U.S. Protects America’s Arctic from Industrial Fishing - Oceana USA

Victory | February 1, 2009

U.S. Protects America’s Arctic from Industrial Fishing

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) voted to prevent the expansion of industrial fishing into all U.S. waters north of the Bering Strait for the foreseeable future to limit stress on ocean ecosystems in light of the dramatic impacts of global climate change in the Arctic. With no large-scale commercial fishing in the U.S. Arctic at present, this decision establishes one of the largest preventative and precautionary measures in fisheries management history.