39 



the EEZ's of individual nations, it does have the potential to set 

 important precedents for the management of fisheries internation- 

 ally regardless of where they occur. 



The need for an effective international regime is urgent, and the 

 United States will have a very important role to play in the out- 

 come of the United Nations conference. 



Why should the United States care about this international con- 

 ference? 



The United States really has three principal interests in making 

 sure that a strong international regime emerges from the United 

 Nations process. The first is that this country has a major economic 

 interest in the fisheries at stake here. For example, tunas comprise 

 roughly one-quarter of the total volume of edible imported fish into 

 this country each year. U.S. fishermen catch, as you know, hun- 

 dreds of millions of dollars' worth of tuna, and most of that is 

 caught outside of U.S. waters. 



Other straddling and highly migratory species of importance to 

 the United States include pollock in the Bering Sea, as others have 

 noted, swordfish, as well as billfish. Recreational fishing on billfish 

 annually brings in hundreds of millions of dollars per year. 



The lack of an effective international regime has had a major im- 

 pact on some of these species, and the potential for further damage 

 to U.S. interest is very high. The three examples that obviously 

 come to mind are the disastrous depletion of bluefin tuna, the prob- 

 lem in the Donut Hole that many have alluded to, and the severe 

 depletion of swordfish in the North Atlantic, which has led to vir- 

 tually the elimination of the recreational swordfish fishery there. 



In addition, a number of species that are important to the United 

 States are not managed by any international authority. These in- 

 clude North and Soutn Pacific albacore fisheries, as well as sword- 

 fish and marlin in the Pacific. And these species are in desperate 

 need of management. 



According to NMFS, both North Pacific albacore and blue marlin 

 are classified as overutilized. And no mechanism even exists to as- 

 sess the status of most billfish in the Pacific, let alone effectively 

 manage them. 



Most commercially caught species of straddling and highly mi- 

 gratory fish are now fully fished or overexploited according to FAO. 

 It is in the interest of the United States to get controls over these 

 fisheries now before the increasing level of competition precipitates 

 crisis, like those we have seen with bluefin, pollock, and swordfish. 



The second reason that the United States has an interest in a 

 strong international regime is its concern with the maintenance of 

 marine biological diversity. This conference offers a major oppor- 

 tunity to move ahead and advance the conservation of related wild- 

 life and the protection of that wildlife from the impacts that occur 

 when fishing depletes them. And the interest of the United States 

 in maintaining marine biological diversity could be served by a 

 strong regime in that regard. 



And last, I think the third principal reason the United States has 

 an interest in this conference relates to the escalating conflicts that 

 have occurred as dwindling supplies of fish have become the sub- 

 ject of increasingly intense conflict and controversy between na- 

 tions over their allocation. 



