Addressing the weakness of high seas fisheries management in the North-west Atlantic

ELSEVIER

Ocean & Coastal Management, Vol. 35, Nos 2-3, pp. 69-4~4, 1997 © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

All rights reserved. Printed in Northern Ireland P i I : S 0 9 6 4 - 5 6 9 1 ~ 9 7 ) 0 0 0 2 6 - 4 0964-5691/97 $17.00 + 0.00

Addressing the weakness of high seas fisheries management in the north-west Atlantic

Douglas Day

Department of Geography, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3, Canada

ABSTRACT

Management of high-seas stocks in the north west Atlantic was placed under the auspices of the North-west Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) in 1979. Regulatory Area contains important straddling stocks and others that reside completely on the Flemish Cap. Despite a developed management strategy, by the mid-1990s, moratoria had been placed on most of the important and heavily depleted species on the Nose and Tail and the Flemish Cap. During the 1990s, the development of a more effective surveillance, monitoring and enforcement system has attempted to address weaknesses in NAFO's ability to enforce measures on its members and non-members alike. (~) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

The decisions of Canada, the United States, Denmark (on behalf of Greenland) and France (for St. Pierre and Miquelon) to annex large parts of the high-seas region of the north-west Atlantic in 1977 necessitated the creation of a new international organisation to control the region's high seas fisheries. The North-west Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) was given the task of managing a much reduced high-seas region whose boundaries cut across important straddling stocks on the Canadian continental margin and which included high-seas resources on the Flemish Cap (Fig. 1), about which little scientific information had been gathered. Large-scale relocation of distant water fishing effort from grounds within the new exclusive zones of the coastal states to the limited resources of NAFO's Regulatory Area created considerable pressure on its commercial fish resources. It required immediate efforts by NAFO to cooperate with Canada over management strategies for straddling stocks, at a time when the exclusion of certain distant-water fishing nations from the new Canadian exclusive fishing zone (EFZ) made for difficult relations. The

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ability of NAFO to manage its Regulatory Area was challenged from its very establishment in 1979, as some important historic fishers of the Northwest Atlantic region opted to remain outside the organisation, and some of its members used a provision of NAFO's Convention to opt out of the organisation's management policies. Enforcement of its fisheries

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High-seas fisheries management in the North-west Atlantic 71

management policies has, indeed, been a major problem throughout NAFO's history. It is the purpose of this paper to review the background to NAFO's management problems and its attempts, particularly in the 1990s, to improve its record in the fields of surveillance, monitoring and enforcement.

1. BACKGROUND

For management purposes, the north-west Atlantic region is divided into a number of Subareas and Divisions (Fig. 1). These management boundaries have, with a few minor adjustments, remained the same since they were created by NAFO's predecessor, the International Commission for the North-west Atlantic Fisheries. Boundaries between coastal state jurisdiction and NAFO's Regulatory Area usually run through divisions. After 1977, many of the north-west Atlantic region's important fish resources were completely included within the jurisdictional zones of the four coastal states, but some valuable resources straddled the boundary with the Regulatory Area or lay completely within it and were, therefore, with the exception of sedentary living resources on the extended continental shelf off Canada, at least partly under NAFO's control. Its Regulatory Area contains three locations of key importance for fisheries development: the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks, and the nearby Flemish Cap.

1.1. The Nose and Tail of the Banks

These two areas form the outermost parts of the wide continental margin east of Newfoundland (Fig. 2). Twenty-eight varieties of transboundary fish stocks have been identified in these areas. Not all of these stocks are yet of commercial importance, but some, notably the northern and southern cod, yellowtail flounder, witch flounder, American plaice, Greenland halibut (turbot), and capelin have figured prominently in management conflicts between Canada, NAFO, and the European Union (EU). Conflicts in the 1980s centred around the declining health and productivity of the cod, flounder, and plaice and gave rise to suggestions that Canada should assume control over the Nose and Tail of the Bank.: Fishing of their overexploited groundfish resources by vessels of countries who were not members of NAFO prompted Canada to amend its Coastal Fisheries Protection Act in 1994 and arrest the Kristina Logos, a vessel owned and crewed by Portuguese but registered in Panama. The following year, the same Act was used by Canada to justify the arrest of the Estai, a Spanish trawler, in order to prevent the EU from undermining NAFO turbot

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management policies on the Grand Banks. 3 On a number of occasions, the transboundary stocks of the Nose and Tail have provided the battleground for major management confrontations within NAFO between its two most important members: Canada and the EU.

