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life cycles must be acknowledged in order to establish an equitable sharing 

 of benefits. Equity, to many participants in and most casual observers of 

 the Pacific Salmon Commission process, currently is assumed wrongly to 

 entail a balance in the net effects of salmon interceptions. Migratory 

 salmon which spawn in one country and rear and grow to mature adults in 

 the other country's waters are a shared resource. Any arrangement which 

 allots one hundred per cent of the benefits to the country in which the 

 salmon are spawned and zero per cent to the country which contributes 

 significantly to the conservation, growth, and production of those salmon is 

 unrealistic and unacceptable. Yet, this is exactly what Canada and some 

 southern U.S. interests have proposed through an "interception" balancing 

 exercise within the Pacific Salmon Commission. 



It should be noted that the Treaty does not specify that levels of 

 interceptions should be balanced. It rather requires that the nations 

 obtain benefits equivalent to the production of salmon from the respective 

 waters. Production of salmon is a far more intricate process than is 

 represented by any accounting of "interceptions". Salmon are primarily 

 marine animals, deriving all of their economic value there. Salmon species 

 spend much of their respective life cycles in multiple marine jurisdictions, 

 generate real costs and effects on the interest of the "host" nations, and in 

 fact, are produced jointly by the parties to the Treaty. Apportioning that 

 production arbitrarily, as Canada asserts, to the location of spawning 

 grossly and unacceptably distorts the factors and responsibilities involved 

 in salmon production. If equity is to be addressed as a separate issue 

 within the Treaty, that system will have to be far more sophisticated and 

 consistent with the realities of salmon production than has been advocated 

 by Canada. 



3. What are the main obstacles to achieving a unified United 

 States negotiating position, and what are your specific 

 recommendations for reaching a negotiating position? 



The main obstacle encountered in recent years prohibiting achievement of 

 a unified U.S. negotiating position is the Southern U.S. Commissioner's 

 approach of trying to trade away Alaskan interests in order to attempt to 

 achieve better arrangements with Canada on southern fisheries issues. 



The U.S. has been able to reach agreed positions until very recently in the 

 Pacific Salmon Commission. The U.S. maintained agreed positions into this 

 past year until certain non-Alaskan interests announced unilaterally that 

 those positions were no longer wholly accepted. Subsequent difficulty in 



