Three essential features stand out : ( 1 ) general recognition that the 

 threat to the resource is not the local problem of a particular fishery or 

 a particular section of the country; (2) priority to conservation of the 

 resource; and (3) the "species approach" in which management using 

 sound biological and economic principles, rather than geographical con- 

 siderations, should govern, with preferential access for the nation off 

 whose coasts the fisheries lie. To this we would now add emphasis on 

 national and international enforcement of fisheries agreements. 



It should be noted that, though the U.S. position on "species approach" 

 hasn't changed, estimates of the chances for effective international agree- 

 ment at the Law of the Sea Conference have seldom been very optimistic. 

 But whatever does happen, some arrangement for greater control by the 

 coastal nations over the fish stocks off their shores for the purpose of both 

 management and of har\'est seems likely and should be anticipated. The 

 United States must start planning now to be in a position to take advan- 

 tage of such preferential access or some similar arrangement if and when 

 it is worked out — preferably with, but if necessary without, international 

 support. The United States must protect its coastal and anadromous re- 

 sources from overfishing. 



What these first planning steps should be is not common ground. De- 

 spite general agreement on the necessity for a national approach as given 

 in the last Annual Report, NACOA could report no consensus on where 

 to begin. But suggestions to emphasize correction of jurisdictional problems, 

 inventory the assets, and regulate or limit entry so as to control the fishing 

 effort predominated. It was clear to NACOA that all of these aspects had 

 to be worked on at the same time. This is what makes it so complicated. 

 If essential agreement on what to do first is needed before action is taken, 

 and if there is no clear consensus on what to do first, it may be necessary 

 to make the several approaches at the same time, not in series. Otherwise 

 every possible solution is torpedoed by the unanswerable questions about 

 "other" aspects of the complicated fishery problem. 



That is why, last year, NACOA suggested setting a provisional planning 

 target for an increased share of the domestic market to be supplied by 

 domestic fishermen. We may have created some misunderstanding by not 

 making it explicit that the goal (50 percent of the domestic market to be 

 supplied by the domestic fishing industry by 1980 as opposed to the 

 current share of 40 percent) * was a suggested target intended to uncover 

 problems and obstacles standing in the way of achieving any reasonable 

 goal. If this target turned out to be unrealistic, why then it would have to 

 be changed. If the assumptions, either about the supply or about the de- 



* The increase in share of the market of 10 percent coupled with market growth at 

 the rate of the last three decades, implied an increase of 40 percent in fish sup- 

 plied. 



41 



