SEA GRANT COLLEGES 53 



What has grown over the past fifty years is the realization that every living 

 resource of the ocean can be subjected to a fishing pressure that will produce, 

 on the average over the years, a maximum sustainable catch, and that this can 

 be pretty well estimated by independent scientific research capable of indepen- 

 dent checking for credibility. Accordingly, the nations in the Law of the Sea 

 Conference at Geneva, in 1958, adopted this as the standard to which they all 

 could, and would, rally. This has disconcerted economists some because the 

 point of maximum economic yield is often (or normally) somewhat short of the 

 point of maximum sustainable yield. But the point of maximum economic yield 

 is importantly affected by socially induced factors as well as factors arising 

 solely out of nature. Different societies created different socially induced fac- 

 tors into the equation. Groups of men are not yet willing to adopt the socially 

 induced factors of other groups of men as their own rules. Thus, the nations 

 could not agree on what was a proper standard for maximum economic yield, 

 but they did agree instead on the standard of nature --the maximum sustainable 

 yield. This is derived from nature, which each group could measure and eval- 

 uate independently. 



For our purpose, here, it is only necessary to state that the determination 

 of the point (or area) of maximum sustainable yield is a matter for scientists, 

 and that fishermen, industry people, administrators and statesmen are not able 

 to give much useful imput to these determinations. 



Neither the nations, or groups within the nations, have yet developed any 

 agreed standards or criteria as to which group or nation will derive the benefit 

 from the conservation contemplated by the adoption of such a standard of maxi- 

 mum sustainable yield; but now that the standard has been created and adopted 

 it does provide the basis for reaching agreements on how to split up the swag- - 

 and this is the proper point upon which fishermen, industry people, administra- 

 tors and statesmen can effectively bring their talents and aspirations to bear. 

 They have not yet shown much inclination to do so in a satisfactory manner at 

 any level, and in consequence many vigorous artificial barriers to fishery de- 

 velopment exist at all levels. 



AQUACULTURE 



A great deal is heard these days about the raising of resources in the ocean, 

 with aquaculture being equated in these considerations with animal husbandry 

 or land or even agriculture. 



Most of this, at this point in history, is nonsense and should not yet be get- 

 ting the public attention being given to it. The reasons for this are several. One 

 is that we do not yet understand well enough the natural processes of food pro- 

 duction in the ocean to be able to intervene in them beneficially in a very mean- 

 ingful manner. Secondly, mankind never practiced animal husbandry where wild 

 game was always abundant, because there was no need for it. The common pas- 

 ture of the world otean is naturally producing about 2 billion tons per year of 

 food in size and form usable by man. At present man is using about 50 million 

 tons of this per year, and the rest is dying and going back into the web of life 

 unused by man. Certainly this wild stock will require being cut into much more 

 deeply before any major activity in artifically raising more is warranted. 



The third reason, however, is the most pertinent at this stage of history. 

 No man can afford the expense of raising fine stock if he cannot keep it out of 

 the common pasture where it can be harvested by his neighbors who have not 

 shared the expense of the animal husbandry. Most major fishery resources not 

 only range out into the common pasture of the high sea, but they cannot be prac- 

 tically confined, reared, grown to commercial size, and harvested inside a 3 

 mile limit or a 12 mile limit. Until the legal and diplomatic problems associated 

 with the common-property nature of these great resources come better into hand 

 no large scale aquaculture in the high seas will be warranted. 



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