"Animals living in the sea waters are protected from the destruction of their species by man. Their multiplication is so rapid and their means of evading pursuit or traps are so great, that there is no likelihood of his being able to destroy the entire species of any of these animals."

-Famous evoutionist Jean-Baptist de Lamarck,1780.

"the seas so swarming with fish [that they] could be taken not only with a net but in baskets let down with a stone.........truly an endless supply."

-John Cabot, famed explorer, speaking of our northeast seas, 1500.

The worlds fisheries are in current and impending crisis. Virtually every commercial fish species in every ocean is over exploited, and populations are depleting. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization statistics, the global marine fish catch has peaked and is now declining across all oceans. In the decade between 1950 and 1960, the total recorded landing from commercial marine fisheries rose from approximately 20 million tons to 40 million tons (Powers 1992). In 1989, the total peaked at 89 million tons, and species populations can no longer sustain themselves (ICCAT, 1989). The total has fallen back, but only slightly.

Hindsight showed every nation the result of overfishing. Multiple examples of devastated fisheries caused by over exploiting a resource. Stocks went from ‘endless supplies’ to commercial extinction in a matter of years. A frightening example, the Norwegian stock of spring-spawning herring collapsed from a total of 10 million tons in 1950 to virtually zero in 1970, as a result of irresponsible and negligent fishing fleets (Benson, 1970).

A wicked cycle ensued in the supply and demand of marine fish. Increasing fleets of boats chasing and ever shrinking number of fish. Rising prices for fish led to more intense fishing and dwindling stocks. This process focused primarily in northern waters where the largest fleets resided, at least until these stocks were exhausted. So the northern fishing nations of Canada, Japan, and many European Nations began to build larger, long-range vessels--namely giant factory trawlers and purse seiners-- which could venture further into less heavily fished waters.

The spread created intense economic and environmental battles around the globe. In an attempt to reverse this trend Congress passed the Magnuson Fisheries Management and Conservation Act in 1976. The main purposes in enacting the Magnuson Fisheries Act was first to re-Americanize the fisheries by controlling or eliminating foreign fishing along our coast, and second to conserve and restore precious fish populations (Benson, 1970)

The first part of the act was accomplished swiftly. The act enforced the extension of national jurisdiction over coastal waters to a distance of 200 miles off shore. This constituted over two million square miles of ocean, deemed the Fishery Conservation Zone (later changed to the Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ) (AFS, 1979). The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, spread the EEZ law across the globe in hopes of providing countries with the logical incentive to protect their own fish stocks. Things did not work out as planned. Many Third World countries sold their fishing rights in a time of economic pressures. Other countries borrowed money to create modern fleets of their own in attempts to boost the local economies. It furthered the flow of resources from South to North, taking away from potential local customers and placing the product on the dinner tables and feed lots of the North.

An ecological disaster resulted from what lie beyond the waters of the EEZ and the convention. To escape the national jurisdiction, distant water fleets moved operations to the high seas on immense floating factories. In the high seas, fish are far more dispersed, and the fleets adjusted accordingly. Fishing gear and technology capable of covering wider areas followed, leading to less discriminate catches. UNCLOS, inadvertently contributed to the spread of high seas drift nets. Beyond putting further pressure on depleted fish stocks, these nets killed millions of marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, and non-target fish before being outlawed after resolutions resulting from the United Nations General Assembly (Mather, 1988).

The superficial lines drawn between coastal waters and the high seas are not respected by marine animals. Therefore, fish stocks located on the boundaries of two or more countries EEZ’s or the line between an EEZ and the high seas are subject to an onslaught of multiple fishing pressures. Single stocks are exploited solely by one country within an EEZ and by unlimited vessels in international waters.

Furthermore, following the Act and the Convention American fisheries continued to be exploited. The two purposes of the Magnusen Fisheries Act worked against each other in both an economic and environmental aspect. By re-Americanizing, congress provided a support system for American fisherman that proved far too inviting. The fleets soon surpassed the foreign fleets in technology and number through the aid of loan guarantees and investment incentives. Additions of people with no prior fishing industry caused further over capitalization. Quite simply too large an arsenal to capture the fish in sustainable quantities.