NAFO and Canada's attempts to manage the transboundary fisheries of these two areas involved use of an F0.~ management strategy. NAFO established TACs and quotas for its members, minimum mesh sizes, and acceptable levels of by-catch. From the mid-1980s, fishing beyond these established TACs was normal and, together with more pressure on these stocks inside Canada's EFZ, produced a continuing decline in the size of the spawning stock biomass (SSB) of each species, more dependence on catching immature fish and new recruits to the adult stock, and the

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eventual imposition of moratoria. 4 Misreported and unreported catches contributed to the problem, and in 1991, NAFO's Scientific Council noted that these were so common as to make it impossible to conduct reliable scientific assessments of the stocks. NAFO's enforcement problems were once again exposed when NAFO agreed to follow Canada's establishment of a moratorium on Northern cod in 1992: in contravention of NAFO's decision, the EU and non-members continued to fish cod on the Nose until 1994. In that year, moratoria were also placed on cod fishing at the Tail and on directed fisheries for the commercially important Catfish species of the Nose and Tail.

1.2. The Flemish Cap

Whereas the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks are home to a number of transboundary stocks in which Canada, as the coastal state, has a recognised special interest, the Flemish Cap lies beyond the extended continental margin, and most of its stocks appear to have no direct ties to the resources under coastal state jurisdiction. With a diameter approxi- mating 400 km, this isolated bank is separated from the continental margin by the 1100 m deep Flemish Pass 5 and has become an important focus of high-seas fishing in the Regulatory Area. Indeed, in 1994, as a result of the demise of the major fisheries at the Nose and Tail and the transfer of fishing effort to Division 3M, the Cap recorded the largest catch of any division in the Regulatory Area.

The significance of the Flemish Cap from a high-seas fisheries management perspective is that it lies under the complete control of NAFO, and, because its stocks are neither straddling nor highly migratory, it represents a high-seas fishing area outside the scope of the recent UN Agreement on the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. It belongs to a part of the global high seas that has largely been ignored in both the LOS Convention and the subsequent United Nations' attempt to provide a detailed management regime for high-seas fisheries.

The total catch in this area rose to 70 673 tonnes in 1993. 6 By then, redfish, northern deepwater shrimp, and turbot provided the largest catches. In the 1980s, redfish, cod, and American plaice dominated the catch. The cod fishery was dominated by Portuguese trawlers and gillnetters and Spanish pair trawlers, but there were also directed fisheries for cod conducted by non-members of NAFO. Catches reported to NAFO were generally considered by its Scientific Council to be much lower than actual catches from 1983 onwards, 7 making estimates of resource size and the establishment of sound TACs difficult. Consequently, the Council

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developed new catch estimates in 1995 to reflect misreported catches by Contracting Parties and unreported catches of non-members (Fig. 3). By 1995, however, the cod resource was severely depleted. The Cap's redfish resource comprises three major species: Sebastes mentella, Sebastes marinus, and Sebastes fasciatus. Portugal, Russia, Latvia, Japan, and non- Contracting Parties are the major exploiters. Similar concerns over the relationship of reported catch and actual catch led the Scientific Council to develop revised estimates of past redfish catches in 1995. Although the least important of the original three fisheries on the Cap and a small fishery compared with that for the same species on the Nose and Tail, the demise of the American plaice fishery illustrates NAFO enforcement problems in the area. A TAC was set and maintained at 2000 tonnes throughout the 1980--1993 period: catches greatly exceeded this throughout much of the 1980s and were at almost three times this level in 1987. The declining state of the stock is reflected in the reduced catches of the early 1990s, a reduction of the TAC to 1000 tonnes in 1994-1995, and the imposition of a moratorium in 1996. In the mid-1990s, catches by non- member states comprised three-quarters of the total catch.

