29 



by the Republic of Korea. The Conference is scheduled to be 

 held October 6-8, 1993, in Seoul. 



Mr. Chairman, I would like to note that at the United 

 Nations Conference in New York, the U.S. and Russia submitted 

 a statement on the conservation and management of straddling 

 fish stocks in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. In that 

 statement, we noted the short-term progress but continuing 

 elusiveness of concluding a long-term conservation and 

 management agreement for the central Bering Sea "Donut Hole" 

 and the Sea of Okhotsk "Peanut Hole" pollock stocks. We 

 declared our determination, in accordance with international 

 law, to carry out our urgent duty to resolve the conservation 

 crisis of the pollock resources in those respective seas by 

 taking all necessary measures. 



Mr. Chairman, House Concurrent Resolution 135, introduced 

 by Mr. Young on August 5 and cosponsored by Messrs. Studds, 

 Manton, Fields (of Texas) and Saxton, is fully supported by 

 the Department. We appreciate the interest of the Congress in 

 calling for the U.S. to take further steps to establish an 

 international fishery agreement for the conservation and 

 management of the living marine resources in the Bering Sea 

 "Donut Hole" . 



Mr. Chairman, much work remains to be done. Good progress 

 has been made but it is not enough. Fundamental issues remain 

 unresolved. The long-term needs of the resource must be put 

 above short-term profits. The U.S. will continue efforts to 

 secure a long-term conservation and management agreement for 

 the Aleutian Basin pollock resource in the central Bering 

 Sea. The resource is too important and valuable to allow 

 unregulated fishing in the "Donut Hole" to resume. 



Finally, in this regard I would like to note that there 

 are occasional rumors that some U.S. vessels wish to enter the 

 Sea of Okhotsk and fish in the Peanut Hole. We have no 

 regulatory authority to control directly such activities. 

 Were U.S. vessels to enter that area at a time where there are 

 serious stock conservation problems, and when we are trying to 

 negotiate a Donut Hole regime, our cooperation with Russia 

 would be jeopardized and our Donut Hole negotiations would be 

 frustrated. 



Mr. Chairman, I would also like to discuss briefly the 

 status of U.S. accession to the Convention on Future 

 Multilateral Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries 

 (the Convention), done at Ottawa, October 24, 1978. The 

 Convention established the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries 

 Organization (NAFO) , which regulates fisheries on straddling 

 stocks in that portion of the Atlantic. The Convention 

 provides for international conservation and management of 

 Northwest Atlantic fish stocks that occur outside national 

 zones of fisheries jurisdiction. It also provides a framework 

 for multilateral scientific cooperation with respect to 

 fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. 



We have not yet acceded to the Convention. The time has 

 come to do so. Our policy — ; on a wide range of international 

 conservation issues — is to participate in regional 

 conservation and management regimes. We make it a cornerstone 

 of our laws and policies to encourage others to do so. Our 

 failure to participate in the NAFO regime for such stocks in 

 the Atlantic, where U.S. fishermen harvest straddling stocks 

 of concern to Canada, and the States fishing there, undermines 

 our credibility, both in terms of our support for regional 

 fishery management agreements and with regard to our 

 statements of concern for the health of the marine environment 

 and the sustainable use of fishery resources. Major fishing 

 nations, such as Japan, Russian, and Poland, whose vessels 

 fish in both the Donut Hole and the NAFO Regulatory Area, note 



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