The second aim of the Act, the conservation and restoration of our fish stocks, lie dependent upon the interpretation of what the act considered ‘overfishing’. The Act says that "Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving the optimum yield from each fishery on a continuing basis" (AFS, 1990) Overfishing seems to go undefined, and optimum yield is rather ambiguous in itself. "Optimum yield" is defined as maximum sustainable yield "modified by any relevant economic, social or ecological factor." Crystal clear it is not, for this definition can be (and has been) used to justify nearly any catch level.

The responsible parties for deciphering where to draw the line for what constitutes overfishing are the eight regional Fishery Management Councils. Congress adopted the Magnusen Act with an interesting form of participatory government in mind, but this admirable act backfired. The Act called for "individuals who, by reason of their occupation or other experience, scientific expertise, or training, are knowledgeable regarding the conservation and management of the commercial or recreational harvest" of marine organisms (AFS, 1990). The resulting voting council was heavy on the experience of catching and marketing fish, but light on the training of resource stewardship or the biological characteristics of marine animal population. In fact, the Councils are largely composed of individual representing various fishing groups and industries. Carl Soffina, Director of the Living Oceans Program of the National Audubon Society, compares this to allowing electric companies to sit on the utility commissions.

Under the Magnusen Act the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is "responsible" for managing the living marine resources of the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone. The most pressing dilema for the NMFS is that it is subdued by the Department of Commerce. The Department of Interior houses other agencies that deal with our nations living renewable resources. The Department of Commerce deals with manufactured factory commodities, A secretary with knowledge in natural resource stewardship is not logical, and has yet to be appointed (Powers, 1992).

The NMFS’ role is defined as: 1) monitoring, 2) enforcement, and 3) consultation on habitat. Our nation’s premier marine steward has long been undercut by inadequate legal authority, inadequate funding, and a management council (eight regional councils) that puts more authority in the hands of political appointees--who often lack any experience or training in natural resource management--than the NMFS’ resource management professionals, economists, and social scientists (Saffina, 1994) Inadequate funding leads to incomplete monitoring of commercially vital marine fish, and too small an enforcement team to ensure compliance with regulations. The service holds only a consultative role in determining whether federal permits will be granted for activities that degrade habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service desperately needs substantial funding and full political and legal authority over marine habitats.

In October of 1998, the National Marine Fisheries Service reported that 96 species targeted by commercial and recreational fishermen, nearly one-third of the 279 species counted in federal water, were declared overfished. Included were the Pacific Salmon, the bluefin tuna, and the swordfish (NMFS, 1998).

Thus far we have spoken mainly on domestic legislation, for international organizations have encountered even more halting obstacles in agreement and application of law. Each individual country takes the responsibility for their own waters, albeit positive or disastrous. The key international player in marine fisheries is the International Atlantic Tuna Commission (ICCAT) established in 1960. The Commission is involved in the management of tunas and billfishes across international and high seas boundaries. The Commission is comprised of roughly 20 member Atlantic-rim countries, plus Japan, a major player in fishing, importing, and consuming Atlantic tunas. This beautiful creature is one of the most valuable and exploited of all of all marine animals.

My research focuses on one of the most amazing creatures alive today, the Bluefin Tuna. Reaching over 1500 pounds and traveling at speeds over 50 miles an hour, they are nothing short of magnificent to be seen bulleting through the surface of the sea (Benson, 1970). Capable of innumerable transoceanic migrations, this saber finned fish seemed to be in endless supply for centuries.

The Bluefin tuna exists on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. These migratory fish swim thousands of miles each year to breed. The western Atlantic bluefin range from waters off Labrador south to at least Brazil, they breed exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico (Suzuki, 1992). The eastern and western populations are quite distinct, both in nature and for fishery management purposes. There is a very small (about 3%) west-to-east exchange between these populations (Suzuki, 1992). Southern bluefin tuna are a completely separate population, who migrate circumpolarly in the southern hemisphere, thought to breed only off the the coast of Java and northwest Australia but ranging into the Atlantic.

The seemingly endless population, each estimated to be in the millions, rapidly dwindled throughout the twentieth century. As technological improvements in tracking and catching these monsters improved, the annual yield increased by tons each year. The west Atlantic breeding population (those are the mature fish over 8 years of age) plummeted almost 90% since 1975. From an estimated population of 250,000 down to 22,000 animals (Power, 1992).