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Experience with the recently developed northern shrimp fishery reveals other problems faced by NAFO. This Flemish Cap fishery began in 1993 when two Canadian vessels were given permission to begin an exploratory fishery. High catch rates quickly attracted the attention of many Scandinavian vessels and a known catch of over 28 000 tonnes was taken from the Cap's northern, western and eastern slopes in that year. In 1995, the number of vessels fishing shrimp increased to 71 at the peak of the fishery in late July, and the total catch increased to 33 000 tonnes, with Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and Russian fleets dominating the fishery. Last year, Canadian surveillance estimated that there were already 91 shrimp fishing vessels in the area by early July and that the catch may already have reached 45 000 tonnes. 8 In the absence of definitive scientific data on stock identities, the Scientific Council had to treat the Cap's northern shrimp as a separate stock and, in spite of concerns about possible overexploitation, concluded that there were insufficient data to establish a TAC. Adopting a precautionary approach to management, the Scientific Council recommended a closure of the fishery for 1996. This was rejected in favour of other methods of control (minimum mesh size, a reduction in the maximum barspacing for catch sorting equipment, and a provision that vessels must move to other shrimp areas once by-catches of regulated groundfish species exceeded certain levels). 9 In 1996, observer coverage was increased to 100% under NAFO's new Pilot Observer Project.

2. SHORTCOMINGS OF THE NAFO MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The history of fishing in these three key parts of the Regulatory Area highlights a number of deficiencies at various levels in the NAFO management system. The foundation of its management system is the work of the Scientific Council. It provides the Fisheries Commission with advice on the state of the resource and the recommended TAC levels for each managed stock within the Regulatory Area. Neither the recommended TACs nor other Scientific Council recommendations are necessarily followed by the Fisheries Commission or, if they are approved, by all members of NAFO. Under Article XII of its Convention, any member may opt out of NAFO management decisions and set its own quotas, as indeed the EU did on a number of occasions up to 1995. A Contracting Party may also opt out of technical measures and inspection procedures related to them. Together with non-member fishing in the Regulatory Area, use of Article XII by members to establish quotas beyond those approved by NAFO has pushed the effective TAC far beyond that set by

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the Fisheries Commission. NAFO's inability to enforce its decisions on fishers of the Regulatory Area is reflected in both the opting out clause and the presence of non-member fishing in the Regulatory Area. The work of the Scientific Council was undermined not only by members and non- members ignoring its recommended TACs but also by catch data made unreliable by misreported and unreported catches and widespread violations of other NAFO gear and equipment regulations. Clearly, its recommended TACs in the 1980s had been too high, and this made members' decisions to opt out and set their own quotas even more damaging to the resource than had at first appeared. The source of these data problems lay in NAFO's lack of an effective, efficient, and comprehensive surveillance, monitoring, and enforcement system to impose its management decisions on both members and 'illegal' fishers. During the 1990s, NAFO has moved to solve some of these problems.

3. SURVEILLANCE AND MONITORING

For many years, surveillance and monitoring were highly localised in parts of the Regulatory Area. From 1979 to 1987, surveillance and monitoring in the Regulatory Area depended almost exclusively on Canadian efforts, even though a Joint International Enforcement Scheme was approved by NAFO in 1981. At the outset of NAFO's existence, Canada pleaded for a sharing of enforcement activities, but the only other member to place an inspection vessel in the Regulatory Area before 1987 was the Soviet Union. Canada's surveillance and monitoring efforts involved regular aircraft surveillance and inspection boardings from patrol boats over the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. Elsewhere in the Regulatory Area, surveillance and monitoring did not exist.

A change occurred in 1988, in response to pressure from the EU following the accession of Spain and Portugal to that organisation. Spain did not join NAFO until 1983 and, therefore, was not subject to its catch allocations. Canadian surveillance revealed large unrecorded catches by the Spanish fleet and contravention of NAFO regulations in spite of Spanish promises to the contrary. 1° Canada also noted larger than allocated catches by Portuguese vessels just outside its EFZ. With the accession of Spain and Portugal to the EU in 1986, the EU took up the cause of Spain in claiming that Canadian surveillance had concentrated on the Spanish fleet and that there should be a more impartial observation of all fleet activities in the Regulatory Area. It advocated a replacement of the Joint International Enforcement Scheme by one that was 'impartial, objective, and effective'. 11 In response, the Fisheries Commission replaced


the Joint International Enforcement Scheme in 1988 with a new Joint International Inspection Scheme, which was to ensure inspection in proportion to the size of each member's fleet in the Regulatory Area and which reduced the scope of matters that inspectors could report upon. To support the new scheme, the EU assigned two inspection vessels to supplement Canadian and Soviet efforts in the Regulatory Area.

