970's, due primarily to a decline in the Peruvian 
anchovy fishery coupled with a failure of world herring fisheries 
elsewhere, both in the northwestern Pacific and northeastern Atlantic. 
IDuring the past decade vessels from the following nations have 
been observed by the United States Coast Guard and National Marine 
Fisheries Service fishing within 200 miles off the United States coast: 
Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, France, 
German Democratic Republic, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, 
Norway, Poland, Republic of China (Taiwan), Republic of Korea, Romania, 
Spain, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and Venezuela. 
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