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Skriven 2006-10-03 23:31:38 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0610031) for Tue, 2006 Oct 3
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Statement on Protection of Sustainable Fisheries
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 3, 2006

Statement on Protection of Sustainable Fisheries



The President today directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in
consultation with Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, to further
strengthen the efforts of the United States to protect sustainable
fisheries and to safeguard their effective use by calling for an end to
destructive fishing practices, such as unregulated bottom trawling on the
high seas. The President emphasized that it remains United States policy to
support protection and use of sustainable fisheries as a food source and to
meet the needs of commercial and recreational fishing.

In today's memorandum, the President directed the Secretary of State, in
consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, to work with other countries
and international organizations to eliminate unregulated destructive
fishing practices that jeopardize fish stocks and the habitats that support
them. Specifically, the Secretary of State is directed to work with
Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) and other cooperative
arrangements to establish rules based on sound science to enhance
sustainable fishing practices and to end destructive fishing practices,
such as unregulated bottom trawling, explosives and chemicals that destroy
the long-term productivity of ecosystems such as seamounts, corals, and
sponge fields. Importantly, the President directed the Secretary of State
to work with other countries to establish new institutional arrangements,
including new RFMOs, to protect ecosystems in high seas areas where no such
competent arrangement currently exists. The President also called for a
cessation of destructive fishing activity in areas of the high seas where
there are no applicable conservation or management measures or in areas
with no applicable international fishery management organization or
agreement, until such time as conservation and management measures
consistent with the goals of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the United Nations
Fish Stocks Agreement, and other relevant instruments are adopted and
implemented to regulate such fisheries.

The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, is
also directed to develop and promulgate criteria to guide the
identification of marine ecosystems that are at risk because of destructive
fishing practices, and to work with other countries on enhanced monitoring
and surveillance to combat unlawful, unregulated and unreported fishing.

The President's renewal of America's commitment to sustainable fisheries is
consistent with the innovative and effective strategies being developed
through the regional fishery management process under the landmark
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The President has
called on Congress to send for his signature a reauthorized Act that will
end overfishing and rebuild fisheries that are still depleted. The
Administration has also sent to the Congress proposed legislation to
establish a well-managed system for sustainable offshore aquaculture.
Recent Administration actions to protect fisheries and habitat in U.S.
waters have included the President's establishment of the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument and the Department of Commerce's
establishment of essential fish habitat in large areas around the Aleutian
Islands.

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