62 



Ms. Speer. Well, I think there are a number of ideas out there 

 for limiting capacity. One of them is to establish thresholds in indi- 

 vidual fisheries so that once a threshold is passed, which indicates 

 either maximum utilization or overutilization, you have an auto- 

 matic cut or closure of the fishery. 



Mechanisms that are established, preagreed mechanisms that 

 are established to trigger preagreed actions to cut the level of pres- 

 sure on a fishery, could be incorporated into this and in fact have 

 been discussed in the context of the U.N. negotiations, and I think 

 there is some promise there but I think it is going to take a lot of 

 work and I think it is going to really need — this issue and the need 

 for conservation, the need lor protection of other species besides the 

 target species, needs to be elevated. There needs to be more atten- 

 tion paid to these issues. We need to hear more about this from 

 leaders of nations, including the United States. 



Senator Kerry. I agree with you completely. It is extraordinarily 

 important to raise this to the summit level, if you will, and put 

 pressure on these nations to begin to deal with it. Otherwise, we 

 are just going to, I think, continue down this road of 

 incrementalism which is disaster in itself. 



Mr. Bumey talked about tuna management compared to other 

 fisheries, and pointed to the success there, but obviously, we still 

 are concerned about the successful implementation of the ICCAT. 

 How would you compare the ICCAT structure and its effectiveness 

 with the other two agreements that you are involved with, the 

 tropical tuna convention and the South Pacific convention? 



Mr. BURNEY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that the key to any of 

 these international organizations, for them to be effective they have 

 to have good data. Without the data then it is guesswork and it be- 

 comes the political will of each of the parties to that particular con- 

 vention. In the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission they 

 have an independent scientific organization that monitors the sta- 

 tus of the stocks. The South Pacific Commission does that out in 

 the Western Pacific. Those scientific bodies are not fettered with all 

 of the political arguments that go on at ICCAT. 



ICCAT has been very political, and as the science evolves in 

 ICCAT it is always debated on what is good science and what is 

 not good science. Because of the independent scientific body of the 

 South Pacific and the lATTC, they bring the science to the political 

 table, and therefore it is the only science that anybody relies on. 

 It is not that each country brings their own science and then ar- 

 gues that their science is tne correct science. 



Senator Kerry. Do you think that is why the South Pacific trea- 

 ties have worked versus the ICCAT, or is there some other distinc- 

 tion? 



Mr. BuRNEY. I think in terms of the South Pacific Tuna Treaty 

 it relies on the South Pacific Commission which is separate and 

 apart from the treaty partners for the purposes of determining the 

 status of those stocks, and every year that we have an annual 

 meeting the South Pacific Commission brings a report to that 

 group on the status. 



Senator KJ']RRY. Do you think they would make a generally ac- 

 cepted scientifically based decision? 



Mr. BURNEY. Absolutely. 



