The massive destruction of fish stocks during the last 100 years has created an enormous environmental problem with consequences that are poorly understood, both for the fish and for the human populations that depend upon them. Many think of the oceans as the ultimate commons, and believe that fish stocks collapsed because individual fishermen did not restrain their behavior. However, the collapse of world fisheries was not caused by individual fishermen rushing to harvest but was the result of conscious policies adopted by the distant water fishing nations in general, and the U.S., in particular, to promote and expand global fisheries, not only for the fish, but for territorial reasons that were bound with foreign policy concerns during the Cold War. The distant water nations pushed for a policy of taking fish without restrictions, until critical biological points were estimated, then applying measures to slow or restrict the catch. The practical effect of this policy, known as Maximum Sustained Yield (MSY) was that distant water nations fished unhindered until countries began expanding their territorial limits to 200 miles during the 1970s. The policy greatly facilitated the rise of an industrial, global fishing system, creating fishing capacity that far exceeded the ability of stocks to reproduce. MSY was promoted as being grounded in conservation and sound science, but its adoption was greatly influenced by American foreign policy during this period. MSY also focused fisheries science on the narrow objective of determining harvest points, thus allowing the world’s distant water nations, including the U.S., to forestall attempts by smaller and poorer nations to enclose their fishing stocks to protect them from foreign exploitation.

The take-home message from this study, as stated in the final report to California Sea Grant, is that “science has had little direct influence on the development of American fisheries policy.” Furthermore, contrary to common opinion, the United States has played a decisive, if not dominant, role in shaping international fisheries management processes in place today. In particular, at key moments in history, it promoted the principle of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) as the basis for first domestic and then international fisheries management policy to further its foreign policy objectives and Cold War territorial claims, not because the science was there to substantiate it.

The objective of this study has been to document the historical development of U.S. fisheries policy, in the hopes of understanding why fisheries management has, in many cases, failed to protect fish stocks, fishing jobs and fishing communities.