All tuna share a deadly economic trait, an obscenely high market value. An immense trawling vessel will fish for weeks in hopes of attaining a single fish, to them worth anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 dollars. The fish can then reap double the fishermans price at markets in Tokyo. On January 2, 1992, one 715-pound giant bluefin tuna sold for $83,500. Most bluefin fishing is driven by the Japanese market and this international trade.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, "eye-cat") is responsible for the stewardship of the bluefin tuna. The Commission is divided into a managing committee and a scientific committee, who often have conflicting interests. The scientists are selected from various countries to compile catch statistics and model population trends. Managers, on the other hand, too often hold strong industry ties. The Their charter calls for managing the various populations for maximum sustainable yield. Although several species have been declining under the Commission’s purview, the west Atlantic bluefin is the only one which the Commission has ever recommended catch quotas. To exemplify the severity of the situation, all the way back in 1981, the Commission’s Standing Committee on Research and Statistics concluded that the western Atlantic’s bluefin tuna population was depleted and that catches "should be reduced to as near zero as feasible" (ICCAT, 1981). Following this alarming statement, the committee enacted an annual quota of 1,160 tons. In typical and frightening ICCAT style, the quota was raised %120 to 2,660 tons in 1983 despite objections and reliable statistical evidence put forth by the scientific committee (ICCAT, 1984).

The "scientific" quota remained throughout the 1980’s, well knowing that the existing quotas "will cause the decline of the age 8+ group [breeders] to continue" and "is expected to result in the estimated fishing mortality rate and a corresponding decline in the esitmated stock size" (ICCAT, 1990).

By 1995, Sweden (whose bluefin populations have long evaporated) announced that it would seek to list the western Atlantic bluefin tuna on Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) Appendix 1. CITES is an international treaty with approximately 120 party countries at present. Appendix 1 deals with listing species endangered or threatened with extinction which are affected by international trade. This notion sparked some fear in the heart of ICCAT, and Commission managers cut quotas ten percent that year. Listing the Atlantic bluefin tuna on CITES Appendix 1 would have demanded a 50% reduction immediately (Clay, 1994).

Overfishing of tuna goes far beyond the bluefin or the ICCAT members, for non-member countries comprise nearly the same annual catch as member countries (may exceed 80%) (Miyake, 1992). Non-member countries abide by no regulations for size or by-catch. Most disturbing of all comes from a Japanese study in 1992, that reported "an increasing number of boats have been reported flying flags of convenience of ICCAT non-member countries so as to target bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea [the only known spawning areas], and thereby fish without any restrictions" (Miyake, 1992).

Following Swedens proposal to list the eastern Alantic bluefin population in CITES Appendix one, and the western Atlantic population in Appendix 2, the Commission held its annual meeting in Madrid in 1996. For the first time in ten years, the U.S. position at the meeting was to pursue a 50% reduction in catch quota for the western Atlantic populations. This position was clearly dominated by NMFS and the Commisions scientific and biological teams. Between Japan’s desire to avoid a CITES listing and Canada’s strong resistance to reduced quotas, negotiations continued for a week.

By the end of this meeting, a conditional four-year phased 25% reduction was agreed to. This was a landmark in the scientists book, but by 1996 catch quotas for the western populations had only been reduced 15% (ICCAT, 1997). The listing of the western population under CITES would have been ideal, but under the pressure of Canada , the U.S. and Japan, Sweden withdrew its proposal. This measure would have saved untold millions of fish, and past investments. In 1996, Japan offered a trade resolution which would have banned trade in bluefin tuna from non-ICCAT countries, but this resolution was resisted by the European community because it would have effected their non-ICCAT members.

Some good has come out of these meeting besides meager downsizing of catch quotas. As of January 1997, all bluefin tuna must be tagged with a "certificate of origin" (ICCAT, 1997). Originally, the ICCAT member countries could not accept untagged bluefin. But now each country may dtermine the disposition of undocumented bluefin depending on its interpretation of obligation under the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade. In 1998, tuna populations are still plummeting, the western Atlantic bluefins population has slowly decreased despite all efforts. Power needs to be put into the hands of the Commisions scientists and biologists. Quatitative targets for population recovery needs to be set, or nothing will get accomplished. An international treaty must be signed to unite the ICCAT and non-ICCAT countries or none of the afformentioned laws and quotas will exist on the high seas, and the bluefin tuna may be deemed an endangered species, or worse.