Chapter V — International 
The nets are usually set in the evening and retrieved 
the next morning. 
Large-scale driftnet fishing in the North Pacific 
Ocean began late in the 1970s. With little or no 
management authority governing their operation in 
international waters, driftnet fishing expanded rapidly 
into high seas areas. By the mid-1980s more than 800 
vessels from Japan, Taiwan, and the Republic of 
Korea were licensed to engage in driftnet fishing in 
the North Pacific Ocean. Together, they deployed as 
much as 40,000 kilometers of net nightly. 
The principal target species of driftnet fisheries in 
the North Pacific Ocean include salmon, neon flying 
squid, albacore and skipjack tuna, and billfish. The 
incidental catch includes millions of finfish, sharks, 
seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals. Species of 
marine mammals taken include the northern right 
whale dolphin, Dall’s porpoise, Pacific white-sided 
dolphin, common dolphin, striped dolphin, spotted 
dolphin, false killer whale, pilot whale, Cuvier’s 
beaked whale, minke whale, sperm whale, northern 
fur seal, and northern elephant seal. 
As the indiscriminate nature and great magnitude 
of the unregulated catch became apparent in the 
1980s, they gave rise to global concern over the 
wastefulness of driftnets and their effect on marine 
species. Not only were the driftnet fisheries catching 
highly migratory species of commercially valuable 
fish being taken by fisheries using other gear types, 
they also were incidentally taking large numbers of 
many other species. These included some species that 
spend part of their life cycles in coastal areas as 
significant seasonal components of coastal marine 
ecosystems. Given the number of individual animals 
of many different species being taken, the Marine 
Mammal Commission and others expressed grave 
concern about the overall effect of driftnet fisheries on 
the fundamental structure of marine ecosystems. 
By the late 1980s forays by driftnet vessels into the 
South Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans presaged 
an impending global expansion of driftnet fishing 
operations. However, as discussed below, concerted 
international actions have been taken to prevent their 
spread into new high seas areas and to phase out the 
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practice indefinitely in high seas areas where they now 
occur. 
U.S. Agreements with Fishing Nations 
Concern over the effects of high seas driftnet 
fishing in the North Pacific Ocean led Congress to 
pass the Driftnet Impact Monitoring, Assessment, and 
Control Act of 1987. The Act called upon the De- 
partment of Commerce, through the Department of 
State, to negotiate driftnet monitoring and enforcement 
agreements with driftnet fishing nations whose high 
seas fleets were taking marine resources of the United 
States. The Act specified that the monitoring agree- 
ments include, among other things, observer programs 
to collect data suitable for developing statistically 
reliable assessments of the numbers of U.S. species 
killed by each nation’s driftnet fleet, and that the 
enforcement agreements include measures to avoid 
fishing in areas where salmon of U.S. origin were 
likely to be caught. 
To assure international cooperation, the Act 
directed the Secretary of Commerce to certify any 
driftnet fishing nation failing to enter into or to 
implement adequate enforcement or monitoring agree- 
ments under the Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen’s 
Protective Act. Such a certification constitutes a 
finding that a nation is diminishing the effectiveness 
of an international fisheries agreement and empowers 
the President to embargo some or all fishery products 
imported into the United States from that nation. 
In response to the Act, separate driftnet monitoring 
and enforcement agreements were negotiated with 
Japan, Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea in 1989. 
Canada also was a party to the agreements with Japan. 
Under the agreement with Japan, a pilot observer 
program was implemented in 1989 for the Japanese 
squid driftnet fleet. Beginning in 1990 monitoring 
and enforcement programs with all three driftnet 
fishing nations were carried out. Specific program 
details, such as the number of observers, arrange- 
ments for data collection and analysis, and areas 
closed to driftnet fishing, were negotiated separately 
prior to each fishing season. The Marine Mammal 
Commission’s comments to the Departments of 
Commerce and State on the monitoring programs are 
described in its previous annual reports. The agree- 
