Contact:  Scott Smullen            FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    
                                   November 13, 1998

The United States, at an international fisheries management meeting in Spain next week, will warn nations who overharvest Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish that ignoring internationally set fishing quotas may result in future pound-for-pound quota penalties or possibly trade sanctions for repeat violators, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere Terry D. Garcia will stress the importance of quota compliance as he delivers the U.S. opening statement at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) at the commission's week-long annual meeting that starts on Nov. 16, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Garcia will discuss how overfishing the established quotas undermines the efforts of conservation-minded nations like the United States, and that adhering to these scientifically based quotas is the key to reaching conservation objectives for the overfished stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish.

"Since the early 1990s, U.S. fishermen have set the standard by complying with international management programs for Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish. They have agreed to hold or cut their quotas to do their part to preserve the stocks. Considering the goal of ICCAT to maintain these stocks at levels that will permit harvesting at maximum sustainable levels, it's only prudent that other countries take a precautionary approach and hold their fishermen accountable," said Garcia. "Improving compliance by all fishing nations is vital to the long-term health of these species. To ensure that every nation that harvests Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish is treated fairly, each nation must be assessed a quota, and must ultimately be held accountable for that quota."

The ICCAT quota penalties now are available to the commission after being adopted at commission meetings in 1996 and 1997. The trade sanction measures adopted in 1997 are in effect for non-ICCAT nations harvesting bluefin, and could be used as a last resort in 1999 against member nations that harvest swordfish. The measures are aimed at improving compliance and conservation by its 22-member nations that harvest species of tuna and swordfish from fish stocks in the western and eastern Atlantic Ocean.

To further improve compliance, the United States will be requesting that ICCAT adopt a mandatory compliance reporting document and establish a compliance working group that would not only look at a country's fishing record, but make recommendations on how to atone for overharvests in quota or undersized fish. In addition, the United States intends to hold non-member countries that use flag of convenience vessels to the same penalties that member countries face.

For the first time in ICCAT's 32-year history, the commission has tools to ensure that countries stay with assigned quotas and follow juvenile fish protections. Countries will now be required to explain any catch limit overharvest, and will be expected to provide detailed confessions of non-compliance with minimum size restrictions. ICCAT is the first fisheries management body to develop a comprehensive compliance program.

"With ICCAT support for more stringent compliance measures, we are confident that both bluefin tuna and swordfish populations will be increasing," said Garcia. "However, restoration of these slow-maturing fish will be a lengthy process and continued commitments to conservation from all countries will be necessary."

The United States delegation to ICCAT has consistently been a leader in encouraging international conservation and management measures aimed at stabilizing and rebuilding these species.