Increased surveillance in 1988--1990 left no doubt about the size of the NAFO enforcement problem. Its Scientific Council showed that annual cod catches on the Flemish Cap reached 40 000 tonnes during this period, even though NAFO had unanimously set cod TACs at zero (Fig. 3b). The outcome of the Fisheries Commission's attempts to wrestle with the problem of more effective enforcement was the introduction in 1992 of NAFO's Hail system.

3.1. The Hail system

Until the introduction of this system, the location of catches in the Regulatory Area was not accurately recorded, even at the divisional scale. The Hail system was designed to improve NAFO's knowledge of the movements of fishing vessels within the Regulatory Area and the location of catches by division.

Under the Hail system, all vessels of a Contracting Party subject to what is now called the Joint International Inspection and Surveillance Scheme have to inform their national authorities or the NAFO Secretariat of the timing and location of their entry into the Regulatory Area, how much fish they have on board at this time and a breakdown by species. Upon departing the Regulatory Area, they must report the catch by species taken and retained within the Regulatory Area; in the Regulatory Area, vessels not equipped with devices that allow the automatic transmission of their position must report when and where they are crossing between NAFO divisions. An exception is made for vessels engaged in transboundary fishing across the 3L/3N and 3N/30 division boundaries: they have to report their positions once every 24 hours. Under the Hail system, vessels also must give advance notice of any amount and species of fish transhipped.

Although this system has improved NAFO's knowledge of the location of fishing effort by divisions and the movement of member's vessels within the Regulatory Area, it does not establish clearly the geographical incidence of fishing effort below the divisional level. Such information may be needed for sound management of certain stocks such as flatfish in the nursery areas of the Tail. At the same time, it does not determine a vessel's compliance with NAFO's conservation and enforcement measures. In

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response to Canadian and other Contracting Parties' demands in this regard, a pilot NAFO Observer Scheme was implemented in 1993-1994.

3.2. NAFO's observer, inspection and tracking scheme

Given the serious problems of non-compliance with NAFO's management policies, this was a significant step forward in spite of its quite limited coverage. Only members with fleets fishing in the Area for more than 300 days were included within the Observer Scheme, and even then, only 10% observer coverage was required. The outcome of the 1995 Canada-EC dispute was the extension of observer and inspection coverage to all parts of the region and to all vessels of members and the introduction of an automated vessel tracking system.

Canada's use of its amended Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to arrest a non-member's fishing vessel, and, in 1995, an EU vessel was the coastal state's response to NAFO's weakness in the fields of monitoring and enforcement. The confrontation with the EU produced a bilateral Control and Enforcement Agreement that was subsequently adopted by NAFO's membership for implementation during 1996-1997. More widespread inspection, port inspection, and greater powers for NAFO inspectors are key features of the improved surveillance, monitoring and enforcement measures that have been introduced.

Each member with 10 or more vessels fishing in the Regulatory Area is now required to have at least one inspection vessel in the Regulatory Area. With an increase in the size of the inspection fleet, inspection vessel coverage will improve, as will the ability of inspection vessels to respond to reported violations. Inspection at sea has been supplemented by port inspection at each port of call in member countries. In exchange for refuelling and transhipment facilities, for example, Canada has been given the right to inspect vessels. Moreover, vessels may be ordered to port by NAFO inspectors for a thorough inspection by the flag state with other members' inspectors in attendance. To allay further fears of secret fish holds, a charge made against the Estai in 1995, Contracting Parties are now required to check, every 2 years, the correctness of a vessel's plans for fish room and other fish storage places. 12

Each member has also agreed to appoint a trained and qualified observer to be on board each of its vessels, la The observers are instructed to record the vessel's compliance with NAFO's Conservation and Enforcement measures, to record where the vessel was fishing, observe and estimate catches in order to identify catch composition, to monitor discards, by-catches, and the catch of undersized fish, to record gear types and mesh sizes used, and to verify entries in logbooks (species


composition, qualities, round and processed weight, the latitude and longitude of the catch). These reports are to be sent to the Contracting Party and the NAFO Secretariat for distribution to any other member who requests them. Information on latitude and longitude of fishing activity is, however, withheld from other members. In the event that an inspector is on board a vessel with satellite based devices for tracking and recording facilities, the inspector is also instructed to record any interference with, and any malfunction of, the system. Any infraction is to be reported within 24 hours to a NAFO inspection vessel.

