27 



Mr. Marten. It is hard to predict. I do not see that so much in 

 the cards. 



Senator Kerry. If there is not a reduction in effort, will there be 

 anything substantive? 



Mr. Martin. I think the elements that will deal with a pre- 

 cautionary approach and the setting of targets and thresholds, at 

 which point, then, you do reduce effort, would be the way that it 

 will be addressed. 



Senator Kerry. Well, the question really is. Is it too tepid? Is it 

 just too diplomatic — too business-as-usual? My concern is, as we 

 approach these things — every nation merely raises its head. Look 

 at the struggle we had recently with France over fish exports — this 

 is going to replicate itself all over the world. It is going to happen, 

 correct? If we bounce around on a continuing basis, year to year, 

 acceding to these narrow parochial expressions, which are abso- 

 lutely predictable and unavoidable, we are not going to confront the 

 fundamental issue, are we? 



If you can reduce the fleets of Norway and Europe and Iceland 

 by 40 to 50 percent and still fish the current level, we have got a 

 fundamental problem. What is there in this that deals with the 

 fundamental problem? 



Mr. Martin. In terms of reductions of fleets, I do not think we 

 have elements in there at the current time which would specifically 

 address that. 



Senator Kerry. So, we are really dancing around the fundamen- 

 tal issue. We are going to go through the motions of all of these 

 international meetings, all of this discussion, and we are not going 

 to confront the fundamental issue, which is that the world's fishing 

 regimen is inadequate to meet the current crisis. It is particularly 

 inadequate if we are forced into these compartmentalizations, 200 

 miles here, 200 miles there. We are going to deal with the tuna 

 over here, we are going to deal with this over there. 



This is an ecosystem. These fish are eating each other and eating 

 other fish, and they swim fi'om one place to the other to eat. If we 

 do not recognize this, and if we do not learn more and quickly 

 make some assumptions about their role in the ecosystem, and 

 what we are doing in the process of harvesting them, it seems to 

 me that we are just not doing enough to address global fisheries 

 issues. 



This is not even Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain. It 

 is worse. We are not on the mountain. Am I wrong? Tell me. Maybe 

 I am just dead wrong in my assumptions. 



Ambassador Colson. You are not wrong, Senator. I do think that 

 the code of conduct that FAO is working on will be addressing ef- 

 fort issues. The flagging convention does in a sense address effort, 

 because we are talking about the practice that has emerged in the 

 world of fishing vessels that are flagged in a particular country 

 reflagging to another. 



We have started the process of trying to control that sort of 

 transfer of effort away from responsible behavior to irresponsible 

 uncontrolled behavior. We have not gotten there all the way yet, 

 but we have begun that. 



I think the other thing that we are going to find is that vou are 

 only going to be able to get at some of these issues by working on 



