APPENDIX VI APPENDIX VI 
THE FISHERIES CONVENTIONS AND THEIR PURPOSE 
The United States is a member of eight international organizations 
concerned with fishery or marine mammal management. These Commissions 
have as their primary purpose the conservation of fishery resources 
fished by two or more countries. Usually, a Commission is established 
with membership from each member country. Statistical and scientific 
committees coordinate the accumulation of technical data and assessment 
of the status of stocks of concern to the particular Commission. 
Table 2 gives a list of these conventions, their acronyms, date estab- 
lished and auspices, membership, area of competence, resources covered, 
and management responsibility. All are multilateral or bilateral 
conventions that have management responsibilities. A number of these 
(the International Pacific Halibut Commission, the International Pacific 
Salmon Fisheries Commission, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission 
and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) 
have independent scientific staffs with responsibilities for gathering 
scientific information and making independent recommendations to their 
respective Commissions for the management of stocks under their purview. 
On the other hand, the International North Pacific Fisheries 
Commission, the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission, the International 
Whaling Commission, and the International Convention for Northwest 
Atlantic Fisheries all depend upon the scientific and technical staffs 
of member countries. Scientific and technical committees carry out 
scientific investigations and then formulate recommendations for the 
Management of the stocks under the purview of the commission. 
Still another type, sponsored by the Food and Agricultural Organ- 
ization, includes such Commissions as the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council, 
the Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission, and the Fishery Committee for the 
Eastern Central Atlantic. They promote programs of fishery development 
and conservation and encourage cooperation between member nations. They 
have no management functions per se. There are a number of other regional 
fisheries conventions in various parts of the world ocean. They are 
briefly described in Table 3. 
The first category of convention, those with management responsi- 
bilities, tend to have been established to manage the fisheries for 
maximum sustainable yield of the resource and have little responsibility 
for either the economic return from the fishery or for the allocation of 
the catch among the members. There are some exceptions to this. For 
example, the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission specifically allocates 
the harvest among member nations. It provides that the harvest of fur 
seals be carried out on the rookeries which happen to be islands under 
the sovereignty of the Soviet Union and the United States. However, 
beyond this, the convention calls for studies to ascertain the per- 
missible catch of fur seals and allocates 15 percent to Japan and the 
same to Canada. These nations in return have discontinued pelagic (high 
seas) seal hunting. 
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