The experts met in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, March 26-30, 1973. 

 As an interim control measure, ICNAF adopted national quota 

 regulations on four more previously unregulated species to help cut 

 back on the build-up of effort. Thus, virtually all species in the 

 ICNAF area will be under quota regulation. 



The first full year of operation of the ICNAF International 

 Inspection Scheme was 1972. Under the scheme enforcement officers 

 of one nation are allowed to board other ICNAF members' fishing 

 vessels on the high seas to check for compliance with ICNAF 

 regulations. Under maritime practice, enforcement against vessels 

 at sea is a prerogative usually reserved to the flag nation. The ICNAF 

 scheme, together with a similar one under the sister Northeast 

 Atlantic Fisheries Commission, both involving 20 nations as diverse 

 as Japan and Iceland, the Soviet Union and Portugal, and Canada and 

 Romania, demonstrate that it is possible for nations to cooperate in 

 mutual policing of activities of common concern. Numerous 

 inspections carried out during the year were without incident, and 

 no major infractions of the ICNAF regulations were reported. 



The controversial debate on curbing the high seas Atlantic salmon 

 fishery was resolved in 1972 when ICNAF adopted a regulation 

 which will phase out the fishery by January 1, 1976. The regulation 

 became effective on December 23, 1972. As a result, the resource will 

 no longer be threatened by direct high seas fisheries which could 

 destroy the stock and which had severely depleted some salmon 

 spawning rivers. 



The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic 

 Tunas adopted its first conservation recommendation, a size limit 

 for yellowfin tuna, at its fourth regular meeting in December 1972. 

 The United States and 11 other countries are members of the 

 Commission. In addition, present and anticipated conservation 

 restrictions and sharpening competition in established fishing areas, 

 coupled with the problems posed by extensions of Atlantic coastal 

 state jurisdictional claims, caused the tuna fishermen to show an 

 increasing interest in developing new fishing grounds in the central 

 and western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. 



The waters off our Pacific coast continued to be major fishing 

 grounds for foreign vessels, particularly those of Japan and the 

 Soviet Union. In areas off Alaska, vessels of those two major fishing 

 nations number in the hundreds during certain seasons of the year. 

 In addition, vessels of the Republic of Korea trawl-fished the eastern 

 Bering Sea, though to a much lesser degree than those of Japan and 

 the Soviet Union. Most foreign fishing effort has been devoted to a 

 number of fish species which are not now greatly sought by U.S. 

 fishermen. However, the United States is very concerned about 

 conserving these fish stocks as resources for the future. Consequent- 

 ly, the United States means to assure their conservation. 



For example, the United States sought to broaden research efforts 

 and data exchanges through the International North Pacific 

 Fisheries Commission (made up of the United States, Canada, and 

 Japan) to apply to stocks of fish to which the Commission has 



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