There are areas of concern with the observer programme. Other members may place observers on vessels where there are none, but only with the consent of the flag state. This could allow a Contracting Party to conduct fisheries without observers on board if it refused observers from other members on the basis that its vessel is awaiting the arrival of one of its observers. In order to improve the tracking of vessels within the Regulatory Area, members with vessels fishing at least 300 days in the Regulatory Area have agreed to at least 35% of them being equipped with a satellite tracking system to transmit automatically to a land receiving station. Continuous tracking to within 100 m of a vessel's actual location will be possible. Continuous tracking will allow monitoring of fishing effort by tracing the speed of the vessels be tween successive satellite signals to determine whether the vessel is in transit or fishing. 14 A vessel moving at fishing speed in an area where the TAC has been reached will alert NAFO inspectors of a possible violation. Each member has also agreed to install at least one land receiving station for such signals and to transmit information on divisional boundary crossings to the Secretariat on a real time basis. This will allow up-to-date information on the location of fishing vessels to be transmitted to inspection vessels or aircraft working in the Regulatory Area.

4. ENFORCEMENT

Improvements in surveillance and monitoring of vessels in the Regulatory Area have been paralleled by some improvements in NAFO's ability to enforce its management policy on all fishers of the Regulatory Area. In particular, some headway has been made in the 1990s to reduce non- member fishing.

Fishing by vessels registered in non-member countries presented a problem to NAFO from its inception. Spain, a major fisher in the Regulated Area, did not join NAFO until 1983, and in its first year of operation, NAFO alerted the governments of Mexico, Panama and

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Venezuela to the difficulties of fish stock conservation in the Regulatory Area created by fishing vessels flying their flags. 15 Three kinds of non- member fishing have occurred in the Regulatory Area: vessels registered in countries with a history of fishing in the region but which, for one reason or another, opted not to join the organisation (e.g. Spain, USA); vessels from countries with no historic interest in the area but, as in the first category, owned and crewed by their own nationals and supplying fish to their domestic market (e.g. the Republic of Korea and New Zealand); vessels formerly registered under the flag of a Contracting Party, which are owned, operated, and crewed by nationals of a member state but have registered in a non-member country in order to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the NAFO management regime (i.e. re-flagged or 'flags of convenience' vessels). Canadian observations of re-flagged vessels revealed that 24 of the 47 non-member vessels fishing in 1990 were crewed by West Europeans, ~6 whereas EU reports indicated that the latter were not only crewed by West Europeans (particularly Spanish and Portuguese) but were owned by them and landed much of their catch in EU ports for the EU market or, in the case of redfish, for re-export to Japan. ~7

According to estimates from Canadian surveillance and courtesy boardings, the number of non-member vessels fishing in the Regulatory Area climbed from 11 in 1984 to 44 in 1990: NAFO member vessels rose from 159 to 222 in the same period. ~8 The estimated annual groundfish catch of non-member countries increased from 12 000 tonnes to 46 800 tonnes over the same time period. Canadian authorities estimated that, on average, cod made up 24.5% of the annual catch during this period, whereas redfish and flounder accounted for 43.5% and 27.4%, respectively, and that, in 1990, most of the cod, flounder and redfish taken by non- Contracting Parties were fished on the Tail, whereas turbot was caught mainly in Division 3L. Given that the size of the demersal stocks decreased significantly over the same period, by 1990, the General Council considered non-member fishing a serious threat to its conservation and management measures in the Regulatory Area.

Although Canada had urged the General Council to control the operation of all these vessels from at least 1981, the early years of NAFO were marked by delays in consideration of the problem and a lack of effective action although, significantly, Spain did agree to join NAFO in 1983. By 1990, non-member fishing had obtained such relative and absolute importance to the conservation and management of the groundfish within the Regulatory Area and Canada's EFZ that NAFO established a Standing Committee on Fishing Activities of non-Contracting Parties in the Regulatory Area (STACFAC) to consider ways of dealing with the problem. STACFAC has used two principal methods to deal with


this 'illegal' fishing. Non-members have been invited to join NAFO, a process that has proven successful with the Republic of Korea (1993) and the United States (1996). The problem of re-flagged vessels working the Regulatory Area has been tackled through diplomatic demarches.

