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Cannon Law. Behind most of the fish wars is a confusing juridical problem that three international conferences since 1930 have failed to solve. Since 1703, when they based original measurements on 18th century naval cannon ranges, major nations generally have established their territorial limits at three miles offshore. But fishing limits are something else, and more and more nations are pushing their boundaries beyond three miles—Mexico nine miles, Canada to twelve, and such nations as Chile, Peru and Ecuador to an imperious 200 miles offshore. Many nations have settled on a twelve-mile limit, but the U.S. up to now has refused to recognize any jurisdiction beyond the traditional three-mile limit.
International feuding has flared because the oceans, from which primeval life came, have become more and more an important source of food for a world faced with the prospect of overpopulation. Since the beginning of the century, the fishing yield of the world has increased tenfold, from 4,400,000 tons to 45 million tons; by 1970, the catch is expected to equal 61 million tons. More than 200 countries send fishing boats to sea to help feed their populations, and 48 of these countries account for the great bulk of the world's fish catch, amounting to more than $3 billion worth a year. There are 4,967,000 commercial fishermen at work, and in the U.S. alone well over half a million people are employed in fishing and related fields—cleaning, canning, packing, distributing. But fishing ranks far, far down on the list of U.S. industries; in 30 years, meat-eating Americans have kept their consumption of fish unchanged at short of eleven pounds per person.
Just as bread or meat is the staff of life for many nations, for others fish is the very stuff that life is made of. Fishing plays a vital role in the economies of dozens of nations, such as Japan, Ecuador, Peru, Canada and Norway. For many food-short nations, the "panic for protein" to feed their people leads only to the sea, which now contributes a meager 12% of the supply of animal protein consumed by the human race. Throughout the world, the fishing industry not only supports thousands of fishermen—who lead probably the roughest and most ill-paid lives of any workers—but countless satellite industries. From Madagascar to Greenland, the catch of the sea, ranging from the lordly tuna through the pedestrian cod and herring to the rarer but often treasured whale and shark, is industriously smoked, fried, salted, baked, dried, roasted, stewed, pickled, casseroled or even eaten half-rotten (as in Iceland) or quite raw (as in Japan).
Reshuffled Ranks. Despite this, only about 15% of the world's edible fish stock is being fully exploited. The trouble is that the exploitation has taken place in the known and favored areas, mostly within 100 miles of land, where a concentration of effort has often led to a depletion of valuable fish. The Russians off Cape Cod, for example, are out for herring rather than the hake, haddock and cod that most American fishermen are after—but the other species tend to disappear after the herring, their natural food, becomes scarce. Industrial pollution in such nations as Japan and the U.S. has tended to drive the fish farther from shore and to make worse the lot of the smaller inshore fisherman.