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tainability of international fishery resources is necessary for the 

 long-term viability of our commercial fishing industry. And we do 

 so, fully committed to the balance of interests that are contained 

 in the Law of the Sea principles that balance the rights of coastal 

 States and the rights of fishermen to fish on the high seas. 



Mr. Chairman, coming back to the point that was just made by 

 yourself and Senator Burns. One of the things that we always have 

 problems with in international fishery negotiations is that we are 

 just focused on allocation issues. And one of the things that \ye 

 need to begin to do and that we want to do in the Department, in 

 the next year, is really begin to focus on some of these other pollu- 

 tion issues, such as pollution, that affect our fishery resources. And 

 one of the things that the administration has done is offer to host 

 a global conference on land-based sources of marine pollution. 



This initiative arises out of UNCED. It was one of the con- 

 ferences that UNCED called for. We will be hosting that conference 

 here in Washington, DC, in November of 1995. And certainly, we 

 want to tie fisheries into the marine pollution issue because it is 

 so important, just as you mentioned. You can have lots of argu- 

 ments about allocation of a clam bed, but it is not going to do you 

 any good if you have not dealt with the pollution issues upstream. 

 Otherwise you are not going to have any clams there in the future. 

 This is a big problem around the world, bigger perhaps than it is 

 in the United States. We want to begin to oring a lot of these is- 

 sues together that in the past we have sort of kept separate. 



Second, I do want to mention the driftnet issue. I think we can 

 say that through U.S. leadership we have gotten a real handle on 

 this. We remain vigilant in respect of the moratorium that was 

 adopted in 1992. In the Pacific Ocean I believe we can say that the 

 moratorium is being fully respected. We have had very few situa- 

 tions where we have had some bandit problems, but the countries 

 concerned have been cooperating with us. We have a very good en- 

 forcement agreement now with the Government of China that re- 

 lates to any situation where we might find a vessel that is violating 

 Chinese law on the high seas, dealing with driftnets, to work with 

 the Chinese Government on that kind of a problem. There have 

 only been a couple of cases of this sort over a 2-year period. 



We also have a difficult situation in the European area, in the 

 Bay of Biscay and in the Mediterranean. I think it is important as 

 we consider this situation to note that the rules of the governments 

 concerned, the Italian and the French Governments and the Euro- 

 pean Community, are to respect the U.N. moratorium on driftnets. 

 They respect the length of the net that is required by that morato- 

 rium. But at the same time there are problem fishermen. There are 

 rogue fishermen in any country. And these governments may not 

 yet have been able to get a handle on some of the illegal fishing 

 practices that go on in those nations. 



The question before us is. Are we working hard enough with 

 those governments? Are we keeping the issue in front of them? And 

 I think we can sav that we are and that we are making progress. 

 Mr. Kantor raised this during the G-7 with the Italians, and we 

 are keeping this as a major part of our foreign policy efforts with 

 the Italian and the French Governments and the European Com- 

 munity to make sure that the allies that we have in Europe on the 