A series of joint diplomatic demarches from NAFO members to non- Contracting Parties accompanied by other forms of diplomatic pressure appears to have produced a reduction in the number of vessels of non- Contracting Parties fishing in the NAFO area since 1990. Both the Republic of Korea and United States withdrew their fleets before the beginning of the 1994 fishing season. High level representations by Canada, the EU, and other NAFO members brought the withdrawal of all Korean vessels by 30 April 1993 and legal steps by Korea to become a member of NAFO. The number of American vessels fishing in the NAFO area fell at the beginning of the 1990s, but four were still observed fishing in the Regulated Area in 1993. By this time, legislation was before Congress for the United States to move from its long-standing observer status in NAFO to full membership, and the four vessels were not in the Area by the beginning of the 1994 season.

The effect of the demarches and diplomatic pressure on countries with re-flagged vessels has been more variable. In 1993, Venezuela agreed not to renew the licences of two vessels that refused to stop fishing in the NAFO area, Morocco ordered the owners of a Korean-crewed vessel to withdraw from the Convention area, and Vanuatu agreed to take prompt action to de-register a former Panamanian registered, Korean-owned vessel in order to not undermine the international fisheries and NAFO management measures in the region. Elsewhere, the effects of the diplomatic demarches and other pressures did not succeed: Belize, Honduras, and Sierra Leone still had vessels fishing in the Regulatory Area in 1995. Panama also had a vessel present, but the appearance of vessels flying its flag fell sharply during the mid-1990s in response to both NAFO representations and Canada's actions in arresting two vessels (one a Panamanian-registered vessel) on the Nose and Tail in 1994 and 1995.

These various measures have reduced the number of non-member vessels fishing in NAFO waters to 27 in 1994 and 13 in 1995. None the less, STATFAC still considers that the amount of activity by these vessels is at an unacceptable level if NAFO conservation and management measures are to be effective. Although the accession of the USA to NAFO membership will doubtless add some weight to diplomatic demarches and political pressures on non-member states to withdraw registration from 'flag of convenience' vessels, STATFAC is now considering other measures such as ratification of the December 1995 UN Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and the FAO Compliance

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Agreement by NAFO's Contracting Parties, a ban on imports by member states of fish caught by non-members, the closure of ports to vessels of non-Contracting Parties, and coordination of its actions against non- member vessels with other regional international fisheries management organisations such as the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation.

Although Halliday and Pinhorn 19 believe that the longer term solution to non-member fishing lies in the implementation of the UN Agreement, the relocation of much of the remaining non-member effort from the Nose and Tail to the Flemish Cap since 1994-1995 raises doubt about the applicability of this Agreement on at least two counts. First, most Flemish Cap resources are neither straddling stocks nor highly migratory stocks, and, therefore, the provisions of this Agreement do not apply. Second, Article 17(2) of the Agreement states that a non-member state shall not authorise a vessel flying its flag to fish straddling stocks that are subject to the conservation and management measures of a regional fisheries management organisation. Even if the general framework of the UN Agreement was extended to the management of non-straddling stocks in the NAFO area, actions by a non-member state fishing unmanaged resources in the Regulatory Area would not be controlled. For example, the New Zealand vessel that fishes shrimp on the Cap would not be engaged in an 'illegal' act, as the northern shrimp in this area has not been declared a managed species by NAFO.

A ban on imports of fish caught by non-members in the NAFO area was considered even before Canada's unilateral action against vessels of non- member states in May 1994. STATFAC deliberations included discussion of a requirement for a Certificate of Harvest Origin or landing declaration to indicate whether fish or fish products made from groundfish species regulated by NAFO were caught within or outside the NAFO Regulatory Area. The organisation considered this an essential first step towards a long-term measure of limiting trade in fish taken in contravention of the NAFO conservation regime. Discussion of this measure was delayed in 1993 in light of the deliberations of the UN Conference on straddling and highly migratory stocks and FAO initiatives on the Compliance Agreement. Recent discussions have suggested that it may be difficult to distinguish trade in fish caught in the NAFO area from those taken in other areas and that it would be necessary to avoid barriers to legitimate trade under GATT and other agreements.

