For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 16, 2005
Message to the United States Senate Regarding WCPF Convention
TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to
ratification, I transmit herewith the Convention on the Conservation
and Management of the Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and
Central Pacific Ocean, with Annexes (the "WCPF Convention"), which was
adopted at Honolulu on September 5, 2000, by the Multilateral High
Level Conference on the Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and
Central Pacific Ocean. The United States signed the Convention on that
date. I also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report
of the Secretary of State with respect to the WCPF Convention.
The WCPF Convention sets forth legal obligations and establishes
cooperative mechanisms that are needed in order to ensure the long term
conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory fish stocks (such
as tuna, swordfish, and marlin) that range across extensive areas of
the high seas as well as through waters under the fisheries
jurisdiction of numerous coastal States. These constitute resources of
worldwide importance, with the fisheries for tuna in the Western and
Central Pacific being the largest and most valuable in the world.
Implementation of the WCPF Convention will offer the opportunity to
conserve and manage these resources responsibly before they become
subject to the pressures of overfishing and over capacity that are so
evident elsewhere in the world's oceans.
The WCPF Convention builds upon the 1982 United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea and the 1995 United Nations Agreement on the
Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly
Migratory Fish Stocks. The WCPF Convention gives effect to the
provisions of these two instruments, which recognize cooperation to
conserve highly migratory fish stocks as essential, and require those
with direct interests in them -- coastal States with authority to
manage fishing in waters under their jurisdiction and nations whose
vessels fish for these stocks -- to engage in such cooperation through
regional fishery management organizations.
The WCPF Convention balances in an equitable fashion the interests
of coastal States, notably the island States that comprise the Forum
Fisheries Agency (FFA), in protecting important fishery resources off
their shores, and the interests of distant water fishing States,
notably Asian fishing nations and entities (Japan, Republic of Korea,
China, and Taiwan), whose fishing vessels range far from their own
shores.
The United States, which played an instrumental role in achieving
this balance, has direct and important interests in the WCPF Convention
and its early and effective implementation. The United States is both
a major distant water fishing nation (with the fourth-largest catch in
the region) and an important coastal State with significant Exclusive
Economic Zone waters in the region (including the waters around Hawaii,
American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands).
United States fishing concerns, including the U.S. tuna industry,
U.S. conservation organizations, and U.S. consumers, as well as those
residents of Hawaii and the U.S. Flag Pacific island areas of Guam,
American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, all have a crucial
stake in the health of the oceans and their resources as promoted by
the WCPF Convention.
I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration
to the WCPF Convention and give its advice and consent to its
ratification.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
May 16, 2005.
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