A Cleaner, Healthier World Community
Conserving Fish Stocks and Other Living Marine Resources
The Bush Administration is promoting significant measures to conserve depleted fish stocks and other ocean resources. The Administration is playing a leading role in the creation of a new multilateral organization to conserve and manage tuna fisheries in the Central and Western Pacific Ocean . The organization will allow U.S. fishing vessels to operate on a level playing field with fleets of other nations, while ensuring sustainable use of the fish stocks under its purview. The Administration has also pioneered the use of new techniques to crack down on illegal fishing worldwide and is working through the World Trade Organization to reduce subsidies that lead to overfishing. In addition, the Administration is advancing the protection of endangered species from harm in commercial fisheries, particularly sea turtles and seabirds.
The 2003 “Status of Fisheries of the United States” report, released June 16, 2004, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, showed considerable progress in addressing excessive fishing rates and rebuilding fish stocks to healthy levels. In 2003, four fish stocks were fully rebuilt, a record ten species were removed from the list of overfished stocks, and overfishing practices were stopped for five species.
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