4.1. Other enforcement problems

Apart from the necessity to undertake additional action against non- member fishing, two other enforcement problems require further


consideration by NAFO. Article XII of its Convention is still being used by certain members to exclude their vessels from NAFO management measures and, therefore, certain inspection procedures. The second area of concern relates to the punishment of vessels found to be violating conservation and management measures. Under NAFO's Joint Inter- national Inspection and Surveillance Scheme, a Contracting Party must take administrative or judicial action against such a vessel. This is to be appropriate to actions that would be taken against similar violations in national waters. Al though this is an improvement over the situation before the scheme was introduced, it does mean that some violators will face much lighter penalties than others and, therefore, the incentive to commit further violations will vary among member states.

5. CONCLUSIONS

A key aspect of fisheries management is surveillance, monitoring and enforcement. Without adequate and effective attention to these parts of the management system, the basis of scientific advice may be weakened and the decisions of fishery managers undermined. Al though often the weakest part of the management framework for fisheries at the national level, the national obstacles to the development of an adequate surveillance, monitoring and enforcement system are not usually as complex as with an international regional organisation such as NAFO. The lack of an effective and comprehensive surveillance, monitoring and enforcement system throughout much of its history has played a large part in the demise of many of the fish resources under its control. Recent advances to put such a system in place show promise that, at least for the resources that remain in its Regulatory Area, NAFO will be in a better position to enforce its management regime in the future.

R E F E R E N C E S

1. Throughout NAFO's history, the European Union has undergone a number of transformations. For the purposes of this paper, this supranational organisation will be referred to throughout as the EU.

2. Oceans Institute of Canada, Managing Fishery Resources Beyond 200 miles: Canada's Options to protect Northwest Atlantic Straddling Stocks. Prepared for the Fisheries Council of Canada. Ottawa, January 1990, p. 87.

3. See (i) Day, D., Fishing beyond the limit: the Canada-EU fishing dispute. Boundary and Security Bulletin, Durham, 1995, 3(1), 1995, 52-58. (ii) Day, D., Tending the Achilles' heel of NAFO: Canada acts to protect the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks'. Marine Policy, 1995, 19(4), 257-270.

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4. Day, D., ibid., 259-261. 5. Stein, M., Flemish Cap---a review on research activities with focus on

oceanographic conditions, in NAFO Flemish Cap: Selected Environmental and Other Papers Scientific Council Studies, Number 25, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, 1996, p. 2.

6. NAFO Provisional Nominal Catches in the Northwest Atlantic, 1993, Serial Number N2487, SCS Doc. 94/24. Dartmouth, Canada, 1994.

7. NAFO Report of the Scientific Council 5-19 June 1996, Serial Number N2757, NAFO SCS Doc. 96/16. Dartmouth, Canada, 1996.

8. Ibid. 9. Ibid.

10. Halliday and Pinhorn, op. cit., p. 90. 11. Ibid. 12. NAFO Conservation and Enforcement Measures, Serial No. N2659, NAFO/FC

Doc. 96/1, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, p. 73. 13. Ibid., p. 70. 14. Bailey, J. E. and Muehlhausen, L. A., Marine boundary enforcement from

space: Satellite technology and fisheries jurisdiction. In The Peaceful Management of Transboundary Resources, ed. G. Blake et al. Graham and Trotman, London, 1995, pp. 413-426.

15. NAFO First Annual Meeting: Fisheries Commission Minutes 1979, Meetings and Decisions, 1979-1992. Dartmouth, Canada, 1993, p. 73.

16. Annex 4, Non-Contracting Parties fishing activity in the NAFO Regulatory "Area by the Canadian delegation. In The Report of the First Meeting of the Standing Committee on Fishing Activities of Non-Contracting Parties in the Regulatory Area (STACFAC). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, January 1991.

17. Annex 5: Non-Contracting Parties fishing activity in the NAFO Regulatory Area by the EEC delegation. In The Report of the First Meeting of the Standing Committee on Fishing Activities of Non-Contracting Parties in the Regulatory Area (STACFAC). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, January 1991.

18. Ibid., Annex 4. 19. Ibid., p. 86.

Addressing the weakness of high seas fisheries management in the North-west Atlantic

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