saw it as unworkable; others found too many technical flaws. During 

 the course of the debate, the United States indicated a willingness to 

 accept, as an interim measure, a new approach that had arisen from 

 the work of the experts. Under this approach a two-tier quota system 

 would be established in which an overall, nationally allocated quota 

 for all fish caught would be imposed over each country's individual 

 species quotas; the overall quota would be less than the sum of the 

 individual species quotas. Such a system should reduce the 

 incidental catch of species not being primarily sought. The system 

 would encourage nations to use methods to decrease incidental 

 catches. If they did not, they would exceed their overall quotas 

 before they attained the individual quotas on the species for which 

 they were primarily fishing. From a conservation viewpoint, the 

 value of this allocation system is that it may prevent the incidental 

 catch of some species from resulting in their commercial extinction. 



The annual meeting failed to reach agreement on how to conserve 

 the cfepleted fisheries off the U.S. Atlantic coast, and the threat of 

 virtually uncontrolled fishing effort in these fisheries became a real 

 possibility for 1974. Because the United States had indicated a 

 serious intent to consider withdrawing from ICNAF unless the 

 excess fishing effort was brought under control, the possibility of 

 collapse of ICNAF also became very real. The United States and 

 other ICNAF members accepted a Canadian invitation to a special 

 ICNAF meeting in October to deal with the single question of fishing 

 off the northeast U.S. coast. The situation in these fisheries was 

 categorized as a "crisis" by then Secretary of State William P. Rogers 

 in communications to the Foreign Ministers of the other ICNAF 

 Members preparatory to the October meeting. Crisis is a term used 

 reluctantly by the Secretary of State, and the fact that he personally 

 communicated with the other governments demonstrated the 

 seriousness with which the United States viewed the situation. 



Fortunately, the special meeting held in October was productive, 

 with agreement being reached on a two-tier catch quota system to be 

 implemented for a 3-year period. The agreement will reduce foreign 

 fishing and begin the process of rebuilding the stocks to their 

 optimum yield. At the same time the preferential interest of coastal 

 fishermen was recognized, and as a result American and Canadian 

 fishermen will be allowed increased catches in the area. 

 Furthermore, gear restrictions will keep almost all foreign bottom 

 trawlers out of the relatively shallow waters off New England for 6 

 months of the year. 



A new development at the October special meeting of ICNAF was 

 that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) played a more active 

 role. The GDR maintains one of the largest fishing fleets off the U.S. 

 Atlantic coast but has not been a member of ICNAF. The GDR 



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