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24 Ocean L. Memo 1 (1983)

handle is hein.journals/ocoaslme24 and id is 1 raw text is: acean and Coastal Law Center * School of Law * University of Oregon * Eugene 97403 Ocean La Mem- September 1983 THE TROUBLED PACIFIC SALMON TREATY: WHY IT MUST BE RATIFIED A full-fledged salmon war is shap- ing up in the Pacific Northwest, one in which there can be no winners. Unlike salmon skirmishes of the past between commercial fishermen and Indian tribes, between ocean trollers and river gill- netters, between recreational and com- mercial fishetmen, this simmering and potentially volatile conflict is all the more alarming because there are no courts of law that have the power to compel the parties to resolve their differences. The parties are sovereign nations, the United States and Canada, and each stands to lose an important stake in a precious resource unless something can be done soon. After some twenty years of off-and- on negotiations--intensive since 1970 yet progressing at a seemingly glacial pace--negotiators for the governments of the United States and Canada last Decem- ber concluded and signed a treaty gov- erning mutual harvest of United States and Canadian stocks of Pacific salmon. The proposed treaty, formally entitled the Bilateral Pacific Salmon Intercep- tion Agreemej between the United States and Canada requires ratification by both governments to take permanent ef- fect. Because of opposition from cer- tain United States fishing interests the proposed treaty is now stalled, and tempers are flaring on both sides. Rejection or delay of this agreement will have serious consequences on the salmon fishery of both nations, and time is running out. WHY INTERNATIONAL COPERATION IS ESSENTIAL IN SALMON MANAGEMENT Pacific salmon are anadromous, a term applied to fish that spend their adult lives in the ocean and return to freshwater to spawn. Some stocks of 1. Mimeographed draft available from the Mill Street, Portland, OR 97201. Columbia River chinook (or king) salmon, after hatching hundreds of miles upriver from the ocean, may migrate .thousands of miles further to feeding grounds in the Gulf of Alaska before returning to the home stream to spawn. Such a wide-rang- ing migratory instinct frustrates effec- tive management, responsibility for which must be shared not only among a multitude of state and federal agencies and Indian tribes, but also between nations. Anadromous fish respect no man-made boundaries, and they can be effectively protected from overfishing only where management jurisdictions are integrated, or at least coordinated in their policies. Without coordinated management, conservation gains in one jurisdiction may be easily lost as the benefits ac- crue not to the health of the resource itself, but rather to user groups in other management regimes where regula- tion is less strict. In such a situa- tion, any management agency through whose jurisdiction a migratory fish passes has the power to negate conser- vation gains made at great cost in any of the others. Unless a single coast- wide framework for managing the conser- vation and allocation of Pacific salmon exists and is effectively and equitably implemented, the greatest economic bene- fits will accrue to those user groups that are least conscientious about con- serving the resource. In addition, equitable apportionment of economic hardships caused by fishing restrictions cannot be made under fragmented manage- ment regimes. Such are the economic realities of a common property resource that is also highly migratory. It has long been recognized that differential levels of protection of a fishery and the economic inequities thus Pacific Fishery Management Council, 526 S.W. F./M Distributed by: OSU Extension Service' Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, Corvallis, OR 97331 Issue 24

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